July Expenses

Well here we are on the last day of July! Tomorrow, we'll be able to say "next month we're outta here!"...lol.

And we're not planning on spending any money today, so we might as well give you our July expense report.

It was a good July for us! We only spend $675 in total, and that included buying a brand new laptop! Wow!

RV'ing in Newfoundland!

Canada's newest province is Newfoundland and Labrador. Often, the province is simply called Newfoundland although Labrador is part of the mainland and Newfoundland itself is an island. In fact, 92% of the provinces population live on the island of Newfoundland while 8% live in Labrador.

The entire area has a population of 528,000 people.

Parched

Last Sunday, the park was packed. It was a beautiful hot sunny day, with hardly any wind... perfect weather for getting the boat out on the lake... and that's exactly what people did. It was a zoo... hardly any parking spots and you almost couldn't make your way through the number of trucks and boat trailers that were parked out front.

Even at 9:00pm Sunday night when the concession usually closes, there was still a lineup of people trying to buy ice cream!

But by Monday, things had quieted right down. And yesterday was dead, despite the beautiful weather!

RV Caravan trip to Mexico

Most of our regular readers will remember when we led an RV caravan group in Mexico for the month of February in 2016. That was a kind of a test run for us to be able to decide if we wanted to lead a longer caravan.

And, we did end up making a commitment to lead one this coming winter. I was talking with the organizer yesterday, and it turns out that you can still come with us if you like!

Drive to the Arctic Ocean

We have some campers visiting the park who are from Whitehorse, Yukon Territories. We had spoken on the phone when they made their reservations here, and I had mentioned how we wanted to drive up there in the motorhome someday.

She had offered to bring some tourist info down with them, and they were here this weekend.

Nova Scotia

One of our favorite provinces in Canada is Nova Scotia. We've spent a fair bit of time there because our daughter and her husband Justin lived there for about 7 years and our grandson Cameron was born in Nova Scotia!

And Nova Scotia is a fantastic province to explore in the motorhome. Fabulous little coves and fishing villages, and easy boondocking.

Visitors, and a project almost finished...

Had an email a couple of weeks ago from blog reader Nancy and her husband Larry, a couple from Washington state who were coming through the area and wanted to stop in and say hi. Of course! We love getting visitors here at the park.

So Nancy and Larry arrived with their big diesel pusher motorhome... certainly one of the bigger rigs we've ever seen here...

Prince Edward Island

I had tried to get our profile of Canada's different provinces and territories finished by Canada's 150th birthday celebration on July 1st, but it just didn't happen. Oh well... we're just going to continue and get it finished anyhow!

So next up is Prince Edward Island, Canada's smallest province.

What's the least money you would have to spend to get a usable motorhome...?

I don't know what I was thinking that made me go on the kijiji website (similar to Craigslist, but here in Canada) looking at cheap motorhomes the other day. But it got us thinking... how little could you spend on an RV that would take you to South America?

Ever since we went to Colombia, we've thought about driving from Canada to the southernmost tip of Argentina and Tierra del Fuego National Park.

It almost seems too cheap...

When we go back to Ottawa at the end of September we'll need some transportation. So I've been checking the car rental prices, and came across a website that looks like it's going to pay off.

I had found a pretty good deal through Thrifty Car Rental. Including taxes, it was going to be $396 CAD ($315 USD) for three weeks. Not bad, and I booked it.

It feels like a long weekend!

When I ordered a new laptop on Amazon Prime Day last Tuesday, the shipment said it would arrive on Monday the 17th. But I got the arrival notification on Friday morning so I headed in to the post office to pick it up before the weekend.

I've been using my old laptop as the office computer here since May, and it was getting to be a pain bringing it between the house and the office every time I wanted to do something.

We're past the half way point...

We're now into the second half of our summer work season. Yesterday was the official half way point. The next month will go by fairly quickly because the park is busy, and then things will start to quiet down as summer harvest will start in mid August and a lot of our clientele will be hard at work.

September typically drags for me, but we've got a few projects on the go here to keep us occupied during the last month of the season.

Bought a new laptop!

Yesterday was Amazon Prime Day and like many of you I was in the market for a great deal. My current laptop is only about two and a half years old, but it was a cheap ($248 USD, $311 CAD) laptop when I bought it and the processing power isn't very good. It still works fine, but I was on the lookout for something that can keep up with today's technology a little better.

So when I saw that one was coming on sale for Prime Day up here in Canada, I made a point of getting up at 4:00am to buy it!

Ruth's brother's new trailer...

Pretty busy weekend here at the park. Not sold out, but busier than we expected it would be based on the reservations that came in May and June. Lots of last minute people calling to see if we have availability because the weather has been so good.

And, there are NO mosquitoes. Well, perhaps one or two. But compared to last year, there are none.

A project on the go...

A little project on the go here at the park. When things are busy, I can't go too far from the office area because I know it won't be long before my pager goes off telling me that there is someone waiting at the office. So Ruth had delegated me to do one of her landscaping projects nearby.

We had ordered a pallet of patio stones and they needed to be installed outside our main bathroom.

Surprise visitors!

We didn't have anybody scheduled to arrive here at the park yesterday, but of course we do get the occasionally unexpected arrival. And, of course they usually arrive right as we're sitting down to supper!

So yesterday as Ruth was putting supper on the table, I just happened to notice through the kitchen window that a trailer was driving up. So I headed out the door to meet them at the office.

Things are going pretty good so far...

Well, July 1st long weekend came and went and we're enjoying some beautiful hot summer weather here at the park this week... and into the foreseeable future!

Oh, I haven't mentioned our workcampers lately. Barry and Jeannie showed up here in mid June with their motorhome. They were readers of this blog, and applied to come and work with us when we advertised the opportunity last fall.

June Expenses

Well, we were pretty much on track with expenses until we bought three new pairs of eyeglass. But, it had to be done. And, our grocery expenses were still above what they should be but we continue to believe (hope?) that things will average out in that department over the next three months.

So, we spent a total of $1,033 CAD ($800 USD) for the month of June. Here's how it all broke down...

Barbados update...

We told you a couple of weeks ago that we booked a trip to Barbados. We leave Ottawa October 25th for 19 days of island life in the sun. It's been a long time since we've been to the Caribbean, and we're really looking forward to relaxing and exploring the island.

But Barbados is fairly expensive, so in true Kevin and Ruth fashion I started looking for a deal. Fortunately, one thing in our favor is that we'll be there before busy season actually starts.

Canada Day at the Park

The day didn't start off great. Our water pump went down at some point overnight, and I spent most of the morning trying to fix it to no avail. I ended up calling our local specialist, and he came out on Canada Day to fix up our problem. Turns out the impellers inside the pump had broken and nothing I could have done was going to fix it without having the right parts. But I tried really hard because I didn't want to have to call him on a holiday.

Meanwhile, Ruth was going around supplying water to the toilets to flush them manually because we still had a park full of people to look after!

Happy 150th Birthday Canada!

Ruth and I were only about 5 years old when Canada celebrated its 100th birthday on July 1, 1967. So we don't really remember the big event. And so we had better enjoy this one because it's highly unlikely we'll be around to see Canada's 200th birthday in 2067!

Even at 150 years old, Canada is a relatively young country. And it almost didn't make it this far. Most recently, the independence of the province of Quebec has been an issue, and in 1995 there was a referendum in that province where the people voted on whether or not to become an independent nation.