Ottawa October 2016: Logs, Lumberjacks, Lumbersexual, Lunch and Dinner

You may all think us a little crazy leaving town while the little crooked house is being renovated, but we had this trip planned for months before we bought the little crooked house. Chris has never seen the fall colours and I had a business meeting and thought the two might mesh nicely. We walked from our little basement apartment to the Bytown museum, which is in the shadow of Parliament and the Fairmont, right up against the Rideau Canal. There we found a lovely sugar maple in full fall flush.

 The Bytown museum was originally a Commissary for the military in the Bytown (now Ottawa) area.

 I'm always in favour of supporting museums, so we paid our admission and made a quick round of the Bytown museum. Did you know that malaria was endemic to this part of Ontario back in the day? Me neither. It was a big killer of workers on the canal. The fine folks of Bytown were loggers and lumberjacks back in that same day. Check out the boots in the far right corner of the display case... they'd still be the same today.

 The axe is a hefty one, reminds me of the one wielded by Beorn in the Hobbit movie, played by that Swedish actor... who apparently hacks his own firewood in real life - check out the extra features for a fearsome demo of the specially smithed axe.

 We got bikes for the week for $90 each - a great deal for bike friendly Ottawa. Then we went for lunch in the Byward market at an East Indian place...

 Then we were off again, across the Laurier Bridge, then back around under to meet up with the Rideau Canal trail with our bike bags filled with fixings for dinner.

Bags filled with groceries, we pedaled home. Here's a glamour shot of dinner. I made Sicilian style mussels and clams with eggplant parm. Oh, and we had fresh oysters to start. I do love seafood. 

Caught in mid finger lick!