Two weeks to go!

We're enjoying the down time, but we do admit that we're just about ready to go! It's starting to get chilly here in Canada, although they're calling for a two day heat wave this coming Wednesday and Thursday where temperatures are supposed to get up to 23C (73F).

Two weeks from today, we will be flying to Cancun.

A funny story

Our nearest Walmart is about twenty minutes away. We had to do some grocery shopping, and there were a couple of deals there that we wanted to pick up, so we decided to go to the one at Kemptville where there is also a forest with some walking trails.

So we stopped at the forest first to get some exercise.

Igor had an adventure!

Well, it was great while it lasted, but our unseasonably warm temperatures have reverted back to normal. As I write this, the morning of October 25th, it is -1C (30F) outside. That's about normal for this time of year, and in fact I see the forecast is calling for -6C (21F) by Sunday night.

At least we haven't seen any snow flurries yet.

Igor video tour, and a great deal for our Canadian readers

We heard from Bjorn and Freya yesterday as they made their way with Igor to Niagara Falls, and from there into New York State.

They had a few issues with US border control, which was not unexpected. As Bjorn says "When you are a Belgian citizen coming in with a Canadian van, and going to Mexico, it sets off multiple alarms".

A bit of panic!

So yesterday morning, Bjorn and Freya were getting ready to leave with Igor when there was a bit of a panic.

"I can't find our passports" says Freya.

You can still buy bacon and eggs breakfast for $4.99!

Saturday afternoon, we drove to Montreal to pick up our Belgian friends Bjorn and Freya. They had arrived in Canada on Thursday and spent a night with a friend downtown.

Traffic was terrible, and there were several delays, with more along the route. Eventually, they offered to take public transit to the north part of the city, and we met them there.

Back to downtown Ottawa

Ruth's sister Lesley is in town with her friend Lynn, so yesterday morning Ruth took off downtown with the two of them to do a tour of the Parliament West Block, and then a wander around the central Ottawa area. 

Of course many of the sights they saw were similar to the ones we posted a couple of weeks ago, but the parliament tour was interesting.

Nice weekend ahead!

Looks like we're going to have an "Indian summer" weekend, with sunshine and highs around 21C (70F). Great weather to welcome our friends Bjorn and Freya who are flying to Montreal today.

Their plans in Montreal have changed, so we will be picking them up there on Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday. We have an airbnb rented just south of Ottawa for the four of us through until Monday, then they will probably take off across the border heading south through the U.S. with Igor on Monday morning.

For the first time in years, I have an actual useable phone number!

Cellular data access is always a problem for us when we return to Canada because it's just so expensive compared to other countries. 

During the last three months, we've been using an eSIM package that costs $30 CAD ($22 USD) tax included for 15GB of data. And that's data only... no voice calls or texting. And I'll tell you, 15 GB doesn't last very long anymore!

We have heat!

It was quite a few hours of work, but Igor's gasoline heater installation is finally finished! 

Drilling holes through the van floor, running the wires for the thermostat inside wall panels, tapping into the fuel line and running the line to the new fuel pump, and hooking it up to the heater, then running the cables directly to the battery was all more time consuming than I thought it would have been.

Out with the old, and in with the new!

Yesterday, I took a break from the furnace installation to do the fridge installation.

Igor's 31 year old Dometic propane/120VAC fridge was still working, but it wouldn't keep a stable temperature. Especially on propane, which we would have been using most of the time. Given that we are setting Igor up for an extended trip to Mexico and south of Mexico, we wanted something that didn't use propane, and something that we were more confident in.

Progress report...

I'm not surprised that Igor's new gasoline furnace installation is taking a while. The system itself is fairly simple... but locating the unit in a suitable location, then drilling the holes and getting it fitted properly, then running the fuel line and fuel pump, then running the wires for the thermostat and power cables is very time consuming!

And, Ottawa and area is having a bit of a cold spell which makes it not as enjoyable to be working outside.

Yet another change of plans

Regular readers will remember that we were supposed to be doing a month long house sit in Manotick during the month of October. It was cancelled last minute due to a medical problem that the host is having. 

