The Rideau has been splendid. Such beautiful, clear water, loons singing, islands galore. Yesterday we docked at an island owned by Parks Canada called Colonel By (he was in charge of building this canal) Island. Virtually had it to ourselves so we played pickelball (on a decrepit tennis court), hiked the perimeter, and bathed on the back deck. Unfortunately it was too cold & windy to swim.
On the Rideau River portion so far, it’s a maze of narrow channels where we have to stay between colored buoys.
Stone cliffs dotted with homes & cottages show us this is not the best place to anchor.
In our element – hiking in the woods.
Now we’re in Smiths Falls where we walked to Walmart hoping to fill our prescriptions and found out the inconvenient surprise – by law pharmacies here can’t fill prescriptions written by US doctors. In all my “travel to Canada” research, I never discovered this. Our doctor is closed until Monday. This city doesn’t have any walk-in or outpatient care centers, so we walked to the opposite side of town to the hospital. They wanted to charge us $800 to talk to a doctor! Not sure what we’ll do now. We only have a few week’s supply left…..very inconvenient.
We grocery shopped, visited a railway museum (of course), and ate dinner at a restaurant.
Rich on a Canadian Pacific caboose.
This sucker is built to shovel ,lots of snow!
Inside a box car this chasis shows how they hung Model T cars on an angle inside the boxcar. They hauled cars one direction & grain on the return trip.
ChoicesOnTheLoop 