Our first visitors!

The campground we're managing is kind of off the beaten path. So when people who know us make a special effort to come and visit, we're really appreciative!

Late Monday afternoon, Wendy and her friend Phil showed up for a four night stay! You might remember them from when we passed through Moose Jaw on our way up here a month ago.

They're on their way from Moose Jaw to visit Wendy's daughter north of Edmonton. Interestingly, they're also going to stop in and visit Derek and Teresa, a couple we helped entice down to Mexico this past winter. Coincidentally, Derek and Teresa are the ones who gave us the idea to manage a campground as they've been doing exactly that for the last few years and are currently working a campground in Alberta near the Saskatchewan border. And in an even stranger twist, it was us who gave them the contact info that led them to their current job! The internet is an amazing thing, isn't it? None of us would even know each other if not for the magic of the internet.

We had such a busy day yesterday that we forgot to take pictures! We had a lot of campsites to get cleaned up, and the grass is all of a sudden growing like crazy and needed cutting badly. We try not to do it when the campground is busy with campers. So Ruth did some campsites, while I got the big ride on mower fired up.

I went up to the overflow area and cut the grass. The mower is very fast, but there is something not quite right because a lot of areas had to be gone over twice. Hopefully it's just dull blades, but it's something I'll have to check into. And, half way through the job one of the little front tires had gone flat! Went down and got some tools, took the tire off and brought it back down to my workshop and put some air in it. Seemed fine, but by the time I was done it was almost flat again. Oddly enough, it's a tubeless tire, so I'll have to see what can be done to fix it on my next trip to town.

Speaking of going into town, that was something that had to be done yesterday. We needed to do our weekly grocery run, plus the work truck needed gas and we had almost two thousand empty cans, bottles, and beverage containers to bring back for refund so needed the truck anyhow. Otherwise we would have brought the little blue car. And, we needed to pick up an order of cleaning supplies and a new battery for the lawn tractor. We have 3 riding mowers here...no idea why!

Ruth spent some time sorting the cans and bottles and Philip came and helped for a while.

All of the refundable empties!

Philip and Wendy decided to come into town with us. Our truck has an extended cab, so there's room for four. Good thing too, because it was nice to have their help at the recycle depot. And, there's a $75 limit per person per day, so it's a good thing we had more than two people because we would have been over the limit...we had $192.60 worth of empties!

We're learning that every trip to town is a four hour excursion. 45 minutes drive each way, plus stopping at several different places to run errands. It's a bit of a pain in the butt, but there's no way around it!

Spent another $130 on groceries! We didn't think that things are that much more expensive up here, but we're proving that they actually are. Although, we're also eating more because we're doing quite a bit of physical exercise so I'm sure that's part of it. I think our grocery bills will be over $600 for this month!

We finally managed to relax for an hour with Wendy and Phil and sat around their campfire. One of the things that's nice about being this far north is that it stays light out fairly late. The sunset is at 9:05pm right now, and so it's decently light until about 9:30pm.

Wendy, Philip, and Kevin relaxing by the fire.

Thanks to our facebook fans who have moved us up into fifth spot in the Namibia contest we entered. We need a top five to make the finals, so lets hope we can hold that spot for the next three weeks or so! 

Facebook fans can vote every day at http://l.inkto.it/6eli 

Don't forget to click on the star at the far RIGHT to award us with the most points.