However, the host was looking for options outside of Canada to get this medical problem resolved.

We've been busy!

Hence why the three day hiatus from writing blog posts!

Tuesday and Wednesday were Amazon Prime Big Deal Days, so we had a lot of work to do with our facebook group telling them about all the deals. And in between the deals, I was busy trying to install Igor's new furnace!

Weird clouds in the sky!

We stayed in the campground until mid afternoon. I did a couple of minor projects on Igor, while Ruth was labeling some photos. 

It was pretty chilly overnight! We tried out the old electric heater, but while it does work, it's not putting out nearly the amount of heat that a 1500 watt heater should. 

One thing we can say about the Airstream B190... there is lots of interior cupboard space!

We've got a list of minor things we want to get done to Igor this week, as well as the two major items... the new furnace, and the new refrigerator.

Most of the minor things aren't super important and we would normally just putter away at them while on our way south. However friends Bjorn and Freya arrive in Canada on the 18th, and it is them who are taking Igor south. So we would like to get as many of them done as possible before they get here.

Our most expensive campground ever!

We didn't want to overstay our welcome in the overflow parking lot at my mother's building here in Ottawa. And although it wasn't ideal, it was okay for a couple of nights.

So, what were our options? 

In for a penny, in for a pound

This is a phrase used to express someone's intention to see an undertaking through, however much time, effort, or money this entails

And that's the way we're starting to feel about Igor!

We made the decision yesterday to order yet another fancy expensive item to make our lives better.

Another project for Igor

Last night I posted our September expenses report. And I mentioned that didn't include the mechanical repairs we had done to Igor since they will go into our capital expenses which include the cost of the vehicle itself. So I wanted to tell that part of the story.

As well... we just ordered a fancy new furnace for Igor... more money!

September Expenses

We started the month of September in Nova Scotia, and ended up back in Ontario, but we were also in New Brunswick, Quebec, and Alberta! Five of Canada's provinces in one month!

We had a planned total budget of $2,396 CAD ($1.776 USD). 

A beautiful day playing tourist in our hometown

Although we've been back to our hometown area of Canada's capital city of Ottawa many times in the last five years, we can't remember the last time we actually went downtown. So with Igor tied up at the mechanical shop, we decided to head to the center of the city and see the typical tourist sites.

And, the last day of September was a gorgeous fall day.

Arrived back in Ottawa

And today is the last day of the month. October the 1st, tomorrow, was when we were supposed to be starting our one month house sit out in Manotick (a small community just south of Ottawa). Our hosts had to cancel sort of last minute because the husband is having some health problems. 

We understand that kind of thing can happen, and we're flexible. It does present some issues, but nothing we can't deal with.

Last day in Alberta

Sunday morning in Cochrane, Alberta as I write this, and this afternoon we will be flying back to Ottawa to arrive back at Igor where he is waiting at the mechanical shop parking lot.

Unfortunately, he is not quite ready for us!

More views of the Canadian Rocky Mountains

Yes, we were out hiking again yesterday. Besides seeing my sister, this was the main reason for coming. And of course the cheap airfare deal from Ottawa to Calgary return helped as well! We paid only $188 CAD ($139 USD) return per person for the flights.

And that included free beer and wine! Hard to go wrong at that price.

Almost a slot canyon hike... and a cave!

My sister Alison is a zumba instructor, and teaches a class on Thursday before noon. Ruth went with her to the class, so we didn't set off on a hike until after lunch.

Of course there are a ton of different hikes in the mountains near Cochrane, the only drawback is the minimum 45 minute drive to get to them. And of course there are many more (some very spectacular) within a two hour drive.

Gorgeous day hike above Barrier Lake

Wednesday was an absolutely beautiful day here in central Alberta, although they were calling for some strong winds in the mountains. We had been planning a ridge hike, but with the strong winds we changed our plans and instead hiked up the Prairie View Lookoff Trail to Yates Mountain and up to the Barrier Lake Fire Lookout.

We arrived at the trailhead at 10:00am

If I had to do it all over again, I would become a helicopter pilot!

