The Great Sandhills of Saskatchewan

We had heard of this little known ecological area about 80 kms (50 miles) from the park and it was one of the local areas that we wanted to visit at some point before we left here. We haven't had much time to explore, so we purposely took a day off yesterday and went to see the Great Sandhills of Saskatchewan!

8 things to research before visiting a new country

As our regular readers know, we're only just over a week away from our Korea trip! And a lot of our free time has been spent online, researching many different things regarding travel to a new country. We kind of share the fact finding, in that Ruth is pretty much in charge of playing tour guide, while I figure out the money and logistics. But there are quite a few minor details that we also want to know, and so we've made a list of what we investigate before undertaking travel to a new country.

Who wants to go camping??!

You can come here. The weather is to die for, and we have lots of empty sites. In fact, they're almost all empty!

That's because technically, we're closed. But if anybody showed up unannounced, we wouldn't turn them away...and they'd have the park to themselves. Peace and quiet, and did I mention the perfect weather?

Half a million Won

The Canadian banks are finally making it easier to obtain a little bit of foreign cash before you travel. We're headed for South Korea, and from the research I've done it's not always easy to get some local cash using an ATM in South Korea. You have to look for ATM's that specifically display a logo that says "Global ATM".

And apparently they're not that common outside of Seoul and the tourist areas.

Laptop shopping

So as I was panicking a little yesterday when I didn't know if my laptop was going to be salvageable, I spent some time laptop shopping online. I really didn't want to buy one yet though. It's tough to find a great deal on one in Canada, and especially tough if you don't have a lot of time to look and wait for a great deal.

Thought I needed a new laptop.

Well, I do need a new laptop. But I thought I needed one now!

We're really trying to get another six weeks out of this one so that we don't have to buy a new one until we're in Seattle.

Woke up this morning, turned on the laptop and it....froze!

All dressed up!

And no place to go. Not yet, anyhow. But at least we now have the proper clothing to go somewhere all dressed up! We're going to a wedding in South Korea on October 4th, and we don't normally travel with dressy clothes. Or footwear. So we needed to get some fancy clothing and shoes.

So, it was off to the Salvation Army Thrift Store!

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.