A tough decision to make...

This was our fourth summer in a row managing the park. And we spent the summer of 2013 managing Sturgeon Lake Regional Park in northern Saskatchewan. So we haven't had a summer off since 2012.

We've decided we need a summer off, so we're taking a break.

It only lasted two weeks...

When our friend Doug was here earlier this month, he helped me install the new water pump assembly after the motor burned out in the other one. This is the second time this summer that a motor has burned out, and it's never happened before in the four years we've been here. Strange.

The pump itself breaks down regularly, but never as often as it has this year. Yesterday, it broke down again!

Activity at the park, and a special birthday!

Do you remember last year when one of our young great horned owls was electrocuted? You can read about it here. At the time, we had contacted the power company to see if they could put some kind of shield on the wiring to prevent it from happening again. They said that they would put it on their "to do" list, but I guess it wasn't a priority and it never got done.

But I kept on asking, and when one of their reps was out here on another matter two months ago, I brought it up with them again.

This time we got some action, and they went over and above what we expected!

Bugs!

We've been really lucky this summer with regards to mosquitoes. Especially compared to last summer when we were swarmed by the little buggers every time we stepped out the door. It was so bad last year that you almost couldn't go outside without having bug spray on.

It must be related to how much rain we get. Last year, it rained almost every second day. This year, we've hardly had any rain at all. In fact, we bought a new rain gauge for the park over two weeks ago and haven't had a chance to use it yet!

Movie tracking apps

We don't watch television, but we do watch movies. So when we're traveling both by air and in the motorhome, we always have a selection of movies on the laptop. But sometimes when I'm looking for movies to watch I can't remember if we've seen it or not!

I finally downloaded a movie watching app onto the smartphone. Not to watch movies with... but to keep track of the movies we've watched.

Another mouse problem!

Ruth had gone to Swift Current with the little blue car to do groceries on Wednesday and when she came back she said that she thought she might have hit a bird and asked if I could have a look under the front end. Well, I did not see any evidence of a bird strike.

However, I did notice something that didn't look quite right!

More blog reading visitors

We don't have many reservations at this time of year. In fact, I checked back in the blog to see what I was saying at this time last year and the year before... and it's the same thing. Still, we have a few campers who are enjoying the park when it is quiet. And although we don't have many reservations, we do get a few campers who show up unannounced.

Like Jim and Judy from British Columbia.

Retracing our route in Spain

I've been wanting to do this post for a while, so I finally sat down and did some mapping. More for our own records than anything else, but perhaps somebody thinking about RV'ing in southern Spain will also get some benefit from it.

And now that things are starting to slow down at the park, we're going to try to get back into our regular daily postings even though we still won't be actually traveling for another month or so.

Things are winding down...

There is still just over a month (actually 34 days, but who's counting!) to go for us here at the park this year, but things do seem to be winding down. The park is pretty empty this week, despite the nice weather.

That's typical for this time of year though. When harvest begins, most of the local clientele are back at work. And the Labor Day long weekend coming up is the last hurrah for the summer season but it will depend on the weather.

The day we met Sherman

I almost forgot! It was ten years ago today that we met Sherman.

On Sunday, August 19, 2007 we drove from Ottawa and crossed the United States border down to a little town near Albany, New York. About a five hour drive each way.

About two and a half weeks prior to that, we had made the rash decision to sell our house, quit our jobs, and buy a motorhome to travel North America for a couple of years!