And the winner is...

Our latest contest was to win a one year membership to Boondockers Welcome, and yesterday evening we did the draw to find out who the winner was.

And we're happy to announce that it's our friend Renate Hoven. No offense to those of you who aren't regular readers, but we really do like it when one of our friends wins!

C*ck of the rock

I was doing some more research for our upcoming Colombia trip and I had read that Colombia has the largest bird list of any country in the world. You'll remember that we were impressed with some of the birds we spotted and photographed during our South Africa and Namibia trip and we're now looking forward to seeing some more interesting and colorful birds in Colombia.

There are over 1,850 different species of birds in Colombia!

Visitors!

We haven't had many visitors this summer. In fact, other than when our son came for a surprise visit in June, we haven't had any visitors.

So we were happy to hear that some fellow Mexican RV travelers were coming to say hello!

Ruth's doctor's appointment

It had been quite a few years since our last "annual" physical checkup.  Personally, I think that these annual physical checkups are a total waste of the system's resources, but I understand that is just my opinion. Others think differently, and that is apparent from the different provinces health care plans.

In Canada, even though we have "free" or "universal" health care, the program is administered by the provinces and each province does things quite differently.

The best beer in the world

The other day, I was thinking that it's been a while since I've had a beer. A long while. About three months actually.

And I think that's probably the longest I've gone without a beer or three since I was about 18 years old!

Another update from Volkan and Heather- Reporting from Sweden

Back in May, you had all enjoyed a guest post from our friends Volkan and Heather who were visiting United Arab Emirates.  Here is a link to that post...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2015/05/whats-it-like-to-visit-middle-eastern.html

Now, our traveling friends are in Sweden and they've sent another interesting update for you all to read!

Power outage

Up until the last two weeks or so we had been having an exceptionally dry summer, however that has changed! We had a couple of inches of rain at the end of July, and the last day has been cloudy with thunderstorms on and off and we have woken up to rain again this morning.

Won't have to water the grass or the flowers for a few days! But, it is supposed to be a nice weekend.

Another RV'er giveaway!

When we travel, we like staying with people who are local to the area. That's why we're members of the couchsurfing community for when we are traveling without the motorhome. So when we heard that there was a similar website for people out exploring with their RV, we signed up right away!

And now, the good folks over at Boondockers Welcome have offered us the opportunity to give away one free annual membership so that you too can have a free place to overnight and meet some great local RV people in your travels throughout Canada and the United States!

Straight south!

Took a rare blogging day off yesterday.

I was looking at the map again...I must be getting itchy to get on the road! We'll be heading for Moose Jaw when we leave here, and then pretty much straight south from there. At least this way it'll be easy to choose a route that we've never done before.

We survived!

Well, we made it through the busy August long weekend here in Canada. The campground was sold out, and had been booked that way since the end of June. Today is the holiday Monday and so a lot of people will be leaving throughout the day.

Fortunately, we had great weather and it sure looks like everybody enjoyed their time despite things being a little bit crowded.

Sherman's roof

Sherman (our motorhome) is 20 years old this summer.

That means that the rubber membrane roof material that keeps the water out is also 20 years old, and near the end of it's useful life. In fact, even the Dicor company that makes  the roofing material says that their roof membrane is guaranteed for 10 years, but will likely last 20 years.

So that leaves two options if we want to keep Sherman healthy.

July Expenses

We did pretty much all of our necessary shopping in one month! Most of the items that we bought won't even get used until September or October, but it was going to have to be bought anyhow and we got some good deals.

So, grand total of expenses for the month of July... $1,685. (Keep in mind that these are Canadian dollars. For the U.S. equivalent you can subtract almost 25%!).

We don't often comment on news items

But the recent killing of Zimbabwe's Cecil the lion by an American trophy hunter has us wanting to give our own perspective on the incident.

First of all, the research I've done shows that there are approximately 3,000 lions in Zimbabwe. The country issues between 50 and 70 trophy hunting permits per year to hunt a lion. The lions are almost all located on public and private nature preserves.

Want to know how easy it is to hunt a lion?

Just about done with forums.

I used to sign up on various discussion forums, but I simply don't have the patience for wading through the useless posts and the lack of moderation. Drives me crazy, so for the most part I just avoid them now. I have tried two facebook groups recently, but I'm pretty much done with them now too.

Some of the discussion just makes you shake your head. Check this out...

Our top 10 blog posts

I noticed that yesterday was our 2,600th blog post. Almost eight years of our life, detailed for all to see. There sure is some interesting stuff in there. When I looked back at some of the early blog posts, I almost removed some of the stuff...things that I wouldn't write about today. But, they are part of the past and they reflect what I was thinking at the time so they can remain there.

The following are our 10 favorite posts, not necessarily yours, nor necessarily the most popular.

One more busy weekend to go

And then the worst is over.

The Canadian August long weekend is the busiest weekend of the year for us here at the park. This year, it's this coming Friday July 31st through Monday August 3. For those dates we've been sold out since the end of June, however there has been the odd cancellation due to harvest coming a little early this year. But when somebody cancels, the vacancy is usually filled the same day.

Carnival in Rio de Janeiro...?

