Fridge back on line, but dental work not finished yet...

First, the good news. Our fridge is cooling once again!

What a job it was to figure out the problem though. It was driving me crazy because it didn't make any sense. I would actually wake up at night thinking about it because I felt like I was missing something. It took a lot of work today, but eventually I fixed the problem.

Bad refrigerator. But a good dentist!

Yes, we have a bad refrigerator. But it is certainly more important to have a good dentist!

The gas burner on the fridge has been giving us problems for the past week. It was getting worse, and yesterday I took it apart yet again when it got to the point that it wouldn't effectively keep the contents cold.

Off to the dentist...

We were due for a lazy day yesterday, so that's exactly what we had.

Got up fairly early, around 6:30am and Ruth started by baking some chocolate chip cookies while I was writing the blog post. Nothing like the smell of fresh baked goodies first thing in the morning!

Into Mazatlan...yet again!

We woke up yesterday morning to a bad inverter and a bad power supply for Ruth's little laptop. So that's the reason yesterday's blog post was late! You can read it here if you missed it.

So the number one project yesterday morning was to get our power and our laptop working again...

I guess we're here for a few more days!

We had planned on being here at Isla de la Piedra for three nights. That turned into four, and now it's going to be a full week!

Ruth has a molar that's been bothering her and getting worse. Yes, it's the same tooth that we tried to have fixed in Toluca, although our dentist friend there had said the tooth was cracked and a temporary repair might or might not work. Turns out that it didn't work, so it was off to the dentist yesterday!

Great views of Mazatlan, and a dead inverter!

Christmas day yesterday, and what did we do? We went for a hike! And of course we had a delicious Christmas dinner get together with a few of the folks at the RV park here.

Chris and Juan came over to where we're parked at around 10:00am, and we walked over to the panga (water taxi) to get over to the other side of the port.

Christmas on the Road

Merry Christmas!

Just a little different post today as we take a look back at the places we've spent Christmas day since leaving Ottawa in the fall of 2007.

Arrived at Isla de la Piedra, Mazatlan

We've been to Mazatlan a couple of times before, and we've been to Isla de la Piedra once before, but without the motorhome. This time, we're staying at Isla de la Piedra with the motorhome, but we have no interest in going into the city of Mazatlan itself.

A bit of an interesting drive to get here, and not one that we'll ever make again!

Yesterday was a perfect example.

Yesterday was a perfect example of how we travel with the motorhome. We like to depart early, travel no more than 200 kms (120 miles) in a day, and be parked up at our overnight spot before 2:00pm.

And that's pretty much exactly what happened.

Bugs and beach

That's about how our day went yesterday. The sand fleas and/or noseeums are so bad, that you can't really sit outside your RV and enjoy the fresh air. And if you sit inside, you had better close up all the windows because those little buggers will come right through your screens and attack you.

And they're so tiny that you won't even see it coming.

A short distance...but a long drive!

When you're driving an RV in Mexico, you have to be patient. You have to realize that you won't get anywhere fast. Even on the toll highways, it makes sense to take your time. And when you're taking secondary roads, you have no choice but to take your time!

Yesterday, we did 95 kms (59 miles) and driving non-stop it took us almost two and a half hours.

RV Parks in Lo de Marcos

At last count, there were around 8 or 9 different RV parks in the little town of Lo de Marcos. The other day we showed you the granddaddy of them all, the fully equipped Tlaquepaque Resort. We have seen all of the other parks in the area, and chose what we think is the best of the rest.

So, here's a look at where we've been for the last two nights...the La Parota RV Park.

Moving...but very slowly!

On Wednesday, we made it to Lo de Marcos. A whole 18 kms (11 miles) up the coast!

Not that we're in any rush. But we are wanting to make it to Mazatlan for Christmas, and we want to stop in San Blas for a night or two. So we can't linger too long in one spot. Still, we're now on our fourth different overnight stop and we've only traveled 66 kms (41 miles).

Tlaquepaque Bungalows and RV Resort

Yep, we spent the night at an RV Resort. One of the very few actual full service RV parks in Mexico. Two swimming pools, beautifully manicured grounds, lots of activities, good wi-fi, and 30 amp electricity, and it's right on a great section of beach in a quiet Mexican town!

This place has it all.

The busy beach town of Sayulita

We hit the road yesterday morning at about 10:30am. We were headed for Sayulita, which is only about 22 kms (13 miles) away! But we weren't positive that's where we were going to spend the night, so wanted to get there fairly early just in case we had to move on.

We love short driving days...but this is pretty short!

We're on the road!

But before we could move the motorhome, we had to move the puppies! You'll remember that six puppies were born underneath Sherman just over a week ago. Mom had made a sort of a nest under there, and they were quite happy.

But, we had to get on the road so Garry built her a new nest.

There's a scorpion in the motorhome!

So I had just gone to bed last night, and Ruth was on the computer. I heard a bit of a shriek and Ruth saying "Kevin, there's a scorpion on the floor!".

Sure enough, there was a scorpion.

How does a scorpion find it's way into the motorhome?? Can't quite figure that out!

Picked up some deals!

Busy day yesterday. We didn't really plan on it, but we ended up doing a bunch of shopping. One of the other campers here, Rick from Washington, was going in to the Costco store in Puerto Vallarta and we were going to take the bus in anyhow so he offered us a ride. We ended up just staying with him and picked up a few items at each stop.

We were gone almost four hours!

Busloads of kids have arrived!

It rained yesterday morning, which is odd for this time of year. The dry season has begun, and usually that means no rain for months at a time. But it had cleared up by 10:00am, and we decided to go for a walk.

One of the things we like about this area is that there are lots of country trails to walk on that surround the farm fields.

Rancho Altarose RV Park

We really like it here. We're out in the country, and yet we're only 25 kms (15 miles) from Puerto Vallarta. It's quiet, and we have beautiful views of the hills from our side window. Occasionally a tractor, or a couple of guys on horseback will go down the road beside us.

It's about 20 minutes to walk in to town.

Figuring our route to Arizona

We had a good day yesterday!

We had been in contact with a couple from Louisiana. Pat and Geraldine had never driven in Mexico, but they were prepared to ignore the negative American media reports and not listen to the friends who called them crazy. They wanted to drive their little Toyota motorhome to Mexico! So we had several emails back and forth and we gave them some tips. Fortunately, they also contacted someone to travel with, and they made their way from the Texas border down here to Puerto Vallarta area.

Tilley Clothing Update

Thought we should give you an update on how we're doing with our Tilley clothing. We've now had our hats, socks, and underwear for over a year, so lets start with them first.

Around this time last year, one of Ruth's socks got a hole in it. Just a small one, and we think that she snagged it on something. The hole hasn't become any larger, and the socks are not showing any signs of wearing out.

Puerto Vallarta doesn't do it for us...

Yes, the big tourist city of Puerto Vallarta. People typically spend thousands of dollars to come here and spend a week or two vacationing in the sun. Many come for the entire winter. There are two Walmart Supercenters, a Sam's Club, a Costco, a Home Depot among all the other big box stores. And, you don't even have to know any Spanish to get by here. Walking down the malecon, everybody will talk to you in English. Most people simply love it!

Us? Not so much!

Puppies - and then there were six!

At the time I wrote yesterday morning's post, there were two new born puppies living under our motorhome.  As the morning progressed, the number of puppies steadily grew.

I watched the last one being born at 12:30pm. And then there were six!

We have puppies!

They were born last night...or maybe even this morning. And where were they born?

Underneath our motorhome!

Good thing we're not in a rush to go anywhere...

Brake problem diagnosed!

I spent some time yesterday morning crawling around underneath Sherman trying to diagnose his brake problem, and sure enough I spotted the cause.

The brake line running along the side of the frame rail has developed a little pinhole leak.

Well, that was an expensive day...

As I expected, Sherman fired right up. Even after sitting for eight months or so, all I had to do was turn the key and he was ready to go!

We wanted to take Sherman for a drive and see if everything was okay. And, we needed to do a big grocery shop. And, I had left Sherman's gas tank empty, so we needed to stop for gas and top up the air in the tires.

