We departed the house at 8:00 pm. Yes, that is not a mistake, pm, not am. It took us much longer than anticipated to get the house in order. Once everything was done, we wanted to be on our way. Waiting until the morning to leave would have meant more delays and we were both ready to leave.
We looked up some friends from church who lived in the East end of Ottawa (Orleans) so we could at least get further than Downtown Ottawa. Ron and Wendy happily invited us into their home for the evening. They live right on the Greenbelt near the river, so our first day’s ride was mostly on pathways.
As we prepared to leave out, several of our neighbours came out to see us off. Thanks Darlene, Rachel and Sheri! As we rode up the street, John and Athena honked their goodbyes, as did Eric a bit later. We don’t usually appreciate car horns while riding, but these were different somehow. It was really nice to receive the well wishes of those that live around us.
Most of the route to Orleans is on pathways. We were struck by how nice the east end Ottawa River pathway is. Neither of us ridden on it before. It is too bad that we just discovered it as we were leaving the city.
Two short segments of the route is on roads. In both cases, our new “slow moving vehicle signs” (thanks Mary and Hugh) seem to be quite effective, since vehicles passed us very slowly, leaving lots of room. Quite different from what we normally expect from Ottawa drivers. We were riding at night with our lights, but I’m sure that when the drivers saw the large signs, they slowed down. Either way, we felt completely safe on the short segments of road.
After 38 km, we arrived at 11 pm and promptly jumped into Ron and Wendy’s chilly pool. It felt really good, and revitalized us for a brief chat. By 12:30 we were completely exhausted. The day had started early, and was filled with packing and running around, so it was no surprise that we collapsed into bed.
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