Good morning from Arnprior, Ontario!

Weather: not currently raining, some scattered strato-cirrus clouds, sun, full red, orange, yellow leaf color, 13 degrees Celsius (53 F).
Location: dw at table, DA reading in bed - both of us enjoying the morning coffee courtesy of the Twin Maple Motel although I'm not seeing any maple trees at this motel in Arnprior, Ont. (try saying that three times).  The community is 7000 people and located on the Ottawa River which at this point is still pretty wide and big - especially after the recent rains.  Cutesy lively downtown when we arrived last night - always nice to see an active community rather than a dying one, which many are these days. 
When; Friday 0810
What's new?  We're heading back to Portland in our leisurely wandering way.  Heading west-ish anyway.  The highlight of my day yesterday was the Canadian House of Commons at the Parliament Building in downtown Ottawa (Canada's capital) and home to Big Buildings.  All very impressive.  I have not experienced government-in-action so my impressions are those of a first timer.  Security was impressive of course.  Two security checks to get into the galleries.  I was wanded at the second one and had everything out of my pockets when I still beeped.  He ferreted out my money belt worn under my clothes.  It didn't even have coins in it, just papers!  Amazing.  I told him he was exposing all my secrets!  Made me remove it anyway.  On to the observers gallery where we were informed we would get one warning about making a sound or gesture and if we did it again, out we would go (not fair as the legislators did plenty of both!).  Single file we walked in and crawled up into gallery seats - talk about nosebleed section- then struggled with the hand held wand for language translations and volume.  All those legislators you see listening on devices are probably just needing more volume as it was noisier than I expected.  They got approximately 60 seconds to make their prepared statements and it moved along pretty quickly.
     My favorite - Saskatchewan guy proclaiming the value of setting up Billy Bob's Golf Emporium or some such thing as a vehicle for promoting the economy.  Quebec guy accusing the Nunavut woman of saying nasty things on Facebook.  Then the room filled up with more legislators and a couple of press persons sat in their designated gallery seats for the slander accusations - graft and malfeasance (don't you love that word?), etc.  Whew, back and forth so fast I couldn't keep up with the argument but I did recognize the failure to answer a direct question and the rhetoric.  I thought, wow, this is why nothing gets done by the government - any government , I started to gesture OOOPS  - no gesturing!  No one saw, I guess as I didn't get booted out.
     Justin Trudeau (yes, Pierre's son and a hunk if I do say so myself) spoke and was widely applauded.  A security guard mentioned he was being groomed for being Premier in about ten years.  I believe it.  The entire experience was a hoot.
     Time to head out.  Any suggestions for sights to see in the northern U.S. email us at: djalexa@spiritone.com .  We already know about Salem Sue World's Largest Holstein Cow in Salem, ND and it's a must-see.  Later, dw