Long day yesterday

Was up at 4:30am yesterday morning to take Lindsey and the kids to Regina airport for their flight back to Nova Scotia.

We've been getting a lot of rain the last few days and the hill leading out of the campground gets pretty muddy. I was a little worried about the ability of the little blue car and it's driver to get us up the hill!

There was a little bit of spinning of the tires, but we made it. Then we had  to do 24 kms (15 miles) of sloppy dirt roads to get to the highway. What we put the little blue car through sometimes! But he always rises to the challenge and gets us where we need to go.

In need of a bath!

Dropped off Lindsey and the kids at the airport and did some running around on the western edge of Regina. Went to the Home Depot and got them to cut some pieces of 2x3 lumber for the sides of the box of the old truck here that I'm fixing up for the campground. And stopped at an auto parts store for a piece of gas line that was leaking.

Pretty boring drive across the prairies from here to Regina.

About 300 kms (185 miles) each way.

Made it back to the park around 2:15pm. Tired, and no ambition to do any work so I went and had a nap. Awoke feeling a bit more refreshed and went up to the shop to putter around on the old truck. 

There had been no brakes at all. The pedal went right to the floor. So the other day we had put some brake fluid in it and bled the brakes. I was amazed that the bleeder valves weren't seized up on the 50 year old truck! A lot of crap came out like there was water in the lines. No apparent leaks though, and we got the pressure up, so we'll see what happens. 

Got the oil and filter changed. Looked like it hadn't been done for years. Black as can be, and too liquidy. Strange.

Fired it up, and took it for a spin around the park! It actually runs really good, but she's a bit of a smoker. A little blue comes out the tailpipe until it warms up. Maybe have to put some STP oil treatment in it.

So today I'll build the box on the back. Trying to do things inexpensively, using mostly materials we've got around the shop. So it may not look great but it'll be serviceable and that's what counts. In fact, we had a budget of around $1,000 to get her back in working condition and it looks like we're going to be able to do it for under $200! Money well spent.

I'll show you pictures tomorrow.

Had an interesting phone call the other morning from the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency. They're the ones who look after the water level of the lake here. Apparently the huge amount of rain they've had in southern Alberta is making it's way to our area and they've had to unexpectedly open the dam again to prepare for the inflow. They said that coupled with the spring runoff from the Rocky Mountains the inflow is going to rise from the current 600 cu meters per second to at least 2,000 cubic meters per second by this weekend. The water in the lake could rise very quickly and they were warning us.

So it will be interesting to see what happens there.

Heard back from Lindsey that they arrived in Nova Scotia on schedule. Only one problem. Air Canada lost Sadie's car seat! They said "oh, we'll deliver it right to your house tomorrow".  Lindsey says "Great. How do you want me to get Sadie home right now though?"

Good question.

They gave her a brand new car seat! Apparently they keep these in stock for emergencies like this. They're not allowed to give out used ones due to safety reasons. Bonus! Sadie's old car seat was only good to 25 lbs so they were going to have to buy a new one soon anyhow. This one is good to 65 lbs. Thanks Air Canada!

Here's today's header photo, our favorite picture from the month of January 2009. We had been in Chiapas, Mexico and visited the ruins at Palenque. 

We've visited a lot of ruins sites in Mexico, but Palenque is by far our favorite!