Came across an airfare this morning from Mexico City to Rio de Janeiro. Around $350 USD return for each of us. Definitely a good price, but not a great price. I think if it was a great price, and the Canadian dollar exchange rate was just a little better then we might have booked it.

But going to "Carnival in Rio" does have a certain ring to it, doesn't it?

Traveler finances

Those of you who never leave your home country don't need to worry about this as much, however for budget world travelers it totally makes sense to keep an eye on what the currency markets are doing.

And they are doing some interesting things lately.

Sculptures from our travels

First off, today is the last day to enter our current contest. For those of you who love (or want to try!) boondocking, this is for you...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2015/07/for-our-rving-readers.html

Ruth mentioned the other day that we have a lot of pictures of statues and sculptures. So we thought we would show you some of the more interesting ones. Plus, I don't expect we've ever posted them here before. I tend to put up more landscape type photos here and skip over the artistic ones.

So, here are some photos you've likely never seen here before...

It was better than Christmas!

We've been doing a lot of online shopping recently and I had waited until all of the packages had been received at the local post office so that I only had to make one trip into town to pick them all up.

Man, there were a lot of packages!

Top countries in the world for RV camping

Although it's pretty much a given that the United States of America is at the top of the list as far as the easiest country in the world for RV camping, it is most certainly not the only place where RV'ing is popular and a worthwhile way to explore.

So we came up with a list of countries that we think would be the top places where you can enjoy RV travel. And why!

Tilley sold, but the quality will remain...

It was announced last week that Tilley Endurables was sold to a UK investment firm for an undisclosed sum. The founder Alex Tilley was wanting to retire and at age 77 who could blame him?!

Too bad he couldn't have found a Canadian buyer, but at least it sounds like the company and it's production will remain essentially Canadian.

Booked another flight!

We finish our contract here in Saskatchewan on September 30, and the very next day we'll be in Ottawa, Ontario!

Yes, we'll still be driving the motorhome down to Mexico City area in time for our flight to Colombia at the end of October. It'll just be a slightly more rushed drive.

Here's the plan...

For our RV'ing readers!

Our regular readers know that our style of RV'ing is different than most. If you're new here, I'll explain. We love camping with our motorhome, and we love it even more when it's free. Usually, camping for free means that you are not hooked up to any services, and you need to rely on your own self sufficiency...sometimes for days on end. And ideally, without another RV in sight.

To us, this is the definition of the term "boondocking".

Can you walk on water?

We had a busy day yesterday with a lot going on here at the park. Thankfully, the weather cooperated and it was a successful day. Two different fundraisers taking place here, one to support the park and one in aid of ovarian cancer.

Oh, and the results of our son's race yesterday!

Busy day today...

Busy day today! Up early at just after 6:00am in order to help some of the campers set up the hamster balls pool. You'll see pictures tomorrow! And that was after hardly getting any sleep last night due to a group of drunk teenagers. Didn't properly get to bed until almost 3:30am, so I'm going to have to make time for an afternoon nap...if I make it as far as the afternoon!

Rise and shine!

It's time to get up!

Do you have trouble getting up in the morning? I don't know what it is, but over the years we've gotten to the point where we can't sleep in. Even if we stay up late, we're pretty much always awake by 7:00am.

Or, are you the type who hits the snooze button on the alarm three times before dragging yourself out of bed?

Lots of empties

Here in Saskatchewan, all drink containers (cans, plastic bottles, glass bottles, and tetra paks) except milk have a deposit of between 10 and 20 cents added on when you buy them. Then, you bring the empty container back to the return depot, and get your money back.

Many people who camp here leave their empty containers as a donation to the park. We try to bring as many empties as we can back to the depot every Wednesday in the little blue car, but of course the little blue car can only carry so much!

And after a busy weekend, we simply have too many empties!

Want your own blog?

The young son of one of our best friends back in Ottawa is about to set out on his own travel journey and he had asked us about how to set up a blog. I've had several people ask that over the last month or so, so I thought it would be worthwhile to share publicly.

There are many reasons to set up a blog. Most blogs, such as ours, start out for personal reasons. We simply wanted a way to keep our friends and relatives back home informed about where we are, and what we're doing.

Camping with Dogs

We had our first dog complaint this past weekend. And since we put our strict policy in place this season, I'm positive that there are less people actually bringing their dogs into the park compared to last year. Man, there were weekends last year when I thought there were more dogs than people in the park!

But the problems only start when the dog owners don't realize that not everyone loves their Fido as much as they do.

Another winner, and another contest!

We love giving stuff away here during our time at the park when we're not actually traveling. It's fun for us, and it's fun for you! Our current contest ended Saturday night, and we picked a winner. And our next contest is starting this week. Possibly even tomorrow, we'll see. This next one will definitely be of interest to our RV'ing readers, so stay tuned!

But for now, let's see who won a $200 leather jacket from MotorcycleHouse.com ...

I like when it's busy, however...

I consider the most important part of my job here at the park is to make sure that every camper is happy and enjoys their time here. That's the number one most important thing.

Yesterday evening, I spent from dinner time until 10:00pm trying to make people happy!