Gorgeous Day at the Park

Wow, the weather has really taken a turn...for the better! Feels like the middle of summer now, and we're the only ones here. I think we should have extended the camping season by a week or two! I actually feel bad that we're not open for people to camp this weekend.

What a change from a week ago when we thought summer was over.  Have a look at the forecast...wow!

It's different this time around...

And I'm not really sure why.

A year ago today we were on our last day at Sturgeon Lake Regional park, and we couldn't wait to get out of there. I remember thinking that our last two weeks there just seemed to drag. The 16th couldn't come soon enough.

This year, we're here until the 30th...but it's not bothering us to be here.

Nice day to get stuff done

And it looks like the next few days are going to be nice. Great change from the blast of cold air we had last week!

I've got a bunch of logs that have been stored beside the woodshed and if I can get them cut and split and put into the woodshed, they'll be dry enough to burn next year. One of the people here lent us a little wood splitter.

Shutting things down

This is the last day for campers here at Cabri Regional Park. We don't have any daily campers here, and the seasonals have to be vacated by tonight, otherwise they pay $25 a night to stay longer. We'll have one or two of them stay, but they won't be a problem.

I've already got one of the five bathrooms shut down and winterized. And the one that needs renovating won't need much in the way of shutting it down because the entire interior will be ripped out anyhow next spring. And then I can do one more on Monday or Tuesday. The other two can wait until we shut the water supply off which won't be until later in the month.

The best and easiest way to clean your stove!

Not an exciting subject line today, but one that has to be done...and Ruth found a great way to do it so she wanted me to tell you about it.

You know those burner pan thingies that go underneath the element on your stove. They're a total pain to clean, and the chrome trim rings are even more difficult. Not any more!

Have a look at our fall travel itinerary!

But before we talk about that, I wanted to thank those who left a note on yesterday's blog post. I enjoyed reading your responses! There sure are lots of interesting stories related to such an intense event in recent history.

Okay. So...San Francisco is confirmed!

Where were you thirteen years ago?

Today is the thirteenth anniversary of the day the World Trade Center was attacked. Hard to believe it's been that long.

Certainly, it's one of those events that you'll never forget where you were when it happened.

We are officially Saskatchewan residents!

Sorry for the delayed report today. We had a lot to do on our weekly trip into town today, and wouldn't you know it...we slept in!

I know, getting up at 7:45 am isn't really sleeping in to a lot of people, but it is to us. Usually, we're up before seven. But I guess the near freezing temperature outside (!!) must have made us just want to stay in bed.

Looking at North Korea

One of the interesting things about planning a visit to South Korea is the fact that it is technically still at war...with North Korea.

Although there was an armistice agreement signed in 1953 in order to provide for a formal ceasefire until a final peaceful settlement, there has never actually been a final peaceful settlement. Part of the armistice agreement called for a four kilometer (2.5 mile) wide buffer zone along the border in order to physically separate the two sides.

We're thinking of a visit to that zone!

The last beautiful day?

What a gorgeous weekend we had. Good thing we enjoyed it because it's wet and cold this morning and they're calling for a high of only 10C (50F) today and 7C (45F) tomorrow. Brrr!

Yesterday was warm and sunny and not a cloud in the sky. So we went for a hike!

It was the coffee!

Our regular readers know that we don't eat any food containing gluten. Ruth has been eating that way for about four years now, and the twenty years worth of associated problems essentially disappeared. I've only been eating that way since last November, and while I definitely noticed an improvement, things still weren't just right.

Without getting into graphic detail, the problem related to the nutritious portion of what you eat not being fully absorbed by the intestines....in other words, the food goes pretty much right through you.

Busy day planning for upcoming travel!

We spent a lot of time on the internet yesterday. Let me tell you about some of the things we have planned for our upcoming travels.

A lot of our planning time is spent online dealing with tourist boards in the cities and countries that we are going to be visiting. And various companies like to work with us too. It benefits them, and it benefits us. But it's a lot of work!

We have a winner!

