The World Famous Alaska Highway... Mile 0

Up at our normal time around 6:30am yesterday morning. Had to get things done and give the place a bit of a tidy up, because we were having visitors over for breakfast. Doug and Arlene were coming over for pancake breakfast and to give us a few last minute tips around the city of Grande Prairie.

Then, we followed the signs for Alaska!

Before we knew it we were sitting on their back porch having a glass of wine!

On the road again fairly early yesterday morning after a great sleep despite the highway noise. I had read that the Valleyview, Alberta visitors center had good free wifi, and they weren't lying! Not a bad place to park for an hour and get caught up on things.

Then, we headed to the nearby Williamson Provincial Park to go for a walk.

Too close to the highway, but at least it's a nice setting!

Slept fine at the church, but moved early this morning to have our breakfast at the mall using the unsecured wifi coming from Domino's Pizza. Nobody was in there eating pizza for breakfast so it was pretty fast wifi with us being the only ones using it!

Then, we made our way to the Whitecourt Visitors Center located in the Forest Interpretive Center.

Because if you don't ask, you don't know.

We sure are getting lots of daylight as we get closer to June 21st, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. And of course it's even more noticeable as we drive further north.

On Saturday night, the official sunset was at 9:57pm. And then sunrise is at 5:20am! But the interesting thing is that when then sun sets... it lasts for a long time!

Well, that was a different day!

Up and on the road early yesterday. We were trying to beat the moderate winds that were in the forecast, and we were trying to make it to Edmonton by 11:00am or so.

We were not successful in either endeavor.

Into the province of Alberta!

Woke up with a bit of a breeze in the air, and it continued all day. Fortunately, it wasn't a cross wind, but it wasn't a tailwind either! Yes, we had a fairly strong headwind all day. Not good for Sherman's fuel mileage!

But, we had to carry on towards Edmonton. We crossed into Alberta just before 10:00am. Sherman hasn't been to Alberta since the fall of 2007!

We packed things up and decided to search for something else.

Because of the two hour time change related to our flight from Ontario back to Saskatchewan, we both woke up before 6:00am. Might as well get up and start the day! After a bit of computer time, we decided to head to Walmart and do a grocery shop while the store isn't busy.

After that, we went to a heavy truck and trailer place that advertised welding, but it was crowded for parking and I didn't want to hang around. Actually, truth be told I couldn't wait to get started on our trip to Yukon! Besides, the welding job isn't pressing, but I've been wanting to get it done for so long and keep putting it off. I'll keep my eyes open for a small town guy who hopefully can squeeze me in without waiting.

Back in the motorhome!

Lindsey followed with her car while we headed back to drop off the car rental. As expected, the price for a full week with taxes included was $135 CAD ($107 USD). Not bad at all. The rental agent says "How did you find a deal like that?"

Well, I look for deals... they're out there if you look for them.

Then, she drove us to Ottawa airport.

10 Best Israel Beaches

Make your next trip to Israel a beach-tour and be sure to visit some of these ten stunning beaches while you’re there.

Nahariya – Sokolov Beach
Located at the end of Nahariya’s famous promenade, Sokolov Beach is a public beach that is free of charge and open to swimmers. If you are professional surfer, Sokolov Beach is your dream as the waves are known as the largest in Israel.

Haifa – Dado Zamir Beach
For a lovely beach that offers so much, look no further than the Dado Zamir Beach in Haifa. This beach has flower gardens, restaurants, pubs, coffee shops, and plenty of seating areas for relaxing.

Today we return the car rental and head for the airport.

We thought that we were done with work for this year, but apparently not. We spent the morning working on Ruth's father's house. I cut the grass and did the vacuuming while Ruth was cleaning out the fridge and freezer and cupboards of food that either had gone bad, or would go bad over the next few months. We brought a bunch of stuff back to our daughter Lindsey's house for them to be able to use.

Then, it was back to my mother's for lunch and some odd jobs for her.

Another day accomplishing what we came here for.

