Thick with forest fire smoke!

A fairly quiet Monday yesterday as people went back to work for a day or two. Not sure what to expect for tomorrow though as it's the July 1st Canada Day holiday taking place right in the middle of the week. We do have quite a few reservations for people coming in between today and tomorrow, and the weather is supposed to be decent.

That's if  the sun can make it's way through the smoke!

Leather jacket giveaway, starting today!

We've partnered with Motorcycle House to give away a prize credit valued at up to $200. You can use this credit to buy anything on their website...even a men's or lady's leather jacket!

Motorcycle House has been online since 2007. They started out the same year that we did! They sell over 500 different styles of motorcycle jackets.

Three cheques and a gift card!

Our mail gets delivered in town, so we only pick it up once every couple of weeks. Yesterday, the girl who picks it up for us came out to the park, so she brought our mail with her. We don't normally get too much mail (remind me again why they still have mail?) but yesterday brought a windfall!

We opened things up, and ended up with three cheques and a gift card.

It's not fair to the rest of the park!

Got everybody checked in yesterday afternoon on the first of our busy summer weekends. It was a hot one. Once again, we saw the outdoor thermometer touch 34C (93F), and it's forecast to do that again today and tomorrow and Monday. Summer is here!

Glad we have air conditioning in the house when it's like this.

$10 free...from Amazon.com

I was just alerted to an oddball special that Amazon.com has going on right now.

Simply buy yourself a $50 gift card using your Amazon.com account, and Amazon will send you a $10 promo code valid until August 15th.

I just bought one for myself. Pretty hard to go wrong!

Leather Jacket Giveaway!

We're excited to bring you another contest giveaway. When we're sitting here in one place for a while, it's nice to be able to liven things up a little by giving away free stuff to our readers.

And this time, I think it's our biggest giveaway yet. We've partnered with Motorcycle House to give one of our readers a leather jacket valued up to $200!

I just about jumped out of my skin!

We have a few snakes slithering around here at the park, and especially now that things have warmed up a little bit they have come out of hiding and are enjoying the sunshine. They're just bull snakes, and they're not poisonous but they can grow up to eight feet in length.

And I don't mind snakes, but when they surprise you, it's still a bit of a shock!

You shouldn't be afraid to use the campground bathroom!

This weekend is the start of our six week busy season here at the park. We've been busy doing some improvements. Two of our newer bathrooms needed painting, so we did one last week when our son Alex was here to help, and Ruth and I have been doing the other one this week.

Our main bathroom has been under renovation for the past six weeks. How can it take that long? Because the construction guys that were hired don't put in more than about 4 hours per day, and that's when they show up to begin with!

We're hosting another giveaway!

It's been a long time since we have hosted a giveaway. Actually, we're hosting two more giveaways. It never rains, it pours! But I'm not telling you about the second one yet. I expect we'll get to that one later this week.

So first up, we're giving away two books.

Colombia's Lost City

Doing some research for our six weeks in Colombia this coming November, and I came across a hiking trip that we've decided we want to do. Only problem is...it's not cheap.

But I think it's one of those things that is worth it.

Happy Ruth!

She had been totally missing her Tilley hat and we hadn't heard back from them as to whether or not her old hat was repairable. So we were surprised when a package arrived yesterday. Apparently, the day they received her old hat, they inspected it right away and immediately sent out a new one.

Now that's good customer service!

The world's fastest RV

I happened upon an article the other day that described the world's fastest RV...they call it a motorhome, but that's a bit of a stretch. More like a campervan of sorts. But, it does have a toilet, sink, and stove and there is a sleeping area.

And, it's for sale...

The most interesting places we have ever camped

After seven years of RV'ing, we've overnighted in a lot of interesting places. The best and most interesting of them have not been in campgrounds. Isn't there a saying..? The best things in life area free?

Well not all of them have been free, but certainly a lot of them were.

Important Tips for Your USA Holiday!

When people travel to a destination like the USA, it’s rare that they worry about cultural differences, or even culture shock, as most of the world has been exposed to so much American culture through the media. However, despite all this exposure, there are plenty of quirks individual to the USA that you might not be aware of, so here’s a list of things to get you prepared for your holiday to the USA.

That went by fast...

We did our weekly run into town yesterday instead of today. Our son Alex has to leave tomorrow (that week went by quickly, didn't it??) and he's got a 3 hour drive back to Regina for his flight tomorrow so we figured it would give him today to relax before having to head back to Ottawa.

We're going to do some painting today. Two of our newer washrooms were built a few years ago, but they were never completely finished on the inside. So we've taken it upon ourselves to finish them. Plus, we have a helper (our son!) with us so it'll get done fairly quickly.

Saskatchewan's Regional Parks

In a comment on yesterday's post, reader Lori Gunter asked about our job here at the park and I think my post wasn't very clear regarding expenses and just how things are run. So I'll provide some clarification here.

