Canada's 150th Birthday

This is a big year in Canada, with lots going on in celebration of the country's 150th birthday. So over the next few weeks leading up to the big day on July 1st, we're going to be talking a lot about Canada.

There are 10 provinces and 3 northern territories that make up Canada.

Sunday morning pancakes

Actually, they are "weekend" pancakes for us, because we only happen to be having them this morning. So while they are Sunday morning pancakes today, they could just as easily be Saturday lunch pancakes next weekend!

Ruth and I have a bit of a tradition with weekend pancakes. As well, we do weekend bacon and eggs!

Great RV and Camping Deals

As you know, we love a great deal. In fact, who doesn't love a great deal? Even people with lots of money love to get a great deal. That could even be how they got to have lots of money! After all, they say that a penny saved is a penny earned.

Most of our regular readers know that I'm pretty good at finding great deals.

Opening day!

Well, it's opening day for most campgrounds here in Canada. Monday is "Victoria Day" so it's a holiday long weekend up here in the great white north. Americans have to wait another week yet for their "Memorial Day" May long weekend.

But things are not so white up here any more! Mostly very green. And they're calling for a beautiful weekend with sunshine and highs around 21C (70F) for the next four days.

We found our baby owl...

Late Tuesday afternoon, our summer employee Kevin was cutting some grass in one section of the park and he spotted our baby owl! We came and had a look, and sure enough, there it was sitting against the bushes. We were so happy to see it alive and well.

We had seen the mom in the same area, so she's definitely looking after it and making sure it's fed. After dinner, we decided to go move it and put it in a nearby tree. So we grabbed the camera and went to see how it was doing.

Our three favorite places in Mexico

We've been to 29 of the 31 states in Mexico. We're still missing Hidalgo and Tlaxcala. And while there are many places that we like in Mexico, there are three places have become our favorites. These are not normal Mexican vacation spots.

You'll notice that places like Puerto Vallarta and Cancun don't make the list of our top three!

Casino Camping

Back on October 17, 2007, on only our second night in our motorhome, we woke up in the Sudbury Casino parking lot. No, it's not because we drank too much, or because the engine wouldn't start. We had actually asked if we could overnight in their parking lot.

At the time, and even today, many RV'ers will overnight in parking lots if they're in transit. Walmart parking lots are somewhat famous for this activity, however we've always found that there are better options.

Casino camping is one such better option!

This mom is going to be busy!

Well, we're more than a little disappointed to say that there has been no sign of our little baby owl. Yesterday, Ruth saw both the mom and the dad in nearby trees. This is rare, because we hardly ever see them at the same time. Usually the dad is off doing... well... dad things. But, haven't caught sight of the baby. We're still hopeful that it's safe and sound stashed away somewhere.

Sitting here this morning, and we saw a deer come wandering into the bush beside our house trailer.

Camping in Europe

I've been meaning to do this post for a while now, simply so that we have a record of the following resources that we used while we were camping in Europe for two months. We will definitely be going back to Europe at some point to do some more RV travel. The best way to see Europe is in a campervan!

In fact, we might even buy an RV to use in Europe.

No more owls...?

The strong east wind never let up yesterday at all. It was a pretty constant 40 km/h (25 mph) all day, and right through the night. Remember yesterday I had said we were amazed that our owl nest stayed up in that tree?

Well I guess I spoke too soon...

33 years and the adventure continues!

It was 33 years ago today that we were standing in a small church in Galetta, Ontario saying "I do"!

We were only 22 years old at the time. Seems awfully young to be getting married, doesn't it? Especially since we had only known each other for 14 months or so! But, some things were meant to be, and here we are still carrying on.

Even the packaging is impressive!

We did a lot of flying this past winter, and we were offered the opportunity to try out a top quality set of earbud headphones so that we could enjoy a premium listening experience while watching the in flight entertainment systems on the various aircraft.

The Swedish brand Sudio sent us each one pair of their top quality earphones. Ruth chose the blue ones, and I chose the black ones!

How to save money grocery shopping!

We are having a bit of sticker price shock here in Saskatchewan. It's only May 10th, and we have already spent over $600 on groceries this month. Partly because we didn't have the motorhome with us and so we arrived to totally empty cupboards and a totally empty refrigerator.

So there was some stocking up to be done.

Booked another flight ticket!

This time, it's for our return flight back to Ottawa at the end of September. Of course we have those $800 each travel vouchers from our Air Canada flight bump experience a couple of weeks ago. But just because they were given to us doesn't mean we would squander them.

So yesterday I saw that the Regina To Ottawa flight had dropped from $323 CAD to $191 CAD. To put that in perspective, we had paid $235 CAD each for our flight from Ottawa to Regina a couple of weeks ago.

I should have been a plumber...

We noticed yesterday that the drain under the kitchen sink was dripping. It's a double sink, and the dishwasher hooks into the same drain. It was only a small drip, but it wasn't going to get better on it's own!

Turns out the seal between the drain pipe and the sink itself was broken and it needs a new pipe. After taking it apart it wouldn't go back together, so of course now we can't use the dishwasher. But fortunately we can still use the second sink but we have to be careful and drain it slowly.