We had another good day visiting with family yesterday. First on the agenda, we went and picked up Ruth's father in Arnprior and took him out to Wheeler's Pancake House near Lanark, Ontario. It's a bit pricey, but he likes the place and it's good to get him out for a drive in the country. About an hour and ten minutes each way on nice country roads.

Beautiful spring day, with sunshine and a high of about 25C (77F).

Good to get our morning exercise in...

After a rainy Saturday afternoon and evening, the forecast was for clearing skies on Sunday. And, Sunday did end up being a nice day, but the morning was still a bit cloudy and cool.

We had stayed in downtown Ottawa at our son's apartment located close to the Rideau Canal, so we went for a nice walk along the canal in the morning.

Rainy afternoon in downtown Ottawa - Canada's capital city

Ottawa is a nice city to visit, and we like heading to downtown when we're here. Our son has an apartment right in the center, and he was going away for the weekend with his girlfriend to her parents so he let us stay at his place for a night.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the nicest afternoon!

Chester the dog

We stuck around Lindsey and Justin's house for the day, with the exception of taking Chester the dog for a nice long walk. Lindsey went with Sadie on a kindergarten school field trip, and of course Justin was working all day. With the kids in school until 2:30pm or so, we had a nice relaxing day with just us and the big dog.

Not always easy dealing with aging parents.

After we saw the grandkids off to school, we hopped in the rental car and drove up to Ruth's father's place. It's a bit of a difficult situation, and one of the reasons that we chose to come here. He has recently made the decision (somewhat against his will) to move to a retirement home. And his doctor has recently taken away his driver's licence at age 83.

Sorry we lied to you!

But we were planning a surprise, and we couldn't let the cat out of the bag!

Yes, as it says above in the "Where are Kevin and Ruth now?" line... we are in Ottawa right now.

We had bought the tickets about three weeks ago and we figured we would surprise the family. So we didn't tell anyone about it. But of course as the day got closer, we had to sort of fib here on the blog!

First day back on the road

We got up at 6:00am. It's not that we had a really far drive planned... in fact, we didn't really have a plan at all, except to head towards Saskatoon. But I just wanted to get going! We still had some things to do and empty the holding tanks and fill with fresh water... that kind of thing.

And, we managed to get out of the park right at 9:00am.... which is the time I sort of had in the back of my mind.

Getting back on the road!

Ruth woke up this morning and said "I'm glad I don't have to pick up another mop or rake!"

Boy, is that a fact. Our two week work stint here at the park is up, and I although we're tired of cleaning up leaves, we're glad we did it. Steve and Jo still have some work to do, but the worst of it is done.

Recharged our Mexico SIM card for use in Canada!

I recharged our Mexico cellular account yesterday. I had let it expire at the end of April because I knew that we didn't need it while we were here at the park. But we'll be hitting the road tomorrow and so I wanted to make sure I was going to be able to recharge it online from here.

It turns out that it was fairly easy to do, but there are a lot of options and some are fairly expensive if you're not careful!

We are boondocking for the next couple of days!

Can you boondock in a developed campground?

Well here at Cabri Park you can!

We've been parked in a full hookup campsite for the last week and a half. And while it's been nice to have our electric heater on to take the chill off in the mornings, and have our fridge plugged into electric, and be able to use the office wifi... we really wanted to be parked in a nicer place.

12,410 days and counting...

On a Saturday afternoon in May of 1984, Ruth and I strolled down the aisle and said "I do"!

We had only known each other since March of 1983... fourteen months. Many people thought it wouldn't last! But here we are, after 34 years of wedded bliss!

Who reads our blog?

Well obviously YOU do!

I find it interesting to follow who is reading what, and where our readers come from. And, to see the continued growth of readership of this blog. Blogger (Google) is the hosting platform I chose ten years ago. I kind of wish I would have chose Wordpress because I've read that there are more options, but I'm not going through the hassle of changing it all now, especially since this is working fine for our needs.

While we were in Mexico, this blog achieved two milestones! Apparently there were a lot of people interested in our Mexico RV Caravan adventures.

