We know so many people around the world

We always come back to the Ottawa area in September. It's definitely the best time of year here in our opinion. The kids are back in school, the weather is still nice, and the bugs are usually gone.

And sure enough, this year has been perfect in that regard. the kids are definitely back in school, the weather has been great, and we haven't seen a mosquito since we got here!

We've been here for two weeks already!

Well, apparently there's not a lot of interest in gold and silver around here! That's okay though... it proves my thesis that we are only in the third inning and not many people are paying attention yet.

We've just been relaxing here at the house for the most part. Ruth is spending a lot of time sorting through and scanning old slide photographs that were her fathers.

Investing in gold and silver miners

As I mentioned yesterday, we have been invested in gold and silver mining stocks for several years. This has paid off substantially, yet I think the really big gains are yet to come.

Studying past bull and bear market cycles in the precious metals shows that we are maybe in the bottom of the third inning... gold and silver have been rising nicely and now outperforming the stock market, but the general public are only just starting to notice. 

Gold and silver

There's sometimes not much to talk about when we're sitting in Ottawa for six weeks. So don't expect daily updates during this time period. 

Also, I'm sure most of you have noticed that there is some kind of glitch occurring with this blog and you're often getting an error message. 

If it's not fresh, it's free

We did our weekly grocery shopping yesterday. It's a fairly stressful thing for us! Even though we know to expect it, we're still getting sticker shock every time we come back to Canada. 

So on Thursday evenings, the local store flyers are issued. Some are done online, but we can still pick up the paper versions down at the mailbox at the corner. Ruth prefers the old style paper one rather than the online one.

Race Day!

One of the things that we had planned for Cameron was to take him to the big indoor go karting track across the river in Quebec. I've known of this place for several years and have always wanted to go myself.

So, we had an early lunch and then headed off across the border.

Humane society and fishing

Monday morning we went and met for coffee with Mary and Blair, a retired Ottawa couple who are now living in their Airstream trailer, however have booked this winter at an Airbnb in Mexico.

They've been reading this blog for a while now, and wanted to meet up. And we like to meet our readers!

It's a bit frustrating...

When we were in Mexico in April, I tried to buy new shock absorbers for Igor. I'm pretty fussy about what brand of shocks I wanted though. There is a Bilstein model that's specifically made for the Econoline E350 chassis, and that's what I wanted.

But I couldn't seem to find them available in Mexico. I even tried to order them in from Amazon U.S., but there was some kind of shipping problem that wouldn't allow them across the border.

August Expenses - Another expensive month

We spent the first 15 days of the month of August on a cruise ship going from Southampton, England to Greenland with stops in Ireland and Iceland.

While the cruise ship trip was inexpensive by cruise ship standards, it still added quite a lot to the monthly expenses.

We thought they lost Cameron's bag!

Lindsey drove us to Halifax Airport yesterday morning and we got there with lots of time to spare for our 12:35pm flight to Ottawa.

Oh, yesterday I said that it cost $322 CAD ($234 USD) per person for the two hour flight. And while that was true, we didn't pay a dime!

Heading back to Ottawa

Well that went by quickly! Here we are on August 28th already, and we have tickets on Porter Airlines to fly to Ottawa this afternoon.

And we're taking grandson Cameron (14) with us for a week with Grandma and Grandpa.

Splashifax Water Park

We always give experience gifts to the grandkids for their birthdays, and granddaughter Sadie has her 12th birthday coming up this Friday. Unfortunately, we have to fly to Ottawa on Thursday so we took Sadie and her friend Violet to her birthday outing yesterday.

She chose to go to Splashifax Water Park.

We ended up getting a decent rain

Probably not enough to remove the hiking restrictions here in Nova Scotia, but better than nothing. We've only got another two days here, so it really doesn't matter much to us anymore.

Yesterday afternoon, we went to Blue Beach. It's not a swimming beach, it's a beach where they have found a lot of fossils over the years.

Big forest fire

There's a massive forest fire burning about 75 kms (47 miles) west of here. Nova Scotia doesn't normally have a problem with forest fires, but this summer has been particularly dry. They've even had some evacuations called.

Yesterday, there was a big cloud of smoke coming through the Annapolis Valley...

A good day for ice cream!

Saturday was another beautiful day here in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley.

Ruth and I went for an 8 km (5 mile) walk from the house into the nearby town of Wolfville.