How to do a motorhome exchange

In the summer of 2016, we gave our motorhome to strangers from Europe to use here in North America for two months. Just imagine that. People we had never met before were going to be using our motorhome. And they were going to be using it for free.

However... a few months later, the tables were turned. We went to Spain and used their motorhome for two months! For free. All of a sudden, this is looking like a pretty good deal!

You can almost watch the leaves opening up!

Ruth was busy all day yesterday doing leaf clean-up. Hard work when it's this warm. The temperature got up to 30C (86F) yesterday, but there is no humidity at all, and there was a breeze all day as well. Supposed to be warm again today, then back to normal with highs of around 20C (68F) and sunny all next week.

Perfect weather.

We have another baby!

A baby great horned owl, that is!

After 5 days of watching mom owl in her nest, we have finally caught sight of the baby. There had been no indication at all that there was a baby there yet, except that mom was spending an awfully lot of time in the nest, and I had found some broken egg shell directly below the nest.

But, it's definitely the latest in the season so far compared to past years.

Park clean-up has started!

Kevin is working in the office this morning taking reservations.  Today is the first day and it is always non stop for about 4 hours so today you are getting a rare post from me, Ruth!

Where we live at Cabri Park

The guy who normally looks after our water pump here at the park came and had a look at the water leak under the house trailer. He crawled under there and started poking around and he got lucky! The first place he started looking, he found the leak. And he had a bunch of fittings with him and was able to fix it right away. I had been under there four or five times without any luck, and this guy comes in and makes it look easy!

Well, he's our hero of the day. So, the place is livable again and we can use the washing machine, dishwasher, and shower! Good news!

April Expenses

We spent a lot of money in April!

Total expenses came to $2,993 CAD ($2,250 USD).  I checked back through the records, and April is always an expensive month for us because we're often returning to Canada at that time of year. This year was the highest yet though, because there was a lot of flying involved. Plus, we were a couple of weeks in Ottawa and we always seem to spend more money there than when we're traveling!

Here's how it all broke down...

Something we don't see every day at the park...

Well, I was not very successful with repairing the water leak underneath the house trailer. I was under there four or five times, and there's not a lot of room!

There is a tarp type of material holding in the fiberglass insulation under the floor. You have to cut that away to get at any of the pipes, and of course where the water is coming out is not necessarily where the actual leak is.

And, did I mention there's not a lot of room?

Back at Cabri Regional Park

Said goodbye to Wendy and Phil in Moose Jaw yesterday morning (thanks again guys!) and we were on the road yesterday morning just after 9:00am.

Not much in the way of traffic. Just put the cruise control on and drove. Made it to Swift Current around 11:00am and we headed straight to the Salvation Army Thrift store!

Back to the Prairies

Up bright and early yesterday morning at 5:00am. Had to be downstairs at the Radisson Hotel Toronto airport for the shuttle bus at 6:00am. Got to the airport and through security and to the gate with lots of time to spare for our 8:00am flight.

It's a good thing airports have finally figured out how important it is for them to supply free wifi to people in the terminal. We've been in 10 different airports so far this year alone, and they have all had fast free wifi.

There wasn't any kicking and screaming from us!

Well, this was an interesting day!

Let me back up to Wednesday morning when we were first able to "check in" online for our 9:00am Thursday flights from Ottawa to Toronto and Toronto to Regina. At that time, our seat assignments for the first flight from Ottawa to Toronto came up normally. We had seats side by side and on a larger jet that had economy seating three rows on each side with an aisle in the middle.

But on the Toronto to Regina leg of the trip, I noticed that things seemed abnormally "full". In fact, when the system tried to assign seats, it put Ruth in an upgraded seating section with no extra charge, and me in a single seat in the economy section at the rear of the plane.

Back in the air again!

Sitting here in busy Toronto airport, waiting for our flight to Regina, Saskatchewan. We weren't supposed to be here this early. Our flight from Ottawa was scheduled to leave at 9:00am, but there was another flight at 8:00am, and they asked if anybody would volunteer to leave early. Okay!

Then, we sat on the plane for an extra 45 minutes because they are repairing a runway in Toronto and the arrivals had to be scheduled... or something like that! Can't win. But, we don't care and it's out of our control anyhow. It's all part of travel.

What's on the agenda for next winter?

Did some work around Ruth's dad's house yesterday. Ruth did some yardwork while I took off the winter tires and rims on his vehicle and installed the summer ones.

In the afternoon, I went for lunch with an old friend of mine who used to be my accountant partner when I owned the auto body repair shop many years ago. Nice to catch up since I hadn't seen him in about two years.

Do you remember Expo 67?

Our daughter Lindsey lent us her car, and we drove up to Ruth's dad's yesterday. On the way, we stopped at a Walmart to pick up a few things. One of those things was a new battery for one of Lindsey's key fobs. These new cars don't have an ignition key. Simply a thing (called a fob) that hangs from your key chain, and so long as it's in the car, the car will start with the push of a button.

But, these fobs won't work when the tiny battery in them goes dead.