Everything was going smoothly until we didn't see a tope (speed bump)!

Some serious motorhome cleanup!

Sitting for 7 months in the humidity down here near Puerto Vallarta isn't very good for a motorhome. We're 15 kms inland from the ocean, so we're not worried about salt. But the humidity and rain over the summer causes stuff to start growing on the exterior.

It was not nice seeing poor Sherman in this state, so we got right to cleaning things up!

We're back in our motorhome!

Spent most of the last two hours trying to write a blog post. Unfortunately it seems that our cellular internet stick isn't making a very good connection this morning here at Altarose Rancho RV Park.

So, not sure when we'll get this posted. On top of that, I can't get Chrome to open up, so am trying to work it with Internet Explorer and that's not going so well either!

But on the bright side...we're back in our motorhome!

All we do is eat and laugh!

Ruth made a comment yesterday that when we're visiting our friends Paco and Oti, all we do is eat and laugh. Yep, that's pretty much true.

Yesterday morning we cleaned up the house where we were staying for the weekend. The goal was to leave it in better shape than when we arrived. But one thing screwed up!

Busy Sunday in Valle de Bravo

We relaxed for the morning, then after lunch we took the collectivo taxi into Valle de Bravo. A "collectivo taxi" is a taxi that runs a regular route, but it's shared with other people who it stops to pick up along the way. It's just a cheaper version of a taxi. From where we are, it costs 10 pesos ($0.87) each to take the collectivo taxi, whereas if we flagged down a private taxi it would cost 50 pesos ($4.35) in total.

Made it into town, and traffic was bad...so we got out and walked!

What's the plan...?

We fly to Puerto Vallarta on Tuesday where we'll be reunited with our motorhome Sherman. He's been waiting there for us since April! Poor guy.

I know he's been missing us, and we've been missing him!

Back in Valle de Bravo!

This is our fourth time visiting Valle de Bravo. We can't figure out why this beautiful spot isn't more on the radar of people visiting Mexico. We're only here for the weekend, but already we're saying we should have planned for longer.

Next time, it'll be for a couple of weeks!

Ruth's birthday party

The original plan for yesterday was to head to Valle de Bravo. But when our friends Paco and Oti found out that it was Ruth's birthday, they insisted on helping us celebrate! So we stayed in Toluca for one more day.

Oti took off from work early, and she and Ruth made up a birthday dinner, and a cake!

What a day we had!

But first of all...Happy Birthday to my beautiful wife Ruth! Hoping that this year is fantastic and that it will be followed by many more!

And secondly...Happy Thanksgiving to all of our American friends and readers. We sincerely hope that you have a lot to be thankful for this year, and that you think often of others who perhaps don't have much to be thankful for.

We are thankful for the great day that we had yesterday and that we are spending our time with good friends!

Back to Mexico City

We lazed around much of the day yesterday. Our flight back to Mexico City wasn't until 4:20pm, so we didn't have to get to the airport until 3:00pm or so. Puerto Escondido is just a small airport so it doesn't take long to get checked in and through security.

Made it out for one last breakfast at our favorite breakfast spot at Olas Altas Hotel's restaurant.

Off to the Mexican Doctor...

Ruth has been having a problem with one of her ears feeling like it's blocked up.We know there are over the counter and homemade solutions for trying to fix and maintain ear wax build up, but she was also having some itching and minor pain, so we figured we had better go have it looked at.

Especially since we're hopping on a plane again today!

Family Day in Mexico

Just a lazy Sunday yesterday. We went and hung out at Alfredo's mother's place in La Barra. The original plan was that Alfredo was going to go net fishing in the lagoon, but he was late getting there and then it got too hot. Oh well...it's Mexico.

Sunday is typically family day in Mexico. Most Mexicans work a six day week, so Sunday is the only day to get together with family.

Now that's a BBQ!

We walked downtown again yesterday morning. Ruth wanted to get her hair cut, and we needed to go to the bank and get some more dinero. And maybe a quick stop at the grocery store again.

Didn't bring the camera this time though. Sometimes you just don't feel like being weighted down with things.

Our Puerto Escondido Apartment

We wanted to tell you a little more about the place where we're staying here in Puerto Escondido. We were pretty specific about what we were looking for, and it's pretty tough to find a place that has everything going for it.

Bungalows El Maguey came pretty close though, so we signed up for an eight night stay!

Back to the Beach!

We did a little more travel planning yesterday morning. We leave here Tuesday afternoon, flying back to Mexico City. But we need to get to Toluca, which is another city just outside of Mexico City. Our plane doesn't arrive until 5:30pm and we figured that was getting a bit late for navigating subways and buses to get out of the big city.

So we booked another hotel room.

Day trip to San Pedro Mixtepec

San Pedro Mixtepec is a town about 20 kms (13 miles) inland from Puerto Escondido. It's just a quiet place, with not much to see, but it's a great place to go just for a day trip to get away from the beach. And along the way, there's the University's Botanical Gardens.

So just for something to do, we hopped on the collectivo and went for a ride.

Lots to do around Puerto Escondido

All we need is some ambition to get out and do some of it! We're totally enjoying just doing nothing, although we do have some plans over the next few days.

For example, there's a botanical gardens that we want to visit. It's located about 15 minutes outside of town on highway 131. We didn't know which collectivo to take, but we found out who to ask!

Looks like winter is off to an early start

Yikes. Looking at the weather across most of the United States and Canada makes us quite happy that we're in hot and sunny Mexico! We're planning on heading up to the southern Arizona and California area in January...I guess we'll keep an eye on the weather before making that decision.

Don't mind chilly nights, but so long as it's warm enough for a light jacket when doing some hiking we'll be fine.

Moving day

We moved to our "vacation" property yesterday! Nice little spot and it'll do fine for a week. Closer to the action, and a little more privacy than we have had for the last six days! Still, we enjoyed spending time with our friends in La Barra. And we'll see them again a few more times even though we've moved.

We had planned on going to the beach yesterday, but we never made it!

An update about our Mexican friends

In response to a couple of recent comments...yes, we need a vacation. We know that sounds odd. But we've have been going pretty much non stop since we left Saskatchewan just over six weeks ago. Moving every few days and living out of a backpack does take a toll and you do need a break from it every now and again.

I wanted to talk a little more about how things are going with our adopted Mexican family.

WiFi in Korea!

We're behind on a few things that we have been wanting to tell you about, so we'll try and get caught up throughout the rest of this week.

Our regular readers know that we like to tell you about details that can make your travels better, and one of the things we came across that was really convenient during out trip to Korea was our own portable source of internet!

All three goals accomplished!

We went to the main tourist area of Playa Zicatela yesterday morning. With three goals in mind. One, to get breakfast at a spot we had visited almost two years ago. Two, to visit some fellow Canadians. And three, to find a place closer to the beach to spend our last week here.

All goals accomplished!

Family chicken dinner for $5.00!

We finally made it to Playa Zicatela and Puerto Escondido. We had driven through Puerto Escondido on the way from the airport, but otherwise we've just been hanging out at La Barra.

So yesterday morning, we hopped into the collectivo and first made our way to the beach.

Life in La Barra

Got up this morning and had a shower. Not the typical shower that we would normally have! You stand in the small shower room with a drum filled with water, and a curtain over the entrance way. You then dump cold water over yourself using a small bucket.

Not much of a problem using the cold water. The daytime temperature is usually between 30C (86F) and 33C (92F) and it rarely falls below 22C (72F) at night.

You really don't need any hot water!

Relaxing in La Barra (part 2)

Okay...sorry about that. I don't like only giving you half a blog post! I've made it up to the Oxxo corner store and I've charged up our internet stick with a 400 peso ($34) credit. That gives us 3GB of usage, or 30 days...whichever comes first.

So, let's continue from our post this morning.

Relaxing in La Barra

"La Barra" is the village of La Barra de Colotopec. It's located about 7 kms (4 miles) SE of Puerto Escondido. It's mostly local Mexicans living a very basic lifestyle, with the odd gringo passing through on his way to surf at the beach ten minutes away.

It's a pretty laid back place!

