For U.S. Ambassador Bruce Heyman and his wife, Vicki, their annual Fourth of July bash on Monday was all about road−tripping.
The vast manicured lawn of their official residence, Lornado, in Ottawa’s tony Rockcliffe Park will be an outdoor showroom of sorts, with vintage cars and motorcycles, dotted amongst several white food and drink tents, all of it in keeping with this year’s "Road Trip USA" theme.
But like many of their Independence Day guests, the Heymans are still riding the high of last week’s visit to Ottawa by President Barack Obama, which lends an air of extra celebration to Monday’s festivities, one of the most sought−after tickets on political Ottawa’s social calendar.
Prior to Monday’s party — it was the Heymans’ third, and final, and largest with a record 4,000 guests expected — the effusive envoy told his own road−trip story.
It happened five days earlier and while it lasted 20 minutes, it was memorable. The car was a big, black and heavy limousine — one of a rare vintage.
Obama asked the Heymans to ride with him in "The Beast" as the souped−up, armoured Cadillac lumbered down Ottawa streets and along the Rideau Canal bound for Air Force One and the president’s return trip to Washington.
Obama and the Heymans know each other well; the couple headed the committee that helped raise money for his 2012 re−election and had been big supporters before his inaugural run for the presidency in 2008.
Obama asked them how it was going, and the ambassador spouted back how strong relations between the two countries currently were.
"He said, ’that’s good; I know all that: how are the kids and what’s going on with the family?’" Heyman recalled. So the ambassador told the president about the pending wedding of his daughter.
"He said, 'way to bury the headline here? Oh my gosh, your daughter’s getting married. That’s fantastic'."
The Heymans have been hyping the road trip theme of this year’s party through a series of online videos, but for thousands of the Heymans’ party guests, their journey will begin with an actual road trip: they are being bussed in from Ottawa’s baseball stadium, Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park.
Tables of Americana cuisine will await them: there were Maryland crab cakes, fried green tomatoes, Chinook salmon, corned beef sandwiches, California summer rolls, bison burger, herb−buttered corn, Dairy Queen ice cream, Vermont Cabot cheeses, and Chicago’s own Eli’s cheesecakes.
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