Happy to announce the winner of our $100 Amazon.com gift card that was being given away by our partners at Cathay Pacific Airlines.

Picked by a random number generator was the email address of Doug Maus of South Dakota!

Yikes!

I saw the weather forecast and let out a little yelp. Now, we have to remember this is the long term forecast, but next week it looks like it's going to get chilly around here!

Out on the lake

Yesterday morning, we were invited out on the lake for a couple of hours.

Sharon and Arnie ran the canteen and concession here at the park and of course they work pretty long hours during the summer. Now that the hard work is pretty much over, they're taking this week to relax a little bit and wanted to spend some time on their pontoon boat so they invited us to join them. The park is so quiet with everybody back to work and school that we decided to relax a bit too!

Doing the Happy Dance

Ruth woke up yesterday morning, came into the kitchen, and started to dance. She said she was doing the "happy dance"!

Why? Well because most of the campers were pulling out of the park and we would be back to peace and quiet.

August Expenses

Well, we called for August to be our least expensive month of this year, and I'm pretty sure that it will be tough to beat over the next four months.

We only spent $763 in the month of August.

One last hurrah!

Labour Day Weekend. The weekend that typically signals the end of summer here in Canada. So for any people who like to go camping, this is the last opportunity. Many people have children who go back to school on Tuesday, and then they'll get back into their regular schedules and the RV will be put away for the season.

So, our park is pretty busy with end of season campers!

A hunter, I am not.

Ruth took the little blue car into town the other day to do our weekly grocery shopping. She went alone. Or at least she thought she did.

Turns out she had a passenger.

Travel Photo Roulette - We have a winner!

Last week, we hosted the 85th edition of Travel Photo Roulette. Lots of interesting entries, and we had to deliberate a bit to choose the winner.

You can view the entries here... http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2014/08/travel-photo-roulette-85-hiking.html

Free $100 Amazon Gift card!

The other day, we told you about Cathay Pacific Airlines. And readers of Travel with Kevin and Ruth are very astute and would have noticed at the bottom of that article that Cathay Pacific has partnered with us to sponsor a giveaway.

And what a giveaway it is!

Help Wanted

Driving around the nearby town of Swift Current, all you see are "Help Wanted" signs in every store window. The local Walmart has had a billboard out front saying "Now Hiring" since we arrived here at the end of April.

Now, we're trying to get one of our bathroom buildings renovated here at the park and we can't find anybody to do the job!

I got a deal!

I think.

Well, it was a deal...until I had to have it shipped to Canada. But it would have been a real deal if I lived in the U.S.! Why do they make these things so difficult...?

Well that was a washout!

Man, what a miserable weekend that was. Woke up to wind and rain yesterday morning and it didn't stop until sometime early this morning. We actually had to put the furnace on in our house trailer! Yes, it's still August but the high yesterday was only 11C (52F)!

I think we had three die hard campers here overnight.

The Strange Story of Sixto Rodriguez

We watched a documentary the other night, and it was such a fascinating story that I have to tell you about it.

One of the things that made it interesting to us is that a part of it takes place in South Africa, and having been there made it all the more entertaining. But even if you've never been to South Africa, this movie is so worth watching.

Water, water, everywhere!

I read a statistic the other day that says the average person in North America uses 100 gallons (378 litres) of water per day!

They don't say how they arrive at that figure, but it must include everything from laundry to showers to flushing the toilet to watering your front lawn if you have one.

Becoming a Saskatchewanderer

So, remember last week I ordered a pair of hiking boots online? Well I went into town on Tuesday and picked them up at the post office. Opened the box when I got back to the park, and they're exactly what I was looking for. They fit perfectly, but they'll take a few kms of hiking to get them broken in.

So, the whole "have you ever bought footwear online" experience worked out well. But it could have been slightly better. Here's why...

Travel Photo Roulette #85: Hiking

Never heard of Travel Photo Roulette? Well now you have! I've actually followed it on and off for the last year or so, and I've even entered a couple of photos along the way. This time, we actually won!