We're all familiar with National Parks and Provincial parks...but Saskatchewan is unique in that we also have a Regional Park system.

Another weekend gone

Not a bad weekend here at the park. A little cooler than it should be...highs of only around 18C (65F), but there were still quite a few people around. A few more campers than last year, and I think we're ahead of where we were last year at this time with regards to revenue as well.

I do a tally of campsite, entrance pass, and firewood revenue twice per month and submit the receipts to our treasurer. So I get a good idea of how the park is doing. Today's the 15th, so I'll add things up this morning, but I have a feeling we're going to be higher than we were last year at this time.

Summer RV parking at schools?

Here's an interesting thing I came across. And if more school boards opened their minds to the idea, it might really take off.

Apparently, with schools being closed in the summer, that's the time of year when vandalism occurs. So the Anchorage School District started a camper host program so that there would be a presence at the schools, figuring that would discourage the vandals...

Can't win.

Yes, I know...we've been wanting rain. Haven't had any rain to speak of since May 2nd. Well, we  finally had a storm go through yesterday around dinner time. It gave us a solid half hour of fairly heavy rain so the ground got a much needed soaking.

But, along with the rain came very high winds!

Big time surprise!

A couple of months ago, we pulled off a nice surprise for Ruth's dad's 80th birthday. Our son Alex was instrumental in helping us with that at the time, and I guess he really enjoyed the final moment.

Because he just pulled off another big surprise. On us!

Cellular data use

Because of our lifestyle, we're almost always on cellular internet. And because cellular data is expensive, we've grown accustomed to being careful with our usage.

I mentioned a while ago that I thought our iPhone was using a lot of data. And, the internet in general has become more geared towards high data use. All you have to do is look at the amount of video and HD graphics that  are used on a lot of websites now and you'll understand. All of that data adds up quickly.

RV storage ideas

One of the problems most RVs have is a lack of storage. With a very small kitchen area, and not many cupboards, where do you put all your kitchen stuff? Especially for someone who likes to cook. Ruth uses our oven a lot as well, so we don't use the oven for storage...we use it for cooking!

And, you don't want stuff rattling around. So Ruth has come up with some great ideas to fix that problem too...

Canadian Tire...the final chapter!

I had put in a formal complaint with Canadian Tire's head office because I felt that I was overcharged on the little blue car's inspection and wheel alignment a month or so ago. Yesterday, I was able to register a partial victory, and put the whole episode behind us.

I received a phone message from the local store yesterday morning. Strange, because I wasn't expecting a call from the store...I was expecting a call from the head office.

Turning up the heat

Hottest day of the year so far. At 8:00am this morning, the temperature is already 26C (79F) and they're calling for a record high 34C (93F) today.

It's gonna be a hot one!

Clothing, footwear, and eyeglasses

The three things that are not always easy to buy online. We've done all three, and we've been reasonably successful at it. And, we're happy enough with our purchases that we feel it's worth it to continue, especially when you're dealing with companies who really want to make you happy with your purchase.

Our most recent experience was with Firmoo Optical.

Hey Mister...wanna buy some hot sauce?

Sometimes there are funny things that happen during our travels that we never get a chance to tell you about at the time. Maybe because other things happened that particular day that took up the entire blog post and so the blog post gets too long with all of the photos and narration.

I looked in our fridge the other day and saw an unmarked bottle of hot sauce. This reminded me of a funny story that I had to tell you.

It's all in the numbers

Before we carry on, I wanted to bring up a very relevant comment from yesterday's discussion that was made late in the evening so you may not have read it. And I bring it up because all of this discussion about travel "safety" is relative.

And this comment gets across exactly what I was trying to. Although those who think we are "innocent travelers who have the blinders on" will probably never get it...

Colombia - More negative than Mexico?

As you may know, we are going to spend 6 weeks touring Colombia this fall.

When we announced this, the first thing my mother says is along the lines of "Can't you pick a friendly country?"

Well, I think one of the reasons that we want to visit Colombia is to dispel myths like this that are still floating around.

Ruth's famous gluten free pizza recipe

We had pizza the other night, and Ruth thought she'd like to share the recipe. This is exactly the same pizza that she makes when we're traveling in the motorhome.  Usually, she'll make it with lots of chicken chunks and peppers. Yummy!

Oh, no!

Ruth did a load of laundry last night, and tossed in her Tilley hat. She's been wearing it quite a lot while she's been working up a sweat out there cleaning up leaves and doing her gardening. They recommend that you wash your hat regularly.

This morning, she went to unload the washing machine, and I heard a shriek.

One month down

...four to go. I notice that I posted the exact same phrase last year on this day!

Well, the first month went just "okay". We're ahead of the game because we didn't have the water leak problems to deal with that we did last year. But we're behind on the leaf cleanup because it's been so windy. Most areas are actually done, but there's still more to do whereas last year at this time we were finished.