The day has arrived!

Hard to believe we've been a full month in Ottawa. It was a really busy month for us, so time passed quickly.

We have almost everything moved into Igor. We purposely did as much as possible yesterday, because it was supposed to be raining this morning. But so far it's holding off. 

Igor is legal for the road!

Monday morning, we were out the door at 8:30am headed for the "Service Ontario" location nearest us. This is where the provincial government does any business related to vehicle and driver licenses, among other things. It opens at 9:00am.

I had tried to get an appointment online, but the next available one was the second week of August. 

Moving day, and getting ready to head out!

Friday was moving day at my mom's apartment. She was only moving from the 5th floor down to the 2nd floor, and from a one bedroom apartment to a bed/sitting room apartment without a kitchen, because all her meals will be done for her.

And that meant that a lot of stuff won't fit!

It's pretty standard that when you're dealing with the government, nothing is going to happen efficiently.

My mother has been in this seniors building for about 11 years now, in her own one bedroom apartment. And she is staying in the same building, but moving down to the floor where she no longer has to do any housekeeping or cooking. Everything is done for her.

But, her room is much smaller... more like a standard hotel room, with just a main living area, and a bathroom.

I've decided I'm not playing their stupid game

I bought us some more flight tickets the other day. Not the ones to Calgary that I already told you about... this time I bought flight tickets to Mexico!

Yes, we are flying to Cancun on November 1st. 

"But what about Igor?", you ask.

Another project complete... and two more started!

The paint was dry on the fridge vent that I was replacing, so I was able to finish that job yesterday morning. Actually, not totally finished, because I need two strips of foam that glue to the side brackets that tighten the door up so that it doesn't flap around. The only thing that holds it in place is the little twist knob at the bottom, so the foam gives it some structure at the sides when it's closed.

So I drilled out the rivets and installed the new one. Pretty happy with the result!

We ordered a compost toilet for Igor

After a lot of research, we decided that Igor should have a compost toilet.

Let me tell you a little about what I learned regarding compost toilets for RV's...

Time is passing quickly

Here we are, three weeks into the month. 

We're making good progress on getting Igor ready to go by July 31, but with only ten days left we're going to have to continue working hard. Especially with my mother moving next weekend. Fortunately, she's staying in the same building, just moving apartments... and she doesn't have very much "stuff".

Booked some more flight tickets!

I love booking flight tickets. Even when they're on a substandard airline like Air Canada (Motto: We're not happy until you're not happy!).

So I got a flight deal notification from a site that I subscribe to. Ottawa to Calgary direct, for only $188 CAD ($136 USD) return, tax included. It's about a four hour flight, so that's a great deal at $94 CAD ($68 USD) per person each way, taxes included!

In for a penny, in for a pound!

An old British phrase that has evolved to express someone's intention to complete a project once it has been undertaken, no matter how much time, effort, or money this entails.

And so it seems to be with our new house battery system for Igor. Once I decided to go with lithium batteries, I knew it was going to add up.

Just like Christmas!

We spent a bunch of money over the last two days. We need a lot of things to outfit Igor the way we want to, and we saved our purchases for Amazon Prime Day, hoping that a lot of the stuff we want would come on sale.

And sure enough, it did.

An interesting story...

We've been over at my mother's place pretty much every day. It sure is a pain and very time consuming doing this address change stuff, but we're making progress and can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

She's been going through her filing cabinet, and came across this interesting story...

One of the problems with an older RV...

At 31 years old, Igor can almost be considered a "vintage" motorhome. I guess that's why the Airstream B190 has a bit of a cult following. It was only made between 1988 to 1999... an 11 year period. 

The Ford E350 van chassis and much of the body was produced for a much longer period, and mechanical parts are readily available and inexpensive. But much of what is related to the "RV" portion of the vehicle has now become obsolete. 

You have to celebrate the tiny wins!

So we're out doing some grocery shopping last Thursday, and I happened to see the deodorant that I like, and it was on sale. Regular price $4.29, on sale for $2.99. Not bad. Anyhow, I picked one up.

I'd say 80% of the time, we check the prices on the bill as we walk out of the grocery store.  The other 20% of the time, we simply forget. But we're normally pretty good at checking.

Our Amazon delivery guy has been busy!

I think he's been at our doorstep every day this week! 

There's a lot of stuff you have to buy when you're outfitting an RV from scratch... as well as the stuff we are buying to get Igor fixed up the way we want.

The one thing we miss about Canada...

There isn't much that we miss from Canada when we're off traveling the world... but one thing we definitely miss is pure Canadian maple syrup! 

And the cheapest place to buy it is still Walmart, where they sell a 1 liter jug of the dark amber stuff, (which is our favorite) for $15.97 CAD ($11.71 USD).

