Ivan the terrible

Well, we're back after a great Ottawa vacation. I got my new passport and visa with minimal problems, so I'm set for another year. My aunt and Jacque's apartment is really well situated in an interesting part of downtown Ottawa, within walking distance of Bytown Market, and we did a lot of sightseeing while we were there. We went into the Gatineaus, one of the area's spectaular parks, a couple of times, and we spent one late afternoon and evening in a small town called Merrickville for dinner and shopping. We took a trip to Upper Canada Village, which recreates an early settlers' farm and town with recovered and restored buildings, reinactors, and working shops and mills. Michael and I bought a handmade broom in the shop there to use in our ceremony next summer. We also spent an afternoon sunning on the beach at Meech Lake, and took a day trip to Montreal to tour the harbor and the historic area of Old Montreal. Our last day was devoted to walking around the market, taking a tour of the Parliament buildings, having lunch at Darcy McGee's (of course!), and some shopping. Michael found a book about Ottawa from Michael Horn's, a great local bookstore, and he saw a wedding band he really liked at Birks Jewelers.

Now we are back in Florida, only to find that although we missed Frances, we are right on time for Ivan, whose path gets closer and closer to Broward County with every renewed forecast. Someone must have decided that Florida was getting too complacent/forgetful of Hurricane Andrew, I guess--but three direct hits in a month seems a little much! County government was closed a few days last week because of Frances; looks like they may shut things down for a few days again until Ivan blows over. Guess I'd better get in line at the grocery store for nonperishable food and more gallons of drinking water and be prepared to hole up in my apartment for a few days with possible loss of power and phone. If not worse! One of the big worries is that there is still so much detrius on the ground from the last storm--tree branches etc.--that more high winds could lift it up again and do major damage. And of course the ground is so saturated right now that flooding is bound to be bad. Cross your fingers and hope that we survive this one relatively intact....