Back in Puerto Escondido!

We are back in La Barra de Colotopec, the little village by the river where we first met our friends Alfredo and Mary almost six years ago. We're about 7 kms (4 miles) south east of Puerto Escondido.

We flew here yesterday from Mexico City. We used VivaAerobus, a Mexican discount carrier. It's one of those airlines that offers a very cheap base fare, and then adds on for anything extra.

Mexico City and Computer Crash

We caught up on our sleep yesterday morning. Then, I unsuccessfully tried to do some repairs to my old laptop when it suddenly wouldn't boot up. I can't even get it to boot in safe mode. It's almost like it's not even recognizing that the hard disc exists. So unfortunately, I believe the hard disc is done.But hopefully I can eventually salvage some pictures and information from it.

All of our pics are also on Ruth's little laptop, with the exception of most of our San Francisco pics.

Hello Mexico!

Well, we're back in Mexico. We'll be in the country at least for the next two months I would say. No firm plans, but we want to see the Copper Canyon before we leave! Then maybe in the mid January time frame we'll tour around Arizona for a month or two in Sherman the motorhome. We don't arrive back at the motorhome for another three weeks, so we'll figure out our plan then.

So, we're in Mexico City, but really it's only for a stopover.

On our way to Mexico City!

Wow. We're finally on our way to Mexico City. Writing this from Phoenix Airport where we're waiting for our connecting flight.

We had a great day yesterday spending some time with our couchsurfing hosts David and his twin 5 year olds Benjamin and Sophia. First, they dropped us off at the California Academy of Sciences while they went for brunch. Then, they brought us outside of San Francisco, a little bit north to the Muir Woods National Monument.

Fun time sailing San Francisco Bay!

We went sailing yesterday!

There are a lot of boat tours that do San Francisco bay, but we wanted to do something a little different. A sailing company called Adventure Cat Sailing Charters does catamaran tours of the bay, and we've never been sailing on a catamaran style vessel.

What a great time!

Doing Some Time on Alcatraz

Yesterday, we did some time on Alcatraz. And, we saw somebody who really did do time on Alcatraz!

It was another great day in San Francisco, and we spent about four hours touring the island of Alcatraz. This island in San Francisco Bay is best known because of  the inescapable federal prison that existed there between 1934 and 1963. We're going to tell you a little about the best way to do this tour. And, it is a tour that you really should do some day!

The Streets of San Francisco

I was a young teen when this 1970's series starring Karl Malden and a very young looking Michael Douglas was popular. So I don't remember it very well, but it would sure be interesting to watch it now that we've seen some of those streets!

We did a hop-on hop-off bus tour yesterday. It took us all over the streets of San Francisco!

Hello San Francisco!

We've been wanting to visit San Francisco for a long time. In fact, even before I met Ruth I've been wanting to visit. The closest I came was way back in 1988 when I went to a conference in San Jose, only a few miles south of the Bay. But I flew into San Jose airport at the time, and never did see the city of San Francisco itself.

But we're here now, and we're pretty excited. We don't think five days is enough!

Seattle's Pacific Science Center

We had tickets to the IMAX 3D theater located at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, right beside the base of the Space Needle.

We had a choice of movies to see, and because we're leading up to Veterans Day (Rememberence Day in Canada) we thought it was only fitting to go see D-Day 3D - Normandy 1944.

Time flies when you're having fun

Tomorrow morning, we fly to San Francisco! Can you believe we have already done four days in Seattle? Wow.

I know we've already told you about some of the attractions we've seen, but there's been a lot more going on behind the scenes...

Seattle Underground Paranormal Experience!

Many of you will remember the popular 1984 movie "Ghostbusters".

Well on Saturday night, we became Ghostbusters ourselves when we joined the Underground Paranormal Experience searching for spooky happenings in the underground passages that once formed Seattle's streetfronts back in the late 1800's.

Seattle Architecture Tour

We got on the bus at 9:20am in order to get downtown by 10:00am for our tour.

The Seattle Architecture Foundation does quite a few different tours, but because it was our first time in Seattle, we figured we had better do the "Greatest Hits" tour in order to see the most interesting buildings that shape the city's skyline.

What it cost for a month in Korea

This is actually our October expense report, but we'll give a little more detail about our costs in Korea since 28 of the 31 days of the month were spent in Korea itself.

Overall, the trip was slightly more expensive than we expected. But we had a lot of help from friends and the people we met along the way. Korea is probably one of the most expensive places to visit in Asia, except for Japan and the larger cities of Singapore and Hong Kong. It's certainly not as cheap as what we've heard regarding Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and that area.

Pike Street Market and the Space Needle - Seattle

Friday started off as a rainy day...welcome to Seattle!

We took the bus from the north end to downtown. It was about a forty minute ride and the bus stop was right out front of where we're staying. Pretty convenient, and priced at $2.25 ($2.55 CAN) per person.

The one bus brought us right downtown.

Time Travel to Seattle!

We were sitting in Seoul's Incheon airport yesterday afternoon, waiting for our flight to Seattle. About a hour before boarding, I got an email from our couchsurfing host in Seattle informing us that her sister and niece had been in a car accident and that she was not going to be able to host us.

So all of a sudden we were going to be arriving in Seattle, with nowhere to stay!

Last day in Korea

Sitting at Seoul's Incheon International airport, awaiting our flight to Seattle, USA.

We had a great last day in Seoul. We went and visited a palace, then an interactive museum, then dinner with friends...a fantastic way to end our first visit to Asia!

Busy hiking trail...but worth it!

The weather here in Seoul has become perfect for hiking, and so we decided to take advantage of it. High temperature of about 16C (62F), and with clear sky and sunshine. Perfect to hit the trails.

Seoul is a huge city, and Korea is a very mountainous country. Depending on what you read, there are about 37 different mountains that you can climb that are located in the greater Seoul area.

Which one did we decide to climb? Well, the tallest one of course!

Wandering around Seoul

We didn't have a plan today, so we just made things up as we went along.

Besides, part of traveling like we do means that we have to spend a certain amount of time on the internet researching our onward travel, so we did take some time this morning looking up some things regarding our upcoming travel day on Thursday when we fly back across the Pacific Ocean to Seattle, Washington.

Back in Seoul (part 2)

Sunday morning, we were up at about 8:30am. June's mom made breakfast, and what a meal it was! Not used to eating that much food at that hour, and some if it was a little different for us. There was squid, and seaweed soup. I found the soup a little strong tasting at that hour. And squid has a nice flavor, but it's a little rubbery. But the beef and rice was really tasty.

Good thing we had lots of food though, because after breakfast we went for a hike with June, and headed up the mountain behind where her parents live.

Back in Seoul

Yes, we are currently back in Seoul. But we had a busy weekend, and we really want to tell you all about both days, so...we'll get caught up on two posts during the next 24 hours!

So first, let's go back to Saturday morning.

We got up at 7:00am, because we had bought tickets on the 9:40am bus from Gyeongju to Gimcheon. A direct bus only leaves three times per day, so we had bought tickets a day ahead of time to make sure we had seats on that particular bus.

Overall, a good day. But a little disappointed...

We came to Gyeongju because there are three UNESCO rated heritage sites here.

The city itself is nice enough, but I'm not sure I'd plan a special trip here. Our preference would have been more time in the southern coastal area.

A look at our "love" hotel!

Late last night there was a knock on the door and it was our couchsurfing host Kim. Ruth had left her cheap reading glasses in the restaurant the night before, and Kim had made a special effort to go get them and bring them back to her!

Have we mentioned that Kim is a great guy?!

Great plans, but...

This time, things didn't come together.

We wanted to see the show at the world's largest water fountain. We had read that the Sunset Fountain of Dreams musical water fountain was really something to see, so after the morning rain cleared up a bit, we headed out on an excursion to Dadaepo Beach where the fountain is located.

Overwhelmed by the generosity of strangers

It was forecast to be a rainy day here in Busan, but we figured we would make an effort to get outside anyhow. And, we had heard from another couchsurfer here who offered to get together with us and show us around, so we asked her if she wanted to join us. She said that she had a car and would meet us at a nearby subway stop at 10:00am.

