Trip to Ottawa to Skate on the Rideau Canal - Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011

I went to Ottawa last fall on business, and decided, after a walk-through the Parliment Hill and Rideau Canal area that we absolutely had to make it back in the winter time to skate on the Rideau. So this Sunday, January 30, I decided we would pack-up and head to our Nation's Capital.

It took about 5 hours, with a meal stop to get there. Jasmine, my niece joined Layla, Sophia and me on our journey. DJ Jazzy H provided the tunes and even took requests from our back seat passengers. So the drive was definately part of the fun. It is easy to get to Ottawa from Toronto, just go East on the 401 and North on the 416, and basically you are there.

We stayed at the Chateau Laurier, which was an absolutely fabulous choice for skating on the Rideau. We self-parked around back and did not use the car until we were on our way out of Ottawa.

When we arrived we brought all our stuff in and checked into the Hotel. We then went up stairs and prepared ourselves for our skating adventure. It is colder in Ottawa than it is in Toronto so make sure you dress warm. Warm mittens, a hat and something to cover your face are a MUST!

We put our snowpants and outwear on, and wore our shoes (which was better than trying to put our boots into a back pack). They have an indoor Chalet to change into your skates and they have lockers also. The Canal was right below the Hotel, so we just had to walk down some stairs and we were there. We got changed and were ready to go.

We took our picture by the 0.0 KM marker and began our skate. It was Sunday afternoon, so a lot of people had skated and were skating on the ice. It was bumpy, and the girls fell a lot because of the uneven surface. But we keep skating, all the way to the 2.0 KM marker. We had some hot chocolate that was on sale to raise money for some charity, then skated back. We were cold, and Sophia was tired, but we did it!

More to come in my next post...