Day 10. Ottawa, Ontario

 From Sudbury to the west side of Ottawa, Ontario for a 300 mile day. Good roads, good weather, slightly cool and sunny. We left Sudbury about 10am and arrived in the Ottawa area about 6:30. Not that many stops today until around 4:30 when we stoppped near Pembroke to let rush hour traffic die down in Ottawa. 

You can't be in Canada without seeing hundreds of Tim Hortons. Besides the coffee and donuts they have an assortment of sandwiches. They are clean, have decent food and coffee and are ubiquitous across any part of Canada I've ever been in. They make a perfect stop for us when we need a jolt of caffeine. 

  We've been riding on TransCanada 17 since we entered Canada. There aren't that many highways in Canada compared to the US and 17 is  mostly single lane with passing lanes every now and then.  The forests are becoming more coniferous than our first day in Ontario and there are long spaces between towns or even gas stations compared to the volume of traffic. 

     I don't remember Chastain ever buying cigarettes in my life. He's usually been content to bum one from somebody than to actually buy them.  For some reason he was Jonesing for a cigarette in Canada but they don't sell any American brands. They have very odd brands hidden away in drawers, they are very tiny, with with very different packaging (you can see Dave fumbling with the package) and they have wonderful pictures of kids in oxygen masks or as in this case, a tasty picture of oral cancer, and they cost C$12 per pack.  Any way, Dave, who I will now start calling "Johnny Player" instead of Tequila Dave, is now satisfying his nicotine and mental fix with tiny Canadian cigarettes.  I was just wondering, so they make them so tiny to fit in children's hands better??

 Where am I, Alabama or Ontario. This was across the highway from Dave's cigarette adventure. 

     I met these two hosers in front of the gas station/restaurant that we stopped at before heading into Ottawa. Terry (R) was retired from the Dept. of Justice in Ottawa and his buddy Bob, has a part time welding business. They were funny and full of stories about each other and the motorcycle trips they had gone on in their younger days.  Now they just cruise locally.  Terry's bike on the right was an Ottawa Police bike and he got a screaming deal on it. A really nice chat that went on for 15 minutes before I could get away to the restaurant for a salad and tea. 

  

Ottawa was my first challenge finding a place to sleep for the night, all the hotels I would  e willing to stay at (a pretty low bar) were sold out. I followed Terry's advice from the previous stop and headed down Terry Fox Dr.  Chastain swung into a Fairfield he saw which just had a cancellation for a single twin room (ugh). While he was in there I called this Comfort Inn which was previously sold out but just had a cancelation for a double twin room for C$165, the most I've had to pay so far. On the good side, the Canadian dollar conversion is .75 and neither of us had to sleep on the floor at the Fairfield!

 Speaking of Canadian money, did you know it's plastic??  No wonder it's only worthy 75 American cents!!