It was almost 10:10am and I was about to give up when we heard a call from across the busy street.

Couchsurfing comes through for us again!

Just after I lamented in a recent post that I was a little frustrated with couchsurfering, one of the hosts came through for us in a big way!

But before we get to that, I need to update you on the last three days...

Our Beomeosa Templestay experience!

When we were discussing our current trip with Korea Tourism's Toronto office, they asked if we were interested in taking part in their Templestay program. We had heard about it, and thought that it would be an interesting experience to learn about Buddhism and experience a day in the life of a Buddhist monk.

They have quite a few different programs available, but when we read about one that has a "trekking" option, we had the pen in hand, ready to sign up!

Joined the Korean Navy!

What a beautiful day today. We just wandered the city of Yeosu, and what a lot of fun we came across!

Tom and Elicia had come up with a bit of a walking tour for us, and we figured we could do it in somewhere between two and four hours depending on how many little side trips we did along the way. But we found there is simply too much to see! What a beautiful city!

A temple with a view

We had stayed up late last night (past midnight!) with Tom and Elicia. Great conversation, and a few laughs too. They're a fun young couple with a fantastic future ahead of them. Anyhow, 8:00am came around pretty fast, and they still had to go to work. We were up pretty much just in time to say goodbye to them, but thankfully we didn't have to rush off anywhere.

We've been going pretty much nonstop since we arrived here just under two weeks ago, but of course we're only here for 28 days and we don't want to waste any of our time.

A long travel day

I think we traveled about 250 kms (155 miles) as the crow flies and it took us 12 hours to do it! But everything happened according to plan, including a great evening with our new friends for the next three days!

It was an early start to the day. We were up at 5:30am!

The Koreans have this right...

Our plans this morning depended on the weather.

If it was nice and sunny with a clear blue sky, we were going to be headed up to the top of Mount Hallasan. No visit to Jeju Island is complete without a hiking trip to the top of the highest peak in South Korea.

And if the mountain looked too cloudy, we would do a hike along the coast.

Lava tubes and volcano craters

Last night as we went to bed, the wind was blowing like crazy! The windows were rattling, and with the forecast calling for the edge of the typhoon to brush against our area, we weren't sure what kind of sleep we were in for.

Next thing you know, we woke up and it was morning!

The typhoon has begun...

We left Jeju City this morning and headed down to the other major city on the island, Seogwipo. We had read that it wasn't that easy to figure out the intercity buses on the island, but we didn't find a problem. In fact, we thought it was relatively easy!

We took the number 780 bus. It stops at various points around Jeju City and we thought the stops were all well marked. The only problem we encountered was knowing where exactly to get off once we reached our destination, but the bus driver made sure to let us know. There is an automatic route callout system on the bus, and it does so in English as well as Korean, so that helps as well.

On Garbage Detail

We had been communicating with a fellow named Jim who runs the Jeju Island Tourism facebook page. He asked if we wanted to join him on a volunteer trail hike whereby the volunteers pick up trash along the trail. They're having a trail festival here next month and they want this particular 18 km section to be as clean as can be so they're doing "clean-up" hikes four times this month in preparation for the festival.

We volunteered to join in!

Love it when a plan comes together - Jeju Island!

We had a plan, but a lot of things could have gone wrong. So we were totally happy that it came together the way we wanted it to.

The plan started with getting up this morning. At 5:30 in the morning!

It's always an adventure...

I'm telling you, I can't believe we managed to get on and off both the correct buses today. It's almost amazing.

You can't understand what's on most of the signs, and you can't ask anybody any questions. It's actually a very strange feeling. So when we went out to the bus stop and actually managed to get on the right bus...you feel like you hit the jackpot!

Riding the rails at 300 km/h (186 mph)!

Yesterday, I had been on the Korail website to check what time our train was going to leave. I had read that from Monday to Friday you can easily travel without a reservation. But it looked like it was really easy to book, and the website was all in English, so I went ahead and bought our tickets online.

I was given a reservation number, and the whole transaction proceeded seamlessly. We were booked on the 12:20pm train from Seoul's Yongsan Train station. Note...Seoul has two major train stations, so you need to make sure you know which one your train is leaving from!

Fun day exploring Seoul, but not without it's hiccups!

We left the apartment at about 10:30am. A little later than planned, but still lots of time to see the things we wanted to see. But wow...this is such a huge city and we keep on coming across new things that make us realize that you could spend a month here and not see everything you want to.

This was our first day out exploring in Korea on our own! We went down to the subway and had no problem transferring and getting off at the correct stop near the Seoul Tower. Although, we did stop and pull out the subway map to have a look. Only took seconds and a local Korean was there to ask if we needed help. They're really good that way. If you look like a lost tourist, somebody will ask if you need help!

Views of Seoul from our Han River cycling tour!

This is a fun and inexpensive activity for anybody wanting to tour Seoul a little bit differently. And, you can get some exercise at the same time!

Koreans love cycling. So much that they have transformed much of the shoreline of the Han River that runs through the middle of the city into park space and wide, well marked bicycle paths. On a beautiful day, it's a great way to see the city. And it really gives you an idea of what a big city this is!

Dancers, acrobats, and tightropes

What a fun day we had!

We got an email this morning from our friend June, saying that she and her boyfriend Park would like to take us to the Korean Folk Village in Yongin, about a half hour south of Seoul.

"Sure", we said..."let's go"!

A Korean Wedding

But because this was an international event, it was not a traditional wedding. The whole affair was done the way the bride and groom wanted it done and because she is Korean, and he is Canadian, they mixed things up a little bit! And good for them!

We were ready to go around 10:00am, and our friend June arrived to go with us.

Made it to Seoul, South Korea!

Wow. That was a long day.

But everything went without a hitch. The plane was only a few minutes late leaving, and it was a smooth eleven hour flight.

The time zone thing is different though!

Made it to Seattle!

Our flight from Calgary was an hour and a half late leaving because of a light bulb that wouldn't light! Some kind of a safety thing, so it's all good...but at least they didn't board us first. So we had an extra bit of time sitting around Calgary airport.

But some people had tight connections in Seattle and they weren't happy!

Made it to Calgary!

Liz came and picked us up right at 9:45am this morning in Cabri. She was heading into Swift Current anyhow and so we hitched a ride. We had a 45 minute drive to the Greyhound bus terminal, and then we waited for our 11:35am departure for Calgary.

The bus arrived and then the delays started.

What do we pack for a two month trip?

What a busy day we had yesterday getting ready to leave the park. I spent most of the morning helping the guy who comes in to blow out the waterlines. He has a huge diesel powered compressor that we hook up to the various lines and have to go around opening all of the valves until all of the water is out of them. Inevitably I'm still expecting there will be some freezing damage to repair in the spring, but you can only do the best you can do. Then in the afternoon I changed the oil in all of the vehicles and equipment so that it would be all fresh and ready to go next spring.

Meanwhile Ruth was cleaning up the house trailer, and sorting and storing things in there. Once we got everything done, it was time to pack!

September Expenses

A bit of an expensive month!

But, that's partly because we paid for a lot of our November airfare this month, which means that pretty much all of our winter travel is bought and paid for which means that all you'll see for the coming months is our living expenses. Really curious to see how that works out in South Korea!

One more sleep and we're outta here!

We're down to our final day at the park.

We'll sleep here tonight, and then tomorrow morning will be spent winterizing and tidying up the house trailer that we've been living in for the last five months. Oh, and packing! Then, because we won't have any running water after the trailer is winterized, we'll spend Tuesday night at a motel in the nearby town of Cabri.

And then Wednesday morning...we're off!

How to rust proof your car.

Yes, this blog is supposed to be about travel, but we like to mix things up a little and pass on helpful hints from our day to day life as well. Like how to clean your stove and this post about how to inexpensively and effectively rustproof your car.

For those who don't know, I spent 20 years working in the auto body and paint industry. I was a professional painter, and a licensed collision repair technician. There's a reason the little blue car doesn't have any rust on it. I do my own rustproofing.

