Capture the Colour

I came across a photo contest the other day and thought it was a kind of an interesting one. Sponsored by Travel Supermarket, a British online travel seller, the contest is open to anyone around the world who has a blog.

And this blog post is actually our entry!

B-17 Bomber flies into town!

I think we were beaming all day yesterday with the news of our granddaughter's birth. Oh by the way, they've named her Sadie! We like that name! A little sister for our grandson Cameron. Can't wait to visit them in October. We sure have a lot to look forward to this fall!

Yesterday's planned post got put aside due to the much more important news so we can now get back on schedule.

We have a granddaughter!!

Big news today folks!

Lindsey and Justin had a healthy 7 lb 2 oz baby girl this morning in Ottawa! A little sister for Cameron!

...and buy a motorhome!

Yesterday's post, titled "Sell your house!" garnered a lot of attention and some questions from people who might not have thought of the possibilites of retiring to full time motorhome life.

Full time motorhome life in order to travel!!

Sell your house!

One of the reasons we are able to get by on so little money is that we don't own a house. Owning a house is a very expensive proposition, especially if it's not going up in value.

But of course you need somewhere to live. If your life circumstances aren't set up for full time travel,  then renting is a much more logical option.

Nice weekend

Uneventful weekend for us, just the way we like them around here at the campground. Beautiful summer weather, and that brought out the boaters and the day use area people. One more busy weekend to go, and that's Labor Day long weekend coming up next. But even that depends on the weather forecast. So far we still have quite a few sites available, but that should quickly change if the forecast looks nice.

While we were having a coasting kind of a weekend, our daughter Lindsey was busy.

Would you go to Cuba?

Or how about North Korea? Or Iran?

There has been a lot of discussion lately on some travel blogs regarding this topic since popular blogger Wandering Earl recently returned from a visit to North Korea and has been posting about his experiences there.

We're going to have visitors!

And we're super excited about it! Just the thing we need to break up our last month or so here at the campground.

So...who's coming to visit?

Are we "Adventure Travelers"?

Never really thought about it, but I guess maybe we are. What brought up the question was an article we saw on the Namibia Tourism Board website regarding a 10 day trip they are sponsoring for some other travel bloggers.

They're highlighting this trip as being "adventure tourism" and they explain what they mean by that...

We're ready to order our Tilley hats!

We tried on some Tilley hats yesterday.

As much as it is surprising to find some Tilley hats for sale in the tiny city of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan (pop 35,000), we were not surprised that the selection wasn't great and that some of the hats were older discontinued models.

But we still had fun trying them on!

Another job done!

When we took a walk around the park with some of the board of directors in the spring, we had been looking at various jobs that needed to be done. One of them was a big old tree stump by the beach that was pretty unsightly.

There had been a storm through here last year and a few trees had toppled over. They had cut them at the base, and most of them were okay to be left that way, but this one stump needed to go. Problem was, it was pretty big!

Finally, some peace and quiet.

We had another busy weekend here at the campground, but it went fairly smoothly. It wasn't sold out, but there weren't many empty sites.

Come yesterday evening though, the place feels like a ghost town.

The Top 100 Canadian Travel Blogs

There are literally thousands of travel blogs to be found on the internet. And there are lists of what are considered to be the top 100 travel blogs in the world, but there has never been a list that specifies the top 100 Canadian travel blogs.

Until this morning. And the most exciting part? We're on the list!

A facebook milestone for us!

We passed the 1,000 "likes" mark on our facebook page yesterday!

We know that many of you don't "do" facebook, which is why it's taken us a while to reach this particular milestone. This seems to be a generational thing and the number of facebook users declines dramatically over the age of 45. And most of our readers are between the ages of 45-65, so it's definitely a factor for our page.

What's wrong with this map?

Came across something interesting this morning, and it's going to be your geography lesson of the day! And, when we tell people we're going to Africa this winter, we really need to be more specific. Africa is a huge place...

Could be a busy weekend

Because we're actually having a stretch of summer weather! After nearing record cold overnight temperatures last week at 4C (39F), we've gradually warmed up every day and we hit 32C (90F) for yesterday's high.

And it's supposed to be warm again today. Quite a few campers showed up yesterday, and we're being told the lower campground is sold out for the weekend. We'll see. There always seems to be a cancellation or screw up that leaves us with a couple of empty sites and we haven't seen it totally full yet.

Help us choose the best hat!

We've always been "baseball cap" kind of people. In fact, I don't think we've ever owned a hat other than a baseball hat. Or a winter hat. We're from Canada, so of course we've owned a winter hat! But this coming winter, we're headed for a part of the world that is going to be sunny and very hot.

