It is a beautiful morning for a drive to Pembroke. The first thing we notice, hills. Definitely getting hillier.

YAY, we’re here. The campsite is great. Roomy with lots of tall trees. Across a small road the park owns the beach property. We go over to check it out. They have kayaks and canoes we can use. This is going to be fun. Doogie goes out for a test swim.

Up and out the door we go into town to get familiar with it. Looking for the Chamber of Commerce. Walking in an official looking building I asked these two ladies if this was the building. They smiled and said “Oh no, we are the tax office.” Told them we were looking for maps, preferably cycling maps. They sprung into action. Asking where we were from,Lynn, the blond said she had a daughter that lives in Plano Texas and she has been there several times. As we talked we asked about the huge murals painted on the sides of buildings. They gave us a map that follows them. Lynn and Kim said we should see theirs.

Their murals are down in the basement. There they were in the basement with everything they store there. In case you need help figuring who is who. Lynn is they lady in yellow in the first painting. Kim is the one in blue in the second. The guy in the middle is the one who painted the mural.

Cindy led us down to the basement. These panels are some of the others around the basement. Pretty amazing! Back upstairs we found out Lynn’s daughter actually lives in Richardson! Also that Lynn and her husband do not own cell phones. WOW!

The pins Lynn and Kim gave us.

Some of the murals we found around the city.

This is one follows the whole length of the building. The detail of faces are really detailed. We got close,  we thought they were cutouts stuck on the brick. Nope, truly painted on the wall.

This mural was beside a skate park.

The water tower we searched for was beside Tucson’s Tap and Grill. Lunch was really tasty. Back at the “house” we head out to kayak around a little bit. Diggity thought it was better if he just stretched out for another nap and Doogie was game for water sports. Unfortunately no photos. We had fun and Doogie did a whole lot of involuntary swimming as he kept sliding off the front of the kayak. We were all tired puppies by the end of the day.

Diggity wakes up about 5:45 in the morning. Out for our morning walk. It’s nice and cool, however this part of Canada is experiencing a heat wave. Suppose to be a high of 30C or 86F.

Today we head out on the bike. What a surprise the left turn on to Radke Road went up to a 9.5%. Haven’t climbed that in a while. We found a road that took us to Petawawa Point along the Petawawa River. I was surprised to find lily pads growing this far north. Guess I don’t know much about lily pads.

There is a series of trails that connect here. They call it the Emerald Necklace. We happened up on the Millineum Trail in Petawawa. There are Rapids all along this river.

I took this photo not knowing why these women’s names were on this boulder. We Thought they were women who were lost in a terrible bridge wash out. When we got home that evening I looked it up. It was more sad than I would have imagined. These were women from the area who lost their lives because of violence and abuse. A group of volunteers of Renfro county dedicated this memorial December 2012.

Getting back to trailer we made lunch and relaxed a bit. I took Doogie for a swim while Diggity stretched out in the sun. Jim and I took the kayaks out again, sans Doogie.  We paddled for about an hour and a half. It has been so hot here. Our air conditioner is having a fit keeping up with the heat. It was 98 degrees or if your in Canada little over  37 Celsius. It’s been a good day. Time to say “Good Night Mr. Jimmy

Up early with the dogs for a walk, we noticed this funny little dog with big fuzzy feet and a big thick tail. I got the dogs back to the trailer then went in search of the little dog. OMG, it was a porcupine! This was cool. Thinking back the only porcupines I have ever seen were in a zoo, stuffed or dead on the side of the road.

Riding into Pembroke we found a history museum of this area. This museum was very well done. At different places they had recordings where the voices were in character. This is the Astrolabe that Samuel De Lawrence lost on his journey up the Ottowa River in 1613. Well they know he lost it from accounts in his journal. Farmer, Edward George Lee found it while plowing in 1867.

What is a museum without an old bicycle. I think this was one of the first point of sale computer.

A 36 foot canoe and it’s little baby canoe. Made of Birch and sealed with pitch.

After visiting the museum Elizabelle walked us through the church that is still used for services, a school house that was used up until 1956 and a frontier home.

Elizabelle took this photo for us. The machine at the bottom was called a hit and miss. It controlled another machine, if it ran too fast it would cut it’s ignition and then allow it to hit again if it ran too slowly.

Headed back to the trailer we rode pass this food truck.  Boy did it smell good. It was lunchtime too! Can’t get much better than that. Brandon on the left and Terry on the right. When Brandon found out we were from Texas he said, “You should have brought me some BBQ recipes.” I told him he should go down and do a tour of Texas BBQ. By the way on the menu “poutine” is listed.French fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy? It originated in Quebec. We haven’t tried it.

We had a game plan for Doogie on the kayak. We put a towel on the front and it made a big difference. This time he was able to stay on. We had a great paddle time.  What a fun day.

Back at camp there were some cyclist that came in. Two were riding and one was driving. We met Timo, he was riding in 2014 and crashed, he was unable to finish his trip. This year he started where his ride ended and is finishing the route now. He noticed the Purple Heart plates on Jim’s truck. He brought over a book of his father’s memoirs. His father was Finnish and fought against the Russians back during World War II. This war was called the Winter War.The army unit he was in traveled by bike. He read to us his fathers accounts. Whew, his Dad’s story kept us on edge waiting to hear the next episode. I had to find out why Russia invaded Finland. Seems they wanted to get more space between Leningrad and Germany. Finland was able to defend itself and Russia gave up. There is a lot more to this story. Too long for this blog.

An RV going down Radike Road hill.

Goodness it was a rainy day today. We have been gone this time since May 9th, it has rained all day. We finally ventured out to go to a resturant. The road is Radke Road with the 9% hill. The motor coach headed toward us looks like it it stuck on a wall. Dining at Kelsy’s, Sam was our happy waitress.

This morning the rain gauge was up to 2 inches or 5.2 cm. It will be interesting to see what it is by the end of the day. The forcast is for 100% all day today.

Today the rain was going to continue and with that said we decided to drive into Ottawa to check out our next campsite. we were able to get with Ron and Michelle who we will see again and hopefully will ride with. When we got back to the trailer the rain gauge had gone up to 3 1/4 inches. A beautiful evening ended the day. This was taken out our back window.

That darn Radike hill. It is much more fun to go down. John who works a the camp drew us a map for a great ride. Where we are riding now if you took a pine or cedar incense and smelled it you would be able to relate to the smell of the trees along this road. After all the rain it smelled so fresh.

Great barn with a matching house.

This ride took us to the Algonquin National Park. At either end of the road there is an outfitter shop. When we stopped most of the people there were either canoeing or kayaking opinion the river. The shops were real busy.The one had this worm refrigerator.

Getting a ride in before the rains get there. Nice and chilly and with the map in hand that John made us, plans to go out and ride the era of the route we didn’t cover the day before. Slowly rolling up the road finally close enough to get a shot of this Red Fox.

Following the map closely and still managed a wrong turn. The cool thing about riding a bike, might be lost however you encounter beautiful people and animals along the way.

These roads were awesome! The temperature was getting cooler. By the time Petawawa Road came up it was time to get straight back to the camp. Little sprinkles were dancing on my Garmen screen. Should be a clear day tomorrow. Hopefully we can ride one more time.

2 1/5 inches of rain! This is the map John made for us. You can tell it was folded and unfolded a bunch of times.

On to Ottaw.