The little blue car hits a milestone

We bought the little blue car just over eight years ago. It's the only car we've ever owned that we bought brand new. At the time, I was doing some contract work with GMAC (General Motors Acceptance Corporation) and they offered us a deal at $500 over dealer invoicing and 0% financing over four years. I think it came to around $13,000 plus tax.

Couldn't turn it down!

Nine flights for under $1,000

I mentioned yesterday that we booked our final flights for this year. It'll be our first time flying with Virgin America for our trip from Seattle to San Francisco on November 4th. Paid $84 each for that flight. Great deal.

So just for fun, I added up what our upcoming flights cost us. Turns out that we're going to be on nine different airplanes over the next two months or so!

Feel like we're getting behind on things!

Having taken Tuesday to explore, and Wednesday to go into town and do one final grocery shop I now feel like we're getting a little behind on things. Both here at the park, and to do with finalizing our upcoming travel.

But, I just finished reserving the last flight...so we're totally booked now!

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.

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.

Our old laptops

Wow...slept in this morning! Ruth looks at the clock and says "that can't be right!". It was 7:45am!

But it was correct. It's a bit of a dull morning with some rain, so it wasn't very bright outside. Plus, I had been up until 11:30pm or so counting the weekend's receipts to be handed in, so I guess I was tired.

A day in the life of campground managers

Ruth was up around 7:00am yesterday. I was closer to 7:30am. Slept like a rock. I had called the RCMP and asked if they could do a drive through late Saturday evening, and apparently they had done so. They even called back and left a message that everything was okay.

After the fireworks, most people had called it a night, so we were a little surprised that it was a fairly quiet Saturday night considering it was a long weekend and we're full up.

But yesterday during the day was busy for us.

Fireworks!

I'm impressed that individual campers in a little regional park like this can raise $2,000 in private donations to put on a spectacular fireworks show.

And word gets out, and people came from miles around to watch the show. I heard several regulars saying that the park had never been so full. And, we had no late night problems last night!

Three drunks and a fire ring

Wow, busy day yesterday. And the campground is full. We got everybody checked in okay, with one exception. Turned out okay, but it could have been a pain.

So this one lady checked in to a tenting site that she had reserved. She asked for a load of firewood to be delivered, but when Russell went to drop it off, he said the site was empty.

July Expenses

Wow, today is the first day of August! Time is flying. We are 3/5 of the way through our contract here. And after this weekend, the park will be slowly emptying out over the next six weeks.

July expenses were pretty much right on schedule, in fact we had a pretty cheap month.

Finally made it out onto the lake!

Went out on a three hour boat trip yesterday evening. Great to finally get out on the lake and see what's around the corner!

The more we see of this little part of Saskatchewan, the more we like it. Took lots of pics for a change, so enjoy...

What's important to you?

Just curious what it is that makes for a great campground?

As campground managers, we know what we like and we try to implement those things into the park that we're running. But our ideas are ours alone, and we know that we don't always think like your typical RVer!

8 Reasons You Should Take an RV Vacation

Before we got into the RV lifestyle, we used to be tent campers. We took a lot of camping vacations with our children, including one two week long excursion to Newfoundland, Canada.

It was a lot of fun. But when it rained, or there were too many bugs, we were envious of the people in the RV's!

Our Oasis on the Prairies

This place where we are working really is a little oasis. Surrounded by the farm fields of the Saskatchewan prairies, you wouldn't even know it exists until you're almost here.

Yesterday, we went for a walk around the hills surrounding the park.

It's looking like a great week

And it's going to be busy here at the park. Next weekend is August long weekend here in Canada and the campground is sold out. Almost. We still have a couple of tenting sites open, but the tenters tend to wait until the last minute to see what the weather's going to be like.

And so far, the weather is looking like it's going to be great!

Would you visit Kazakhstan?

Do you even know where it is??

We receive quite a few emails from our readers, but I was surprised to open an email from a reader who lives in Kazakhstan and invited us to visit. I had actually forgotten about this until I saw a news article the other day regarding tourist visas to Kazakhstan, which have been historically very difficult to obtain.

Gotta give credit where it's due

Cell phone companies take a lot of flack, and usually with good reason. They simply don't seem to have very good customer service. We've also experienced poor service with them, and several times over the years I've been frustrated by their stupidity, for lack of a better word.

But yesterday I actually had a good customer service experience!

We love going to church!

Just not on Sunday mornings.

Anybody who knows us, knows that we are not religious people in any way. However, we do like going to church, and we have probably been to more churches than most people who are religious!

Couchsurfers coming for a visit!

We're excited that we've got couchsurfers coming this weekend! A younger married couple and their dog visiting Canada from the Netherlands.

Finally, we get to give back to the system. We had hosted a couple of times when we owned our home back in 2007, but since we sold we have only hosted once, when we hosted our friend June from South Korea.

Solar Panel Price Drop!

I can't believe how much solar panels have dropped in price since we originally equipped our motorhome with them almost six years ago. It's to the point where I can't really understand why anybody wouldn't have them.

I mean, even if you always park in RV parks, wouldn't you want the option of being self sufficient if you want to be?

Best rainbow ever!

They were calling for a thunderstorm yesterday afternoon, and boy did we ever get one! It poured buckets for about a half an hour and then it slowly tapered off for another half hour.

And then the clouds abruptly moved on and the sun came out!

More than half way through

I meant to mention it last week, but we are now more than half way through our time here at the park. And, more than half way through busy season. The time has gone quickly!

As we get into the second half of our time here, we find ourselves doing more planning for the coming off season.

Park of the Year!

The Saskatchewan Regional Parks system has 75 different parks.  Each year, the Regional Parks board choose a "Park of the Year" and a "Park on the Move".

The park we managed last year was chosen as "Park of the Year"!

A two km hike at two o'clock in the morning!

We knew there would be nights like this. In fact, we've been lucky so far in that this is the first one at this campground.

The park is sold out this weekend, and will be for the next two weekends. Everybody comes out to enjoy the weekend, and some of them stay up too late. Often, it's the young people, but not always!

How often do you play?

We play almost every day! Whether we're traveling or staying here at the park, we always have some sort of game available to keep us occupied.

And when do we play?

During dinner!

Gluten Free Beer

The words "Free Beer" go really well together, but the words "Gluten Free Beer" don't do so well!

In fact, we haven't found any decent gluten free beer yet. That is, until we found out that a lot of beer is gluten free anyhow!

If you hate mosquitoes, you need to read this post!

This seems to be an exceptionally bad summer for mosquitoes in many parts of North America. So I'm going to explain how we deal with these little pests.

In one word, Thermacell

Planning for South Korea

Ruth has been spending a lot of her free time on the internet, planning for South Korea. For the most part, I do the searching for the best travel prices (planes, trains, buses, etc.) and she does the searching for the best things to do once we get there!

So far, it looks like we're not going to have much problem using up our 28 days there!

Great weekend!

What a good weekend we had! The campground was packed, the weather was perfect, and the people were having fun.

We put in lots of hours though!

My Grandfather's Watch

I didn't get to know either one of my grandfathers. On my dad's side, my grandfather lived in British Columbia and I only met him once, when my father took me for a visit in 1966. I was four years old, and he passed away suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack later that year. He was only 61.

On my mom's side, my grandfather lived in Toronto, and while we visited once or twice a year, he also passed away very young.

Almost a full house!

It's pretty quiet during the week here at the park. But on the weekends, the place is hopping! Our full hookup campsites are sold out this weekend, and will be sold out for the next three weekends.

Apparently things start to quiet down again after the August long weekend here in Canada (Aug 2, 3, 4).

How to save big shopping at Amazon

Okay, so I'll admit that we're fairly new to this. But in researching how best to serve you with this, I came across some things that will actually help you save money.

As our regular readers know, we're pretty frugal. I don't think we're "cheap". We just like getting the best value for our money, and a big part of that is not paying regular price for something. Everything comes on sale at some point in time, so if you can at all avoid it, don't buy something unless it's on sale.

So, here's what we found...

Almost finished!

