A small town girl in a big city world

Though I've come to love Ottawa in my first two months of living here, there is one thing that I don't love: Being lost. There's nothing like a day of driving in circles to make me wish I was back on simple PEI.

I have been lost at least five times since I got here, Being the stubborn person that I am, I think that studying a map before I leave is enough to get me safely to my destination. WRONG! There are so many damn trees in Ottawa and surrounding areas that every street seems to look very much alike.

My patience was tested recently on a trip to Gatineau park with some friends. For days we planned a fun outing to a lake in Gatineau, and I waited all week in anticipation for my first swim in a lake. I have only swam in the ocean, and was curious to dive into a fish filled lake.

After preparing a lunch and packing into the car, we set off with our "trusty" map to find Lac de la Peche. About 45 minutes into the trip, we realized that there was a shortage of road signs to tell us where we were. We arrived upon a large shimmering lake, and much to our dismay realized that we had travelled too far north and were at Lake de Loup, not our Lac de Peche. I was a little annoyed at this point, but turned around and took a road that seemed to lead us in the right direction.

We then happened upon a long dirt road, much to our excitement ( the planner of our trip informed us that we would have to travel down a dirt road to reach our destination). To make a long story short, this one lane dirt road lasted for 45 minutes and took us back to where we started. We stopped for directions and realized that we missed the turn 30 minutes before arriving at Lac de Loup (which we had done a complete circle of) . At this point I was more than a little peturbed. We eventually took a right turn, but travelled to far down another dirt road and had to once again ask for directions.

Just when we were ready to give up and go to back gigglydragon's house, we found the proper dirt road ( which had a different name on our map) and arrived at our destination 2 hours late and full of dirt. Needless to say, we were all quite annoyed by that time, and our friends had almost given up on us.

So, after 1.5 hours of dirt road, 1/2 hour of paved road (2 hours of lostness) we ate our lunch , swam for ten minutes and travelled the hour back home.

The highlight of the day: we stopped at a great icecream place on our way home.
The icing on the cake: my icecream (softserve) fell off of my cone, slid down my boob into my outstretched hand. At that point I realized that all there was to do was laugh and hope to God I never had to go to Gatineau park again!!!