The welcoming arms of Ottawa greeted us as the summer season began in earnest.  We started with  flight of 8 locks to the downtown wall where we stayed for three wonderful days. While we were lifted 72 feet in the locks alone, many boaters joined us on the wall.  The Parliament tour and the National Gallery were highlights.  The city also caters to bikers like no other place we have visited.  We were also happy to be back in Uber range and took a ride out to watch a CanAm baseball game under the lights.

The weather has been mostly 75 day/55 night, low humidity and light on bugs.  So, perfect for continuing on the Rideau canal and spending time in the tiny towns of Merrickville and Westport. Again, the people make the trip as evidenced by having dinner with the Westport mayor at the church fish fry tonight!

From Cosmo to Canals in the last two weeks. Montreal was wet but lovely. Highlights include:
- A visit to the island where Kurt last visited Expo '67 complete with the biosphere and habitat homes.
- Tour of the Notre Dame cathedral where Celine Dion was married
- The Gran Prix festivities
- Lots of beautiful foods and fashions
- Evening conversation with fellow boaters during rainstorms!

We continued the journey on The Rideau Canal through many locks and villages. Highlights include:

- Biking through Lachine and enjoying the historical museum and modern art/sculpture garden
- Dinner at an Italian restaurant on the terrace over the canal
- Many friendly townspeople who directed us to hardware stores, pastry shops and a fantastic IGA for groceries

On to Ottawa!

Oh Canada! We crossed the boder this week with ease... Mostly happy they didn't take our fruit, veggies and wine! We traveled through tiny villages on tiny canals with manually operated locks. All very charming and beautiful.  We have had a wonderful welcome from the French speaking Canadians. Between the two languages we eventually accomplish our goals such as a post card, a glass of water and a mint chip ice cream cone.

The view will become metropolitan next as we arrived in Montreal today. Ever so slowly as we were fighting a 3mph current on the St Lawrence and picked up something on our prop shaft...we limped into port at 1 mph and Kurt got into the 60 degree water. He pulled off a large plastic bag that held wood chips! Whew.

Looking forward to exploring this city in the next few days. Met 2 new loop boats here from Victoria, BC and Florida as well as our friends from Calgary on Chinook.

Keep Vermont Weird! Burlington deserves it's own blog post.  Super hip, lovely town that is home to the University of Vermont, Phish, Ben and Jerry's and countless bikes and Subarus. Red bricks, log cabins and lots of sailboats represent this close to the earth state of just 660,000.