The last edition of Travel Photo Roulette was hosted by Richelle at Adventures Around Asia. The theme she picked was "Candid".

Six weeks to go...

Things feel like they are winding down here at the campground, but there's still exactly six weeks to go for us. One of our employees has already headed back to school, and the other one is down to weekends only.

Although, we've got him coming in for a few hours tomorrow so that I can go into town with Ruth. It'll probably be our only excursion together until we leave here October 1st.

These are some different camping rigs!

Even when we're not camping ourselves, we're always interested in what types of different units are out there that other people use. It seems to us that the designs used in other countries are much more efficient than what is available here in North America.

I know part of that has to do with fuel economy because gas prices are so cheap in our part of the world. But still, we don't seem very innovative when it comes to our camping rigs.

Citychase

I was up too late to do a blog post yesterday, but still early enough to help our son Alex and his friend and teammate Matt do their "citychase" race.

I had never heard of this before, but it's been going on since 2007, I think. It's held in 8 major cities in Canada. It's become such a big event in Toronto that they actually do two races.

For the birdwatchers out there...

Kevin has a task to do this morning which I am sure he will talk about in tomorrow's post, so it was either take a day off from the blog or turn the blog over to me (Ruth!). Seeing that you are reading this blog post I guess you can figure out what the choice ended up being.

Booked!

Well, I've been looking since May for a way to get us down to Mexico and our friends in Puerto Escondido. It all came together at once yesterday, so now we're booked!

I actually booked three separate flights yesterday, and each of them was a fantastic deal!

Good news and car problems

So maybe I should have said "good news and bad news". But, I already have the car problems fixed, so it wasn't really that bad.

Wednesday is the day that Ruth usually heads into the big city of Swift Current to do the weekly grocery shopping. So we got the little blue car all loaded up with recycling returns, and off she went.

She was back at the house less than an hour later.

Have you ever bought footwear online?

We never have. Until now, that is!

As our regular readers know, we do a lot of hiking when we're traveling. That means we put a lot of miles on our hiking boots, and we don't only wear them for hiking. When we're traveling, we travel very light which usually means that we only have one other pair of footwear with us, and that's usually a pair of sandals.

Secrets the Government is Hiding About Elephants

Today is World Elephant Day!

So in celebration, we dug up some interesting facts about elephants. And, it gives us an opportunity to show you some more of the photos we took in Namibia of the worlds biggest land mammal.

Our last busy weekend?

And a fairly uneventful one at that. This park is attended by a lot of locals, and many of the locals are involved in farming. This is the week when harvest begins to take place, and so the farmers and usually their families as well are busy.

Even too busy to take time off to go camping on weekends!

I can't see this working...

I read an article the other day that Ontario Provincial Parks are experimenting with a plan to bring people RV'ing who don't own an RV.

Yes, they are renting out "trailer equipped" campsites.

Jeju Island

We've been spending a little more time planning our month of October in Korea. One of the places we're wanting to visit is called Jeju Island.

Many of you will remember the horrible ferry disaster that occurred in April of this year when 300 people were killed. This ferry had been heading from the Korean mainland to Jeju Island.

How to make Jamaica (a cool refreshing drink!)

Jamaica (pronounced in Spanish as Ha-Mike-Ah) is a popular cold drink in Mexico. Sometimes known as Hibiscus Tea in other parts of the world, because it's made from the flowers of the hibiscus plant.

We really like this drink, and Ruth found that she can buy the dried flowers at Bulk Barn here in Canada.

Lost my keys!

I did find them again, so no need to panic. But it's not a good feeling while they're missing, that's for sure.

I have this one pair of pants that don't have very good pockets in the front. So I had been putting my keys in my back pocket, which isn't really very comfortable when you go to sit down! And I'm used to putting my keys in my right front pocket.

One employee gone...

First of all, thanks for all of the comments and ideas regarding yesterday's post topic. I'm certainly going to have to do some further research on the topic, and that's going to involve actually going out to look at some of these products in person to see exactly what they look and feel like in person.