Getting settled in

We've got a small bachelor apartment sized Airbnb for a month here in Ottawa. It's actually set up really nicely, but it's still pricey for what you get. Welcome to Canada, I suppose.

We're paying $1,850 CAD ($1,340 USD) for the month.

It was all about the horses...

This is one of the rare posts from me, Ruth! While Kevin was having a fun time with his friends in Newfoundland, I made my way from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Hamilton, Ontario to visit with my younger sister, Lesley.

We're back!

I think that's the longest blog break in many, many years!

I went to Newfoundland with my buddies for four nights, and Ruth has been with her sister in Hamilton, Ontario. Neither one of us felt the desire to write a blog post... so we didn't!

August Expenses... no real surprises

We had a budget of $3,300 CAD ($2,380 USD) for the month of August, and the total came in at $3,375 CAD ($2,430 USD).

So that's not bad. I always make the budget pretty conservative to give us something to strive towards, so we're almost always over by varying amounts, but this one was particularly close.

The birthday weekend is over

Only one more sleep and I'm off to Newfoundland with my friends and Ruth is off to Hamilton to visit her sister. 

We've been really lucky with the weather here near Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Highs of around 23C (72F) and very pleasant.

Speaking of snakes...

Just an update of our activities the last two days.

On Thursday we drove a half hour or so over to the town of Windsor to meet friends Aron and Owenita. This is one of the couples that was on our last RV caravan to Mexico in the winter of 2019-2020.

The swimming hole

Growing up where I did in Ottawa, there was no nearby popular outdoor swimming area. We didn't have one where we brought up our kids either. Ruth was lucky in that regard, with a swimming hole in the river that was walking distance from her house. 

She says she remembers many great summers spending time at the swimming hole.

Finally bought a VPN

We're not really planning on doing very much while we're here. Just kind of helping out around the house when we can, and driving the kids to various places.

On Monday, I drove granddaughter Sadie (will be 13 on Saturday) to a friends cottage. She'll be up there for two days and should return this afternoon. 

Well that was a long 21 hours!

We just drove from Gravenhurst, Ontario to Wolfville, Nova Scotia in one shot! A distance of 1,928 kms (1,200 miles)!

It took us 21 hours start to finish. We left at 1:00am Sunday morning and arrived at 11:00pm Sunday night. With a one hour time zone change.

The gang's all here!

It was a gorgeous day yesterday here in the Muskoka region of Ontario.

This area, about two hours north of Toronto is known as "cottage country" because of its roughly 1,600 lakes, rocky granite shields, and thick pine forests.

That was a long 20 hours...

A couple of weeks ago on our daily walk, we were passing a guy out washing his truck, and we said good morning. He stopped us, and said in English "where are you guys from?". So we ended up talking to him for a few minutes. It turns out he spent 25 years in the state of Georgia, but recently returned here to Mexico to "retire".

Instead, he ended up opening a taco shop to keep busy! So before we left for the airport, we took our friend Chago out for lunch.

And we're off!

It's been a nice relaxing time for us here at the house in Mexico over the last four weeks. We met some new friends, kept up with our daily exercise program, and got all of our internet projects complete.

And today, we will take the bus into the big tamale (Mexico City) and fly to Toronto overnight tonight.

Our upcoming flight to Toronto

I never told you this story. 

Our flight to Toronto tomorrow is with Aeromexico. But (against my better judgement), I had originally booked with Air Canada. I won't make that mistake again.

No wonder retirees move to cheaper countries

I follow a few facebook and youtube groups of expats and retirees who use their government retirement benefits to make a better life for themselves in a less expensive country, and some have posted their income from those sources. 

I noticed that the Americans seem to get a lot more income than Canadians, so I did some digging.

Our upcoming Canada trip

Our five hour AeroMexico flight departs at 11:15pm on Wednesday the 19th and we arrive in Toronto at 6:20am the morning of the 20th.

Then we take a local GO bus from the airport to the Ontario Northlands terminal for our 9:30am departure to Gravenhurst, Ontario where our son will pick us up. That's a two and a half hour bus ride.