Dangerous Waters

Took a little break form studying today to go for a little bike ride and run a couple errands. After I picked up some stuff at the school, I decided to take the scenic route home and bike down the Rideau river because I noticed the water had been higher than usual, even for this time of year.

It was crazy. I have never seen the water so high. I took some pictures and photoshopped them with some pictures from a couple years ago.

The first one is Hog's Back Falls, this is where the Rideau River and Rideau canal split before the head through the Ottawa. This was taken from the top of the control dam. The left is today and the right is a few years ago. The old one was from the fall (Canadian Thanksgiving (thats in October), 2002), but in my five years here, this is the highest I have ever seen, even in the spring.


Hog's Back Falls - (left) April 2005, (right) Oct. 2002

The next couple are looking at my University across the Rideau River. There are always some small rapids here, but if you look at the rocks across the river, you can see that the water goes up 2 or 3 feet higher on the rocks in this years pictures. The right hand pictures are from April 2003.


Carleton University - (left) April 2005, (right) April 2003


Carleton University - (left) April 2005, (right) April 2003

So once I finished taking these pictures and was biking down hill reasonably fast, I all of a sudden hit this:


End of the road

I slammed on the breaks and stopped just short of the water covered path. It looks like it gets atleast 3 feet deep. The water usually comes no where near this part of the path. When I turned around and started biking reluctantly back up the hill, city workers were coming to put up a barricade. Where were they 2 minutes ago?

I enjoyed the ride, until I was about 5 minutes from my house. Some guy almost killed me with his car turneing right out of a parking lot. He looked right at me, turned right and stopped right smack in the middle of the bike lane. i swerved and put out my hand so I didn't crash into his car and it hit the back quater panel of a car. It made a really loud bang, and hopefully dented the shit out it, but i don't think it was very hard. As I biked by I gave him the "what the hell are you thinking" look, with a shrug and he flipped my the bird. What the hell, he almost kills me and gets mad at me. He had the yield sign.

So I shrug it off and keep biking up the hill. He was stopped at the light so I got significantly ahead of him, and as he passes he slows down, opens his window and calls me an asshole. I looked right at him and said, "well yeah, but your a fucking idiot." I don't think he liked that.

At the time I wish I had a nice rock to throw at his car, but thinking back on it I wish I had taken out my camera and taken a picture of him. Then I could post it all over the internet. That would be a good website. www.assholedriversottawa.com. You could post pictures of dumbasses like that, along with the story, and hopefully someone they know sees it.

I think I'm going to keep my camera ready next time I go for a ride.

All-in-all, other than that and almost riding straight into the river, it was a nice relaxing bike ride, and a good break from studying.