Bike-O-Geography I: Tulip Fest Edition

This should actually be Part II of what I am calling "Bike-O-Geography" - BOG, hereafter to save time and space - (a play on the infinitely more comprehensible and recognizable Psychogeography), since I actually went on my first BOG last night. 

Last night I set out at 6:25 and ended up back home at 8:10 after having ridden from my place north along the Canal to Rideau Hall before turning around. Along the way I saw the PM's Motorcade going into 24 Sussex Drive, a flock of Red-Wing Blackbirds fight off a crow coming close to one of their nests, two Canada Geese couples with nine gooslings among them feeding, a really nice stranger with a four month old Golden Retriever puppy named Tammy, some decommissioned WWII-era 25 lb. artillery pieces, old people on boats along the canal, lovers lying on the grass, waterfalls from the Rideau River into the Ottawa, to name a few things along the way. But without an iPhone, Blackberry, or camera at the ready, this is all I can report.

Today, however, I had a camera handy, which is why this is BOG Pt. 1. So while I have set up a flickr account to store most of them, there are a couple handy to give you the idea. I ended up at the International Pavillion of Tulip Fest 2009 on my way home by accident, and wandered around different countries hocking their cultural wares and food stuffs. A volunteer gave me directions to the actual flowers, which are only a few minutes from my house.

Along Queen Elizabeth Drive which winds around Dow's Lake there are over 350,000 tulips from Holland which bloom every year in just about every colour imaginable. Even though its getting late in the season for tulips, most of them are still out and going strong, though with an expected heat wave this weekend, their days might be numbered (sorry Court!) It was as neat wandering among the people looking at the flowers as it was seeing the tulips themselves: young an old, 

families with newborns and strollers, cyclists (like me), immigrant families, tourists (also like me), all jostling to get the best picture, and all lining up for $4 Beaver Tails. (I resisted, but I might go back this weekend for one.) I rode back along the Dow's Lake/Canal trail, and headed home.

And dinner wasn't so disappointing tonight either, so I got that going for me, right?