John & Allison's Adventures Down South: Arriving in Hudson and mostly Ottawa

July 15, warm and sunny

We arrived at our campsite, Camping D'Aoust, near Hudson, QC early afternoon as the drive from Golden Lake, ON was not too far. Our GPS guided us excellently... I mention this as a couple of times addresses we had, we were unable to enter into it. I could, however, find them on the Google maps on my phone.🤔
The campsite was in a lovely forest and the area for non-seasonal campers wasn't full at all. This campsite turned out to be in a very convenient location for us. Minutes to Hudson, a short walk to the golf course and easy access to Montreal.
Hudson is where John's cousin Monique lives and where the get together with some other cousins would take place on the weekend.
Meanwhile we needed to replenish our groceries and get the lay of the land. Hudson is the most lovely little town you can imagine. The houses and yards are all so beautiful! It sits along the banks of the Ottawa River where the Hudson Yacht Club is located. This is where the reunion was held.
There are quite a few small towns in this vicinity and also larger suburbs of Montreal.

July 17, 18 warm and mostly sunny

Heading off to visit Ottawa for 2 nights. We booked a hotel through Hotwire.com, on the recommendation of our sister in law, Denise, and it worked out just great. We left the campsite early and drove the 1.5 hours back to Ottawa. The navigation system in our truck unfortunately doesn't know about construction, it seems, and Elgin, a main street in Ottawa was nearly all dug up. We finally did enough sidetracking until we found our hotel. I popped in to the hotel to see if we could park the truck in their parking lot even though check in wasn't until after 3pm. It was 9:30am...
The fellow at the front desk said "no problem and since breakfast is still on, why don't you go and get a coffee and a bite to eat". Mighty nice after our somewhat zigzag approach to the hotel.
After breakfast we headed by foot toward the Parliament buildings and sights to see in Ottawa. We decided since we were just going to be two days in the Capital we would take the Hop on, Hop off bus and a river cruise to see the sights. We really enjoyed both tours and the fact that Ottawa is an extremely walkable city.
We returned to our hotel around 5pm and checked in. We got to our room, which was described on the website as: room with queen bed, only to find that the fellow at the front desk in the morning had upgraded us to a 2 bedroom suite! It had a full kitchen, living room with a dining table and an extremely large tv. One bedroom had a lovely king bed with a walk-in closet. It was more like an apartment than a hotel room. Very comfortable.
That evening we had dinner at a little pub across the street.
There were so many choices for dining in the area and really any amenities you may need.
The next day we had plans to have dinner at my younger brother Chris'. He lives in Kanata which is just west of Ottawa. In the morning we walked to the ByWard Market to see what it was all about. The produce was fabulous, picked up some fresh strawberries for dessert, and there were lots of touristy shops as well. There were also many eateries of all sorts.
We had some noodle bowls at a Taiwanese restaurant for lunch and headed back to the hotel for a rest before heading to Chris' for supper.
We left at around 3:30pm and unfortunately encountered Ottawa rush hour traffic. An approximately 35 minute drive turned into an hour, but we arrived safely.
It was a very nice visit with Chris and we met his youngest, Eric, who is now 14. Chris made us an excellent supper and we visited until dark. Back to Ottawa on the, now, not so busy highway and to our sweet suite.
The hotel, The Business Inn, included complimentary breakfast, laundry, gym and at the breakfast room you could help yourself to a bag with a bottle of water, a package of cookies and a granola bar to take with you. How thoughtful.
We decided that Ottawa needs another visit so we can go to the museums and galleries that we would like to see. It really is a great city to visit.