Wow, what a busy four days we had! You'll notice that we took a rare blog post holiday on one of them. So now we've got some catching up to do with you and we have a few things to talk about.

Number one is our almost finished playground that is open for business!

Our Namibia top ten!

Back in January, we told you the ten reasons that you should visit Namibia . Today, we're going to tell you the ten places that you should visit while you're there!

We've put some new pictures in today's post, as well as the link back to when we were there so you can get more information.

If you give someone an inch...

they'll try and take a mile!

The Regional Parks of Saskatchewan have a policy that every passenger vehicle in the park has to have a permit on it. We sell day use permits for $8.00 per day, or season passes for $40 that are valid in every Regional Park in Saskatchewan.

Fun watching our new playground being built!

The new playground here at the park is our main capital project for this year. Interesting story behind the old one, and why it had to be replaced.

The one we replaced is only about six years old. But it was not made to standards that exist today, and so it couldn't legally be added to or adapted in any way.

Bermuda, and a Dead Rat

Still looking for ways down to Mexico from Seattle, where we'll be when we return from Korea in early November. Found a flight deal from Seattle to Bermuda, then Bermuda to Los Angeles. $366 USD per person. Great price. We could spend two weeks in Bermuda before heading to Los Angeles.

Good deal, however then we still have to make our way to Mexico and it's not much cheaper getting there from Los Angeles than it is direct from Seattle.

Happy 4th of July!

Hoping all of our American friends and readers are enjoying their holiday today. It's been a long time since we were in the U.S. on Independence Day. We think it was about twenty years ago!

Dammit. I left my 4th of July t-shirt in the motorhome! You'll have to make do with a photo from the past...

Lots of trailers, but no people

Ruth went into town yesterday to do the running around and grocery shopping. She almost met more people from the park while she was in town than we have at the campground! Odd, because yesterday was really our first real day of summer weather. Sure, there were a few people around and enjoying the park, but not as many as I thought there would have been.

The nice weather is supposed to continue though, so hopefully we'll see a full house this weekend.

June Expenses

We have really low expenses while we're working here at the campground for the summer. So how is it that we spent $1,900 in the month of June??

Well, we're suckers for a cheap airfare deal...

Happy Birthday, Canada!

Canada's 147th birthday today, and of course it's a national holiday across the country. It was on this date in 1867 that the British North American Act combined the colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia with the then Province of Canada (the lower sections of modern day Ontario and Quebec) to become the country of Canada.

British Columbia and Prince Edward Island joined Canada by 1873, with Saskatchewan and Alberta being created in 1905. Newfoundland joined the party in 1949.

It was an odd weekend...

The weekend went pretty smoothly actually. But what made it odd was a bit of lack of people. Our daily campsites were pretty much sold out, and those people were camping and having fun. But a lot of the regular campers from our seasonal sites weren't there!

And the weekend is not really over yet because today is a sort of a holiday. Actually, the holiday (Canada Day) is tomorrow...July 1st. But because it takes place on a Tuesday, many people across the country will have taken today off work as well as tomorrow.

My Photo of the Loch Ness Monster!

I saw some photos the other day that made me want to return to Scotland. We were there once, for a week way back in May of 1987. Holy cow, that's more than 25 years ago!

A lot of the photos I was looking at were from Scotland's Isle of Skye. I have some history there, and it's always been on our list of places we want to see. Can't really remember why we didn't go there back in 1987, but we had an 8 month old daughter at the time, so maybe that had something to do with it.

And so it begins...

A pretty good start to our busy summer season here at the campground. We had everything ready to go, or at least we thought we did. Turns out that we missed a couple of things.

Nothing serious, but it did cause a little bit of aggravation.

Enough visitors for a dinner party!

And we didn't even have to cook!

So... a nice little class B unit pulled in yesterday, and I'm outside talking to Sharon, the lady who runs our canteen. The couple in the class B park, and start wandering over towards us. He's got a bottle of wine in his hand. "Are you Kevin?" the guy asks.

Even more visitors!

Apparently being only 45 minutes off the Trans Canada highway means that we're a lot more accessible to travelers.

We've been here less than two months and we have already received our seventh set of visitors!

Two more days of peace and quiet

And then the fun begins.

It's going to be very busy here between June 27th and August 4th. Actually, we're sort of looking forward to it. The campground is pretty much ready for the hoards of people, and the water level has risen to the point where the boaters will be able to use  the lake.

How to explore Etosha National Park

For some of you, this will be a look at some of the many pictures we didn't get to show you while we were there in November of 2013. For others, wanting to go to Namibia themselves, this will be primer on how best to explore the park, and the things we learned that we could have done better.

First of all, Namibia's Etosha National Park is huge.

Have you got a gun?!

So the water is definitely rising. But not as much as they said it might. Actually, I think they were just a day or two off. It really only started coming up fast yesterday morning, and it did rise about a foot yesterday. It also came up quite a bit overnight.

I took a couple of photos on Saturday morning and again just now.

It wasn't meant to be...

I came across another fantastic airfare yesterday morning. It meant changing our (very loose) plans again, so we hummed and hawed about it for over an hour, despite knowing that it was a great deal.

Eventually, we decided to book it.

Very strange!

Man it is a small world sometimes, isn't it? Do you remember the strange coincidence we told you about when we were in South Africa? That was just simply weird. It still leaves us shaking our heads.

Well we learned of another strange coincidence yesterday.

All we need is a rocking chair...

Despite the fact that we have very few campers at the park, there's still a lot to do to keep us busy. Fortunately, I think we're now at the point where we're doing things that we want to do rather than things that we have to do.

Oh. Scratch that. I just remembered that I've got a loose toilet to fix. Don't really want to do that, but I have to!

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!

What motivates you to travel?

We want to know what motivates you to travel and how do you like to travel?

Everyone has a different reason to travel and enjoys traveling in a different way. No way is the wrong way if it is the right way for you.

Starting to turn people away

We had quite a few phone calls and emails yesterday from people wanting a campsite for the long weekend. But most of them want a full hookups campsite and we're pretty much sold out. There are a few tenting sites remaining, and a couple of 15 amp electric and water sites with no sewer hookups.

The Canadian July long weekend is a little goofy this year.

San Francisco on our agenda?

Boy, it was a miserable weekend weatherwise, so we spent much of it indoors. That meant that I was on the internet more than normal. And when on the internet, my usage tends to be towards travel related things.

So I was once again exploring the options for how we're going to get from Seattle down to Mexico in early November when we return from South Korea. And I came up with an interesting plan!

A picture is worth a thousand words

Not sure I could write a thousand words about how cold and rainy it was yesterday. If felt like April, not June! Still, we didn't want to be stuck in the house all day, so we went out for a walk a couple of times just to get some fresh air.

Keeping busy when it rains

We're in the middle of our first real rainy spell. It poured buckets all afternoon yesterday, and still raining this morning. And it's abnormally cold too. The high expected today is only 13C (55F)!

But even with the inclement weather, there's still lots going on here at the park!

Surprise visitors!

Apparently being a little further south in Saskatchewan means that more people are more inclined to stop in and say hello. Last year we were just a little too far north. This year, we're only about 45 minutes from the Trans Canada highway.

It was kind of funny when Robert and Karen showed up!

Push Button for Service

Most of these regional parks in Saskatchewan (there are around 90 of them) started out back in the 1960's or 1970's. Many began as just a place for a group of guys to go camping and fishing.

As time went on they grew to include other services. Some of them now have swimming pools or even golf courses. Each one seems to have a specific attraction. Last year, our park was known for it's fantastic fishing. The main attraction here at Cabri Regional Park seems to be recreational boating.

Not the most glamorous part of the job...

For us, the worst part of managing a campground is dealing with the bathrooms. Unfortunately, keeping them spotless is a big part of Ruth's job...but I also have some crappy responsibilities when the plumbing needs work!

We spent most of the day yesterday on one bathroom!

Malealea Lodge in the tiny country of Lesotho

We saved a few posts for you from our Southern Africa trip. Today we're going to look at the place we stayed in Lesotho, the tiny country surrounded by South Africa.