We had decided to put off the more strenuous hikes for a day and so my sister Alison had planned us an easy walking route around the town of Cochrane.

Cochrane is one of the fastest growing towns in Canada with a current population of around 37,000. For perspective, twenty years ago it was only 14,000.

Arrived in Calgary

We dropped off Igor at a mechanic shop yesterday after lunch. He runs well, but idles a little rough on start up. Also, there is an odd chugging sound in between some gear shifts (and it's intermittent, to make diagnosis all the more difficult) but two different mechanics have said they think it's a misfire.

I had a quick look at the spark plugs, and they honestly look like they've never been changed. 

Another great weekend away with the boys.

With near perfect weather in the books, I completed yet another weekend away with my guy friends. I think we figured out that was the 13th annual. I missed a few gatherings in the early years because Ruth and I were traveling, but I decided several years ago that I would not miss another one. Just too much fun with these guys, we all value our long friendship and the older we get, the faster that time seems to go by.

Two more of them are retiring next year, so we've pretty much decided that our next annual guys weekend away will be an international trip. Some of the discussion revolved around Mexico, so we'll see what happens.

A major change of plans.

At the end of our last update, we had overnighted at the Quebec/Ontario border just east of Hawkesbury. We crossed at Hawkesbury, headed to Ingleside to pick up our son's car, and then to Ottawa where we had a 2:00pm meeting with Gretchen and her three cats.

While I am at my annual guy's weekend away, Ruth will be housesitting for Gretchen.

Quebec City is very photogenic!

It's taken us two weeks to do this drive between Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, and the city of Ottawa... and we still felt rushed. There is so much to see along the way, and one of those places is the historic city of Quebec City.

We had been to Quebec City before, but it was way back in 2008. At the time, we had our dog Whiskey with us and we had parked our motorhome Sherman across the river in Levis, and taken the ferry across to explore the city.

Arrived in Quebec City

The campground was quiet. There's a reason we normally choose the September/October time frame to return to Canada. The kids are back in school, the weather is perfect, and the bug season is generally over.

We did our laundry on Monday morning before leaving the campground, but we were still on the road by 10:15am or so, headed southwest along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River towards Quebec City.

Lots of nice scenery along this route, and the trees are starting to show some color.

Igor's first paid camping spot

We were in need of showers and laundry. Yes, Igor does have a shower, but it's a bit cramped. It works if you have to, but it's not ideal. So if there is somewhere else that is convenient, we prefer that.

And in the town of Tadoussac, there was a listing for showers ($1 for five minutes) and a laundry at a municipal park near the marina. Sounds good to us!

Last minute ferry ride!

We were up and on the road at 6:00am Saturday morning!

Why up so early? Well, we knew that we wanted to take the ferry from Matane that goes across to the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. We've done the south shore drive several times, but have never been on the north shore.

17 km (10.5 mile) hike in Gaspesie National Park

We drove about 30 kms (18 miles) north to get to the visitors center at Gaspesie National Park. 

Just an FYI... Quebec's "national" parks are actually provincial parks. They are NOT run by Parks Canada, and Canada's national parks passes do not work here. 

Waterfalls, and a view, and another great overnight spot!

 We got up at 6:00am, and went for a hike!

We had been parked overnight at the back entrance trailhead for the Mount Carleton hike above the town of Carleton Sur Mer. That's a fairly long hike, and I had some computer work to do yesterday morning, but we figured we had time for the shorter hike to Grand Sault Falls.

Views over Campbellton, then back into the province of Quebec

We said goodbye to Denis and Marjolaine just before 10:00am Wednesday morning. Really enjoyed our stay with them! Thanks, and hope to see you again someday!

It was looking like a really nice day, and we had a plan to climb Campbellton's Sugarloaf Mountain before heading across the border into Quebec.

Well that was a good day!

This area around Campbellton is really nice. We were really enjoying our time with Denis and Marjolaine, and they said we were welcome to stay another night so that they could take the time to properly show us around the area.

Denis has had a hobby of building hand made cedar strip canoes that are easier to navigate the shallow waters of the nearby Restigouche River. And he offered to take us for a boat ride on the river!