Personal Barriers - Travel Photography - Trans-Canada '25 (VII)

June 19^th, 2025: Day Fifteen

Distance Travelled: 526KM
Days in Hotels VS Campgrounds VS Guest: 5/6/3

Mississauga, Ontario – Ottawa, Ontario

Worst day yet. Easily.

I may keep this briefer than previous entries because I am exhausted. Plus, I have Topper’s Pizza on the way in 26 minutes… 28 minutes sorry.

After saying goodbye to my Aunt and Uncle I grabbed a coffee and headed to see my grandfather’s grave. The first issue of the day is when I couldn’t find it. I thought I had the right location, and I didn’t. I walked back and forth to the area the pin I made in Google dropped me off at and caved and messaged my Uncle. After a little back and forth and gassing up the Forester he dropped a pin and sent a screen cap and there it was. I was a little weirded out seeing my Nanni’s name there too, 1930 to blank.

I spent some quiet time, not thinking about anything in particular and then hit the road.

The trip leading up to Ottawa was uneventful, other than the turtle I almost ran over on the road. I mean, I saw turtle crossing signs since I entered Ontario, but to actually see one….nuts.

I arrived in Ottawa during rush hour (yes, I said I wasn’t going to do that) and I had a hotel picked out. After a long slow drive and nerve-racking drivers blocking the road, speeding past, riding my ass, etc. I got to my destination. There was zero parking in the front and so I headed to the back where there was additional parking. I went the wrong way down a one-way road and when I drove to the parkade it didn’t open. I backed out, parked and picked my second choice for a hotel and headed there. I went straight to the parkade this time, and wham, I was too tall and hit my water jug that’s strapped to the roof on the clearance bar. I backed out, parked somewhere else and set the map for destination number three. The whole time I had to pee, and my Garmin didn’t understand the French addresses, so I had to use android auto.

I got to the third location, and it had great parking. I asked if I could use the washroom and finally relieved myself.

First, I booked the wrong dates.

Then I couldn’t pick the right ones because they were booked for two of the three nights.

Then I picked an overnight and changed my mind.

The reception dude was so calm and nice, a real blessing.

I picked a fourth hotel and drove there, but in addition to it costing around $700 for three nights, parking was $25 a day.

I gave up and hit the road for the first campground outside of the city, but not before accidentally driving into a parkade instead of a road and hitting the clearance bar again. I had to back out onto rush hour traffic, getting honked at and making a mess of things. I had a bad feeling wash over me, that they would be closed.

They were.

After pulling over on a rural road and eating because my blood glucose had dropped, I picked a hotel on the outer rim of the city, booked one night and decided to see how I felt in the morning.

I’ll either book a second day and uber it downtown to explore or fuck all the way off out of town.

Pizza is here in six minutes.

June 20^th, 2025: Day Sixteen

Distance Travelled: 500-600KM
Days in Hotels VS Campgrounds VS Guest: 6/6/3

Ottawa, Ontario –
Camping La Jolie Rochelle, Quebec

When I woke up this morning I made the decision to put in some kilometers.

The night before I told myself I’d sleep on the day’s events. Either stay in Ottawa or hit the road.

I think it’s important to tell myself here that there is no failure on this trip. What I choose to see or skip just speaks to finding myself. Every KM is growth. I packed up (minus half my pizza & bread sticks) and hit the road. But not before finding out they would hold on to my $200 security deposit for three to five business days. What the fuck Best Western, how am I supposed to travel with hundreds in limbo every time I stop in at one of your hotels for the night?!

I grabbed Starbucks after trying the coffee I made in my room, and as I am standing there, waiting for my order, thinking about how frustrated I am, one of my favourite songs plays in the shop: Sugar For The Pill by Slowdive. They aren’t the most well-known band so it’s a shock, but I also see it as a prophesy. A message: To press on.

Press on I did, but I realized early that I would not be able to hit the coast until the next flush of cash comes in. I’m pretty much stuck on camping until then. In fact, if I want any extra cash to roll over to the next month I’ll need to keep it under $100/day.

So, being as I am in a highly populated part of the country, it was traffic all day. Construction. Traffic. Gridlock. Tailgating. Speeding. Cursing. Talking myself down from road rage. Gassing up. Repeat.

I found myself embarrassed that I could not speak the language and as expected, the further in I got, the higher chance they didn’t speak English. My Ray Ban Meta Glasses have been hit or miss with the live translation. Mostly Miss.

By suppertime I found a campground 25km off the Trans-Canada called “Camping La Jolie Rochelle“

I had to convert the car in the rain and in true murphy’s-law-mode it stopped when I was done.

Since then, I have done some reading, re-secured my roof rack and contents including assessing the damage to the water jug, and had a bite while rotting my brain with Instagram Reels. Oh! and I took a photo when the light was beautiful.