The family owned Malealea Lodge in the remote village of Malealea is located in a fertile valley and is surrounded by beautiful mountains. It is a hiking and horseback riding paradise, and was one of our top five experiences during our four month visit!

We feasted like kings!

The day began with Chris and Juan making a common Mexican breakfast for everyone. Huevos rancheros! Eggs served on tortillas with refried beans and potatoes and salsa.

What a great start to the day!

Some assembly required...

Great day yesterday. It's funny how quickly the weather changes though. Yesterday morning was totally beautiful, and then a cold front passed through and the temperature dropped like a rock and it got windy and rainy. That lasted for two hours or so and then the sun came out and it was beautiful blue sky and sunshine again!

Ruth and I had a little campground work to do, and everyone else kept busy too...

Visitors from Mexico!

Average day here at the park yesterday. It's a little cool, and so we still don't have that many people coming in. Besides the people who hold seasonal sites, I think we had three reservations for the weekend.

One of them was a couple of RVers who drove here all the way from Mexico!

A nest full of baby birds

Yesterday was hedge trimming day for me, while Ruth and Lindsey and the kids went into Cabri to pick up some plants and flowers. Hedge trimming is a big job, and one that I've never done before.

But I caught on pretty quick and I think the finished product looks great!

I'd rather stay at the park!

Going in to town to do our weekly grocery shop is a pain in the butt! We left at around 11:00am and didn't get back until 5:15pm.

It's a 45 minute drive each way, and we have to make a lot of different stops in town. It doesn't help when the lineups at the checkouts are so long!

They Have Arrived!

Ruth did the three hour drive each way to Saskatoon airport yesterday to pick up our daughter Lindsey and grandkids Cameron and Sadie. Apparently she parked and walked to the terminal and as she entered the terminal, there they were! Perfect timing.

Photo of the Month!

You'll notice that today's header photo dates back to October of 2007. That was the month that we officially vacated our home in Ottawa and took off in our motorhome, Sherman!

For the next several weeks we're going to be featuring our choice of photo of the month as our header photo. We'll be going month by month since the October 2007, so this should continue with a different header photo each day.

Camping Slobs

Pretty uneventful weekend. We met some more of the seasonals who dropped their trailers and fifth wheels off for the summer. And we had two sets of young people show up and do some tenting.

After they left on Sunday morning, I went to tidy up their sites. One was not bad, and just required the normal cleanup. However the other was a mess.

May Expenses

A little higher than we expected, but not by much.

Really, our only expenses for the summer are food and internet. Oh, and of course insurance and a bit of fuel for the little blue car. But we arrived here to empty cupboards so we had some stocking up to do!

One month down...

And four to go.

Not that we're counting. To be quite honest, we're totally enjoying ourselves as managers here at Cabri Regional Park. And, we have lots of visitors to look forward to!

1,000,000 Unique Viewers

Sometime within the next hour, the unique view counter on this blog will cross the 1 million mark!

Even though we've been chronicling our travels since October of 2007, we've only been using this blog platform since June of 2008. So the counters that log our reader statistics only date back to that month.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...

No, this isn't the beginning of a ghost story. It really was a dark and stormy night!

We actually had a tornado warning in the area yesterday. We didn't see one, but the conditions sure looked like there could have been one.

Now That's a Tractor!

Camping reservations are coming in at the rate of two a day or so. After the big rush the first couple of days when we began taking reservations on May 5th, things really quieted down. Those who knew what they wanted booked them right away! Now, the weather has been beautiful and people are starting to think about camping.

Looking at our reservations, it's easy to see that our busy time is going to be between June 27th and August 4th.

How to Get the Best Airfare Deals

Very few people on your airplane paid the same price. In fact, the variance in pricing is amazing. But you want to be one of the lucky few who paid the lowest price! How do you do that? We've booked some fantastic airline fares over the last couple of years and we're going to show you how we do it.

There are three things you have to have to book the best deal. Patience, persistence, and flexibility.

Before and after

What a change to the park in almost four weeks. I took a couple of "after" shots this morning, but we've got some showers happening at the moment, so I'll try and do a few more another day when the sky is blue.

But for now, you'll get an idea of the changes.

Some things are worth the extra money...

When we received our new hats last fall, the good folks at Tilley had included a couple of surprises for us to try out!

Tilley is known around the world for it's hats. They've been making the best quality hats since 1984, and have since expanded their product line into other clothing and accessories.

I thought the water was supposed to rise in the spring??

The water level here at the park continues to drop. Lake Diefenbaker is actually a reservoir lake, formed by a dam at the eastern end. Most of the water flow comes from the Rocky Mountains west of Calgary, and the spring runoff from the mountains really doesn't reach this area until mid June.

I was told about a website yesterday that forecasts the flow to the lake, and they're saying it will continue to drop until May 31st.

Fun with airfares

I've been booking a lot of airfares lately!

We told you about our great deal ($471 return) from Calgary to Seoul, South Korea. But our daughter and son also have some trips coming up and I thought I'd tell you about the deals they got. One of them is totally amazing!!

What a day!

You'd think my "what a day!" title would be related to how much work we did at the campground or something. But no, it's because we went shopping yesterday! Let me tell you, I'd rather stay at the campground and work.

Okay, but first things first. I'm sure you all want to know who won $50 dollars in our contest...

Our baby owl is about to fly!

We want to talk a little bit about our pump and water system here at the park, but before we get to that we'll show you some more pictures of our baby owl. Actually, it's not so much a baby anymore...it's a youngster.

The changes in the owlet have been amazing over the last two weeks...

What do we eat?

A couple of weeks ago, we posted our grocery bill. Many of you have questions about our gluten free eating habits, so Ruth thought it would be good to show you exactly what she makes with all that food and how it fits into our daily intake.

So here's the list of what we eat each day...

Who wants $50 USD cash???

Yep, we're giving away some cash this time! We love doing these little contests, and it's been a while, so we're looking forward to seeing one of our regular readers pocket the cash! However, you can win even if you stopped by here today for the first time!

This time, we've partnered with DriveNow Australia who has sponsored this contest for you. It's pretty simple, so let's get to it...

Things are coming together

Due to water leaks from frozen pipes and valves over the winter, we didn't have the five washrooms totally ready to go when campers arrived on Friday. But all of them have full service campsites, so it wasn't a big deal. Besides, we did have two of them ready, so if they really wanted to use the public facilities they would just have to walk a couple of minutes.

We probably have twenty or so rigs in the campground at this time.

DriveNow in Australia

What started out as an advertising post almost has me sold on the idea itself. We've always known that the best way to explore Australia would be in a motorhome or some kind of van or RV. And we always kind of thought that maybe buying and selling would be the way to go because renting usually adds up.

But some of the deals from DriveNow are pretty attractive.

Open for business!

Well, our campground officially opens for business this afternoon. It's not totally ready, but most of the items not ready are beyond our control.

That's okay though, because it's not going to be busy. In fact, we don't have any reservations. Although there will be some of the seasonal campers here for the long weekend.

We're hosting another giveaway!!!

That's right, we're giving away some cash again! Working with one of our advertising partners, we're going to give somebody a little thank you for putting up with the occasional advertising post.

We love doing this kind of stuff...we make some money, and so does one of you!! But you'll have to wait until Monday morning to see the details.

Never expected to wake up and do THAT this morning...

I just booked us a flight to Seoul, South Korea.

I belong to several flight alert services, and I had an email waiting in my inbox alerting me to an oddball Delta airlines deal that went from Saskatoon to Hong Kong for under $500 return. That's quite a bit less than half the usual price, and I would have booked it but the dates wouldn't line up for us. So I started doing some research...

A little bit sore

We've worked hard these last few days. Because the upcoming holiday weekend is early this year, there isn't as many days as normal to get the park ready. And because our muscles are a bit out of shape from winter, we're a little bit sore!

But things are almost ready.

And they said it wouldn't last...

A special day for us today, as we celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary! We were married May 12th, 1984 at a little church in Galetta, Ontario, Canada.

We were only 22 years old when we got married. And we had only known each other for just over a year!

