Ottawa T minus 11 hours

Much like two weeks ago, it's past midnight, and I'm putting the last of my stuff into a suitcase so I can get up in a few hours. This time, it's a little later in the day, on a train and to Ottawa, a city I used to live outside of and have been back to many, many times throughout my life. I'm not sure I could live there again, despite the jobs that keep coming up there, but spending a few days there every now and again is always nice, no matter what time of year it is.

From the back of the parliament buildings looking out towards the Museum of Civilization in Hull.

I'm looking forward to going to the National Gallery for an exhibition they've got going on right now where I can fully dork out on Canadian photographic history. Early Exploration Photographs in Canada has been in partnership with Library and Archives Canada and focuses on 19th century exploration photographs taken by four individual photographers and one group of explorers.One of said photographers, a man working for William Notman named Benjamin Baltzley has just had a book written about him by a fellow Photo Historical Society executive.

I also just love train travel. Via rail tempts me with sales fairly regularly and I am slowly racking up points for free travel. Some day I'll head out the other way to complete the cross country train ride and head to Halifax.

Washington DC in T minus 8 hours....

It's just about midnight and I'll be getting up in about 5 hours to get on a plane to go to Washington DC  for a few days. My buddy is asleep on my couch so we can catch a taxi into the airport together and save some money. I love my city, but it's nice to leave it every now and again.

I probably won't get to much on this list, since we're aiming for galleries and museums almost exclusively, but Apartment Therapy has a Design Lovers guide to the city that makes for good reading.

Apropos of nothing, I found an interesting article about smoked salmon in Alaska on Apartment Therapy recently.

Catch you soon for some possible regular programming.