So when Tilley Endurables agreed to sponsor our African trip by supplying us with two of what are arguably the best hats in the world, we were pretty excited and looking forward to making our selection.

But there are too many to choose from. We've narrowed it down a bit, but we need your help!

Ruth's best gluten free bread recipe

A little off topic for a travel blog, but because many of you know that Ruth eats gluten free we're often asked about eating that special diet. When we're not traveling, Ruth makes a lot of food from scratch and bread is one of the more popular items.

Gluten free bread is often heavy, and falls apart easily. This is by far the best bread recipe she's found, and I like it too!

What to do with the little blue car?

With our travels from September 2013 to April 2014 basically planned out, one thing that we're not sure about is the future of the little blue car.

It's okay for this winter...we have a prepaid season of storage already arranged.

Another weekend gone

Seems we're back at the point where we're only going to be busy on the weekends here at the campground. Quite a few empty spots this morning as the weekend campers went home yesterday. We had a family reunion group up in the overflow area, but they were pretty easy to look after as they policed themselves and all we had to do was to drop firewood in two piles and empty their trash cans.

Trying different food

We've become pretty open minded when it comes to food and traveling. There are definitely some different "delicacies" around the world, and even though some of them sound a bit strange to us North Americans, the locals in these other countries don't think twice before popping it in their mouths.

So we're anticipating trying some different foods while we're in Africa. What's popular over there?

We're going to Cancun, Mexico!

Not until March of next year, but the flight is booked.

We knew that our return flight from Africa arrives in New York City on March 8. And somehow, we wanted to make our way back to our motorhome which is parked near Guadalajara, Mexico.

The strange things you see...

Yesterday was my day to head in to the thriving metropolis of Prince Albert (pop 35,000). Ruth goes in to do the grocery shopping on Wednesdays, and I go in on Thursdays. I usually go if there's anything that needs to be picked up for the campground and to fill the camp truck up with fuel. Plus, it simply gets me out of here for a few hours!

Quiet hours 11:00pm to 7:00am

What's so difficult to understand? Seems pretty self explanatory, yet this simple campground rule is the one biggest thorn in my side as a campground manager.

More Namibia trip planning

Exactly three months from today we will be in New York City boarding a plane for an epic four month journey to Namibia and Southern Africa. Lots of internet research going on during our (very little!) spare time here at the cabin!

Here's our Harvest Hosts contest winners!

Our contest last week was a resounding success. Well, at least for three of you it was! A membership to Harvest Hosts is a kind of a specialized prize so we thought that maybe not too many people would enter.

But we have lots of RV'ing readers, and 85 of you entered the contest. So, three of you have won a 1 year membership and we hope that the other 82 of you will take the time to actually buy one. For $40 a year it's money well spent and you'll enjoy the peace and solitude that comes with an overnight stay at a winery, farm, or orchard.

So, without further ado, here's our lucky winners...!

Campground fireworks show

Despite our water problems which continue this morning, it was a pretty successful weekend. The campground was pretty much full although we still had a few empty single night spaces, and even some for two nights.

But the weather was perfect. Sunny and slightly warmer than forecast...highs of around 25C (77F) so we couldn't have asked for better in that department.

And we topped it all off with a fireworks show last night!

No water!

Yesterday was our annual camp beach volleyball tournament. This is a well attended event and the players are pretty serious about it! We had 16 teams entered and the two volleyball courts on the beach were going all day. Also had a silent auction with the proceeds going to the campground, and a beach BBQ set up with steak burgers.

So with all of that going on, and a pretty much full campground...there were a LOT of people!

Wow...busy Friday!

But before we get to that, thanks to all of you medically inclined readers out there who expressed concern for my apparent wasp sting allergy. It turns out that here in Canada I can buy an EpiPen or similar device without a prescription...so no doctor visit is necessary.

But apparently I'm going to have to shop around! Initial research tells me that these devices sell for around $120.00! And there's no generic version because the patent doesn't expire until 2025. Going to have to explore this further, but yes...I will make a point of getting something like this.

Stung by a wasp, and dog sitting!

Kind of a messed up day yesterday.

Started off down at the lower wood shed getting some campers a load of firewood. All of a sudden I heard a loud buzzing near my right ear and then that severe burning pain when you know you've been bitten by a wasp. I never did see whatever it was that bit me.

July Expenses

But before we get to that...it's now August. That means we can say "next month we're outta here!"

Not that we're counting the days or anything. Well, actually we are!