Only four more days

Including today, we only have four more days until the seasonal campers are allowed to start bringing their trailers and campers in. Our hired help has today off, but Ruth and I will be working.

We have around 122 usable campsites sites here at the park, and 80 of them are taken up with seasonal campers. It's those 80 sites that we have to have ready.

An update on our "family" in Mexico

I've been meaning to post this for a while now. Our regular readers will remember a couple of months ago when we asked you to help a family in Mexico who we have become good friends with. We actually consider these people to be family in Mexico!

Baby Great Horned Owl

Remember the other day when we posted a picture of a great horned owl? Well it turned out that it lives here in the park.

We think that it was the female, and we know that it has a baby!

Our grocery bill

Lots of stuff happening here at the park. We had the tree trimming guys here, a construction guy doing some work on the bathrooms, and the grader came in to fix our roads.

Nice to see things coming together!

Where the deer and the antelope play

There are lots of deer and antelope playing here!

Technically, they're not antelope. The "antelope" here are actually pronghorns or even pronghorn antelopes. But locally everyone calls them antelope, so that's what we're going to do as well.

"I'd like to make a campsite reservation please..."

Yeah, you, and everyone else!

Yesterday was the day we began taking reservations. We figured it would be busy, and we were right. The phone started ringing at 7:45am, and there was even one guy who arrived here at that time to make his booking in person!

Health update

Last October, I wrote a blog post about our health and our health care. You can read it here...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2013/10/our-health-and-health-care.html

I had said I would update you a month after that, but we were pretty busy telling you about our Southern Africa trip! So here's the update now...

Getting the campground ready!

Leaves, and computers. That's pretty much how our day went yesterday. While I played computer technician for the day, Ruth did some leaves.

And yes, I did get into the computer system. I did a system restore to a date near the beginning of last season, and doing that reset the access password to whatever it was at that time. And I had found a piece of paper with a few passwords on it, and one of them worked!

Computer problems

Fortunately, it's not our computer! But it's still our problem.

We got our little office cleaned and organized yesterday and plugged in the office computer system. Fired everything up, and of course during the boot process the first screen shows the login, and asks you for the Windows access password.

The big question of the day? What's the password??!!

First day of work, and more pics of our park

Off to a good start yesterday! We met our summer student employee, and that's going to go very well. He was here last year too, so he's pretty familiar with things. Probably a few changes coming up just to do things our way, but it's going to work out fine.

I spent the day checking out the equipment and cleaning up the shop.

April Expenses

Well, April was the last of the expensive months. And again, when you consider that we traveled some of Mexico in the motorhome, spent time in Puerto Vallarta, and flew from there to Houston, Chicago, and Ottawa before driving half way across Canada... we did pretty well!

Whew. When we look back at what we did for the month of April, it was a pretty busy month!

Our home for the next five months

For those of you who don't know, we are working for the next five months as campground managers at Cabri Regional Park in Saskatchewan.

We arrived at the park yesterday!

Today's the day!

We're really excited to be arriving today at Cabri Regional Park where we're going to be spending the next five months.

We arrive in the town of Cabri at noon today where we'll be welcomed by the Chairman of the Board of the park and he's taking us out for lunch before we go to the park. The park itself is located about 20 kms (12 miles) from the town.

Four months of nice weather.

That's all you get up here in the great white north of Canada. June, July, August, and September. Sure, you might get a couple of nice days in May and October, but really there's only four months that you can sort of count on.

Arriving here in April is most certainly too early!

Four states in one day!

Yep, we left Ironwood, Michigan yesterday morning and we drove through Wisconsin and Minnesota and ended up in Grand Forks, North Dakota!

Sounds like a lot, but it was only 370 miles (600 kms). Actually, that is a lot for us! Today will be even more!

Across the top of Michigan

It was almost 10:00am when we headed out from our couchsurfing hosts in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Thanks for having us Sue and Jeff! You're welcome to come stay with us in Saskatchewan at any time!

But on the downside...we woke up to a dusting of snow!!!

$56 a night. For a campsite?

Yesterday, we drove from North Bay, Ontario to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. A fairly long day, but the drive went fine. We stopped at a couple of waterfalls along the way to take some pictures and stretch our legs.

And we were disappointed to learn that we will never be able to camp in Ontario Provincial Parks!

A good first day drive

But it didn't start off perfectly. I was driving Lindsey and the kids to the airport. We left at about 7:30am and her flight was at 9:45am. It takes about an hour to get to the airport, but after 10 minutes, Lindsey says "I forgot my phone!".

So, we turned around and went back to get it.

Road Trip!

Well, we're off.

Up early this morning and I'm taking Lindsey and the kids to the Ottawa airport for their flight back to Nova Scotia. They'll be happy to see hubby and Dad Justin again after a week away!

Getting stuff done

Yesterday, Ruth and Lindsey took the kids into Ottawa, picked up my mother, and went to the Children's Museum at the Canadian Museum of History.

This is the fancy museum on the Quebec side of the river. The one that used to be called The Museum of Man. But that wasn't politically correct, so quite a few years ago it became the Museum of Civilization. Then last year, they spend $25 million dollars re-branding themselves as the Canadian Museum of History.

Yep, $25 million dollars.

We're back on track!

How quickly things turn for the better.

One moment I'm searching for used cars, and a couple of hours later I'm driving the little blue car out of the storage building. It seems we're back on track!

In limbo...

Well, I heard from the car storage guy yesterday afternoon.

Seems we're kind of stuck for the next couple of days. Let me explain the whole story...

Still no little blue car!

Hmm. Nobodies fault but my own. Apparently I should have called in advance, but I figured a lot of other people would have made arrangements to get their cars out of storage this weekend so it would have been easy to simply add me to the list. But what's happened instead is that I'm getting answering machines at three different numbers. They're obviously out of town.

Oh well, all I can do is keep trying.

Seventeen flights in two years

I found a neat website the other day. It keeps track of how many times you've been on an airplane, and gives you a map and various statistics.

I listed all of our flights in the last two years. 17 different flights and 20 different airports!

Getting things sorted.

Well, we've got six days to visit with everyone we want to, and get things sorted out for our drive west and the next five months in Saskatchewan. First thing I'm trying to get done is to get the car out of storage, but so far I'm not getting any answer from the people who need to let me in there!

And of course I have to get it insured, but that's all done online. Then, the license sticker is expired and I need to get the (rip off!) Ontario emissions test done in order to get the new sticker.

We made it, but it wasn't a smooth trip!

We left Rancho Altarose at about 11:40am, only ten minutes later than planned. Kenny, the full time RV resident there, had agreed to drive us and our bags the couple of minutes to town.

We got there just as the bus did! Great timing. However, it was the last time that day that our timing would be great...

Busy travel day ahead of us!

Well, today is the day we leave Mexico. We'll spend the morning getting Sherman all prepared to be left behind. Then a neighbor will drive us the short distance to the nearby town of Valle de Banderas where we'll hop on the local bus to get to Puerto Vallarta airport.

And then, we'll be in three other airports!

Back at the ranch

We puttered around yesterday morning, and just had some coffee and tea and enjoyed the great views of Puerto Vallarta from the apartment. It was probably about 11:00am by the time we went for breakfast.

We didn't need any lunch, that's for sure!

A great day in Puerto Vallarta!

Yesterday morning, we had an offer of a ride in to Puerto Vallarta, so we took advantage of that. We probably wouldn't have gone at all this time around just to visit the city, but we wanted to visit a friend who we haven't seen for a while.

So we left the RV Park just before 8:30am yesterday morning.

I guess I should have clarified...

Quite the response to our post yesterday.

Besides the few people who commented on the post itself, there were ten or so emails with questions related to the idea of RVing in Mexico. I probably should have put more clarification in that blog post, but I didn't think the idea would have attracted that much attention.

Want to RV in Mexico...?

Back in 2007 when we first entertained the idea of driving our motorhome into Mexico, we were definitely nervous. We spoke zero Spanish, and the whole idea just seemed so..well.. foreign!

But we had some help, and we traveled for a while the first two winters with another couple who showed us the ropes. We're thinking now that we might like to show some people "the ropes"!