Vacation - Day 6

Well, since we are done rowing, we stayed in the sack this morning. I was up early to get some work done, and was thinking about the other rowers when I looked outside and saw the skies had opened up. It poured for a while this morning.

We are using our early exit from rowing to move on down the road. After some discussion last night, we decided to change our itinerary and leave Niagara a day early and spend two days in New York City. So, we checked out of our hotel to move down the road to Ottawa. But, before we left, we had one more thing to do. Yesterday, my oldest son was a little disappointed that we did not get close to the falls, so in the morning, we hopped on the Maid of the Mist (http://www.maidofthemist.com/en/) and took our obligatory trip to the base of the falls. For all of the grief I give Niagara, to be at the base of the falls and see the volume of water coming over is absolutely stunning!

Once done, we took off down the road to Ottawa. Ottawa is reached by taking the QEW to Toronto, then the 401 east from Toronto. According to Google Maps, this was supposed to be a 5 and a half hour drive. But, traffic in Toronto was as bad as I've seen it anywhere. Top it off with pouring rain (the news said a waterspout was photographed over Lake Ontario) and we were in the car for almost 7 hours to drive the 500 kms to Ottawa.

We settled into our hotel (the Westin Ottawa - a very nice hotel by the way) and eventually made it out to look around the town. One thing I enjoy about places where winter is an issue is that they tend to be pretty compact towns - meaning everything is within walking distance. My goal the first night in Ottawa was to find a deli to get a couple of things that are uniquely Canadian - smoked meat and poutine. We walked down through the Byward Market, and not finding anything, continued a few blocks to the east. I was looking for Nate's Deli - highly recommended. When we got to Nate's, we found them closed, so started walking back to the hotel. As we were wandering back ,we stumbled on Dunn's - one of the better known delis in Ottawa. So we were able to get our Montreal smoked meat and poutine.

After dinner, it was off to Parliament Hill for the light show and then to sleep in another wonderful hotel bed!