Some pics around the park...

Windy day yesterday, but we still managed to get more cleanup done. Two out of five bathrooms are up and running, but they are calling for cool, windy and rainy today so it's not likely we'll get much done today.

I knew we were going to get spoiled with the great weather we had for the first week. Today, they are calling for a high of 11C (52F) and 13C (55F) tomorrow, then back to nice weather on the weekend.

Installed our weBoost Drive 4G-X RV Cell Signal Booster

A bit of a rainy afternoon yesterday so I took a couple of hours and finished the installation of our new weBoost cell signal booster. We don't get a very good signal here at the park, so I was excited to try it out here and see what difference it makes.

Heading up to the wilds of the Yukon and Alaska, we want to be able to share our adventures with you, and there aren't that many cell towers up there. So if this thing works as advertised, we should be able to get much further from a cell tower and still be able to get on the internet.

One week down, one week to go!

Wow, it sure seems odd to be working here at the park and knowing that we're half way through already! Mixed emotions though... we will miss the park this summer.

We had been doing really well on leaf cleanup, until yesterday afternoon when the wind picked up and changed direction. A storm blew in and swirled everything around. Fortunately, the leaves had already been removed and dumped, but even when it's cleaned up more leaves seem to appear out of nowhere!

We know how to deal with mosquitoes...

There have been several comments about the possibility of us encountering mosquitoes on our trip north. Yes, we hate those little bloodsuckers as much as the next person, and we would rather not be in an environment where the mosquito thrives... however we've dealt with them before, and we won't let them win!

So... we're going into this with our eyes open, and we are well prepared!

The plan for the next couple of months

We both belong to a facebook group called RVing To Alaska 2018. The people in that group sure do a lot of planning. We think it's kind of funny because there are some people there asking questions about their possible trip in 2019 and even 2020! I'm afraid we don't put much thought into our trips until it actually gets closer to the date.

And, it is getting closer. We start heading north on May 15th, so I figured I would begin looking at our route, and things to do along the way.

We had a visitor!

Spring cleanup continues here at the park. We've been really lucky with the weather, probably the best early May that we've ever experienced here.

We had a visitor the other day! It was a little bit funny, because neither one of us recognized her. She started off by saying "You probably don't remember me..."

And it was true!

Keeping Yourself Occupied on Long Road Trips

While travelling the length and breadth of a continent in an RV is nothing short of a thrilling adventure, the day-to-day reality can actually be a little bit different. Watching the landscape change while conversing with your travel buddy is one great way to pass the time, but even this can become tiresome surprisingly quickly.

Reflecting on our Mexico RV Caravan Adventure

We promised you all some insight into our Mexico RV Caravan adventure. And now that a month has gone by since we exited Mexico, it's a good time to give you some of our thoughts about that trip and what we feel about the possibility of us doing it again.

The trip was scheduled for 86 days. Just under three months. There were 11 other rigs, each carrying a couple. So including us, there were 24 people.

It's a good thing we have Sherman with us.

There are two water systems here at the park. One is used for trucked in municipal water, and it feeds the concession building, the house trailer, and the cookshack, as well as an outdoor tap for the campers. The other system is for the lake water and it supplies non-potable water to the washrooms and campsites.

Well normally, the first thing we do here is get the municipal water supply turned on to the house trailer because that's where we have been living the last four summers.

Received an interesting email yesterday

From Amazon Mexico.

You'll remember back in early March when we were stuck in Puebla and had ordered some parts from Amazon Mexico for the motorhome. These parts were purchased through Amazon Mexico, but sourced through Amazon in the United States, and then shipped to Mexico.

Well it turns out that we're getting a refund!

April Expenses - Yikes!

Well, we knew it was going to be bad.

We spent a record high $6,302 CAD ($4,950 USD) during the month of April. Yes, we spent a lot of money on motorhome parts and repairs, but even if we subtract that $3,493 we still spent $2,809, which would have been a high month anyhow. We're going to have to tighten our belts for the trip up to Yukon!