Motorhome for sale... in Alaska!

Our friends Glen and Steve are the British couple who got us into this whole motorhoming thing back in 2007 when they stayed with us and explained how they travel and explore inexpensively by motorhome.

They have since bought and sold many times, similar to the way we are doing now. They buy in a different country, then sell when they are ready to move on. 

Getting Igor ready to go

Good thing I got the vent replaced which fixed that major water leak coming from Igor's roof. The remnants of hurricane Beryl are coming through southern Ontario today, and they are calling for heavy rain for about 4 hours starting around 10:00am.

There are still some very minor leaks coming from the windows on the side of the muffin top (that's what Airstream B-160 enthusiasts call the fiberglass roof) but I don't have a ladder. That can wait until we are at Lindsey's next month. 

Not sure why we get so ripped off here in Canada...

Spent a couple of hours yesterday with my mom going over some financial things and figuring out her change of address stuff. Of course the post office will do an address redirect for you, but it's not cheap... so the most logical thing to do is proactively change all of the addresses yourself, which of course you would have to do anyhow. But man, it sure is time consuming!

Then back to the house to finish my project.

No problem staying busy here! Especially with a motorhome project to work on...

Instead of writing a blog post first thing this morning, I was outside before 8:00am in order to take advantage of the cooler morning weather. The project today was to replace the old Fantastic Vent Van in Igor's living area.

The fan still worked, but the plastic had turned all yellow and while the previous owner had replaced the vent lid, they never did actually repair the leaks.

June Expenses... more than double what we had planned!

Well, it's time to get this mess out of the way. I've been delaying telling you about our expenses for the month of June because there have been odd circumstances involved!

Our original budget for the month of June was $3,500 CAD ($2,565 USD). Which in hindsight, was a bit ambitious as it was. And then, on June 11th, we made the somewhat last minute decision to come back to Canada which of course would put us well over budget. And finally, we decided to buy this motorhome in London, Ontario. 

Introducing you to Igor... our new motorhome!

We've been running through suitable names for our new to us motorhome, including all the suggestions made by readers on our FB page. We had narrowed it down to either Eddie or Hector. We had pretty much decided on Hector. Then, we're out doing some running around yesterday afternoon, and Ruth says "Igor. Because he has a hunchback". (Like Igor in the movie Young Frankenstein). And we both laughed. Too funny. 

Igor is not Spanish, but that doesn't matter to us. A name of Russian origin meaning warrior. Igor is short, sweet, and strong! And, we think it's funny. So, Igor it is.

Since we arrived back in Canada...

So, it's time to get you caught up on what we've been doing for the last week. I'm not going to do individual posts for the several days that we missed... otherwise I'll never be up to date, and we've just got too much to do.

So... where to start? Well, when we arrived at our son's place in Gravenhurst, Ontario on June 28th, he and his girlfriend CJ already had plans for the weekend, so they weren't home when we arrived. He did come back and spend a couple of hours with us on Saturday morning.

Our one day in Porto, Portugal

Still trying to get caught up on our blog posts, and there's still quite a lot to tell you about! We had a very hectic week between when we finished our big hike and we made it back to Canada.

I already told you the story about our flight delays, so when we arrived in Porto, Portugal on the 26th of June, we only had the one day to explore. 

Big news... we bought another motorhome!

Anybody who follows our facebook page already knows this because I posted a photo four days ago and it is probably our most "liked" facebook post ever! But, I didn't provide any details. So here is the whole story...

We had sold our European motorhome Max last August. We're not done with Europe by any means, but Europe is easy to do by motorhome, so our plan is to put that off until we're in our 70's.

Peaks of the Balkans Day 10... Vusanje to Theth, 17 kms

The last day of our Peaks of the Balkans hike!

This day was billed as a grueling 21 km hike with 1,306 meters (4,300') of elevation gain, followed by 1,600 meters ( 5,300') of descent into the valley of Theth. That's a tough hike for anyone, but made even worse by the fact that they gave us a 4:00pm deadline to arrive back in Theth for our ride to Shkodra, with a penalty of €10 per hour for every hour you are late!

Peaks of the Balkans Day 9... Taljanka Peak Loop, 9.2 kms

Even though it was fairly short, this was probably the second toughest hike of the trip, but with spectacular views of the Gerbaja Valley, as well as stunning views of the Accursed Mountains. It's actually a detour from the classic Peaks of the Balkans trail, but it was included by the organizers of our trip since it is one of the most panoramic of the area.

We were picked up at our guest house in Babino Polje by van and arrived at the trailhead in Gerbaja Valley at 9:15am.