We can afford to buy one, but we can't afford to keep it.

We were on grandparent duty yesterday, and it started off with a drizzly morning. So rather than hang around Lindsey's house, Ruth called her Dad and we decided to pack the kids into Lindsey's car and drive on up there for the day. We haven't seen Ruth's dad since this time last year.

It's only about 80 kms (50 miles) depending on what route you take. So we arrived there about 11:00am.

September Expenses

We were so busy driving the last couple of weeks that we never published our September expense report.

Overall, it was a pretty good month. We spent a total of $995 CAD ($755 USD) for the month. The following figures are all in Canadian dollars. For USD equivalent, you can subtract about 25%.

Stocked up on wine!

Gorgeous sunny day yesterday...possibly the last really nice day of 2016 as the temperature here in Ottawa soared to 25C (77F) with sunshine. Normal highs are around 15C (60F).

So, we tried to spend as much time as possible outside. But, we did have to go out for a drive to the nearby village of Manotick, which is now actually a suburb of Ottawa.

Feels like coming home

We got up and drove right away after a great sleep. We put in a solid two hour drive before stopping for a break. By 10:00am we had put in a normal day's drive for us!

But, we were on a bit of a mission yesterday, and still had to make it to our old hometown of Ottawa.

Ahead of schedule, and another fantastic overnight spot

We didn't leave Matheson, Ontario until about 10:00am yesterday morning, and we were planning on making it to the small city of Val d'Or, Quebec...about  250 kms (155 miles) away.

But as the day went on, we just kept driving. And, we had a message from our daughter not to forget that we had an appointment to pick up our batch of wine on Friday at noon...we had thought it was Saturday at noon!

Happy that Sherman is back to his old self!

Yesterday morning, I was going to change Sherman's spark plugs before leaving, and while the engine was still cool. I was all set to do the job, and I went to grab my spark plug socket...and it had vanished. It wasn't in it's normal spot with the other sockets. It was just gone.

No idea where. I think the last time I used it was changing the spark plugs in the little blue car in Mexico in 2013!

Canada wasn't always the "nice" country it is today!

Woke up to a foggy misty morning. Not raining really, but the kind of day where you have to turn on your windshield wipers every few minutes to get the mist off the glass.

Again, we got on the road right away and drove for an hour and a half before stopping for breakfast near the town of Hearst, Ontario.

Now *this* was a perfect boondocking spot!

First thing I did yesterday morning was to change Sherman's distributor cap and rotor. Should have been a simple half hour job from start to finish, but it didn't go that smoothly. The distributor cap is held on with two long skinny screws, about 3/4" long. One of them snapped in two taking the old cap off. That's not supposed to happen!

After pondering my choices (one of which was to wait until the world's smallest Canadian Tire opened it's doors at noon) I tried putting the new cap on with just the one screw. There's a guide on both sides of it, and it seemed to hold just fine with only the one screw. So rather than sitting and waiting for three  hours, we got on the road. I'll fix it properly in Ottawa.

Northern Ontario scenery

Slept fine at the Ignace airport, and got on the road right away. Put a few miles on early, and stopped at the village of Upsala for breakfast. Funny place names up here, huh?

Never any problem getting on the internet, despite feeling like we're in the middle of nowhere up here. Always either a cell signal or an unsecured wifi signal coming from somewhere nearby.

Sherman has been acting up

We left the Vermilion Bay airport yesterday morning first thing and headed for the big city of Dryden, Ontario (pop 7,800).

Sherman has been acting up. A little bit of hesitation when accelerating at highway speeds, and misfiring a little bit. I had a good idea what the problem was. When I had fixed the exhaust leak last month, I had the four spark plug wires off that side, and one of them didn't feel quite solid when I put it back on. I thought about changing them then, but, things seemed to run fine at the time so I didn't.