May Expenses

Well, hopefully that was our most expensive month of the year done and over with!

We spent $4,967 CAD ($3,680 USD) in the month of May! But, we were also in five different countries and we were on six different airplanes during the month so a big chunk of that was travel and overnight expenses.

Here's how it all broke down...

Next stop... who knows?!

Bundy and Joyce are ready to go! And so are we!

I can't believe it took us about three days to get everything cleaned up and ready to go. We were being pretty fussy though... right down to installing shelf liner (mactac?) on the base of most of the shelves and cupboards!

Almost ready to hit the road!

We're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Spent the morning finishing cleaning up Bundy and Joyce and got the electric systems figured out and working properly. The house battery seems to be fine, and the 160 watt folding solar panel kits works fine as well. Unfortunately, the engine battery did not pass the tests and needed to be replaced.

Our host Pat knows quite a few people in the auto parts and repair business and a few phone calls later got us a brand new battery wholesale for $150 AUD ($140 CAD, $105 USD). I had done some searching and the best I could find was $245 AUD!

Getting Bundy and Joyce ready to go!

Bundy is the truck... a 2008 Ford Ranger 4 wheel drive diesel with 128,000 kms (79,000 miles) on the clock.

Joyce is the camper that sits on Bundy's chassis. She was "home made", but very well made.

Today, we started getting Bundy and Joyce ready to hit the road!

First full day in Australia... running around!

We made a sort of a rough list of things to do, and our host Louise had taken the day off work to run us around. We'll say it again... it has been so great having them look after us on our first couple of days in the country! Thank you so much Louise and Pat!

So we went out to get some things done. We were gone about five hours and I've already forgotten the order in which we did things, but here it goes...

Finally... arrived in Australia!

Bali airport has got to be the busiest airport we have ever been in. The problem of course is that it's simply too busy for the size of the airport. So they've got all of these flights arriving and departing at all hours of the day and night.

Our flight from Bali to Adelaide, Australia was scheduled for 12:05am... at a gate that had three other flights scheduled to depart within a hour or so time frame. There were people sprawled everywhere.

Our one day in Indonesia

Slept like a rock Saturday night, and up Sunday morning to write an interesting blog post about Singapore. If you missed it, you can read it here...

https://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2019/05/singapore-to-bali-indonesia.html

Then, we went out to get some breakfast.

Singapore to Bali, Indonesia

Saturday morning, we checked out of our AirBnb apartment at 8:30am because Singaporean blog readers Han and Michelle were coming to show us some parts of Singapore that tourists wouldn't normally see.

And besides the tour, they gave us some interesting insight into how Singapore survives and thrives.

Singapore at night

This is the second blog post of the day! If you missed the first one, you can read it here...

https://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2019/05/the-more-natural-singapore-and-we-are.html

Friday evening, we went to the light shows at Marina Bay. There are two of them... one behind the Sands hotel at the "Supertrees", and one in front of the Sands hotel in the bay itself.

The more natural Singapore, and we are going to Hawaii!

This morning, we didn't leave the apartment until after 10:00am... because I was busy booking our return to Canada in August. I had no plans to book it today, I was just doing a random check of the prices and I spotted something.

Normally, one way from Australia to Canada is about $1,000 CAD per person. And I would have been happy to get it for $700 each. But I saw a deal from Sydney, Australia  to Honolulu, Hawaii for $274 CAD each. Then, I saw a deal for three days later from Honolulu to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for $312 each one way. So, $586 per person and we get to spend 3 days in Hawaii to break up the distance!

Singapore - Our feet were done, but it was still a good day.

Singapore is the 20th smallest country in the world, with a population of about 5.6 million. It's located only 112 kms (70 miles) north of the equator.

It's a clean, modern, and very safe city.

It's also a global financial center with a tropical climate and multicultural population. Almost all of the signage is in English, despite the fact that 75% of the population have a Chinese background. And there are four official languages... Malay, English, Mandarin, and Tamil.

Arrived in Singapore!

Singapore is country #35 for us!

It's the first new country since we were in Barbados is October of 2017.

Let me tell you about the last 24 hours or so...

Next stop, San Francisco, and then Singapore!

We called our Uber driver  from our AirBnb in Calgary at 3:30am yesterday morning. Yes, silly o'clock!

I was a little worried that there wouldn't be many Uber drivers around at that hour of the day (or night!), but it turned out that we only had to wait about 8 minutes and there he was, ready to bring us to Calgary airport for our 6:05am flight to Los Angeles.

First stop, Los Angeles!

Yesterday we returned our car rental to the south end of the city of Calgary. Then, we walked the 5 kms (3 miles) back to downtown and wandered around for a bit.

The weather was still not great, but at least it didn't rain.

Exactly the way you would get them in Mexico!

It would be nice if somebody would tell the weather gods that it's supposed to be springtime. Because there is certainly no global warming happening here in Calgary just now!

Yesterday felt like March in Canada, not May in Canada. Pretty sure it must have been snowing in the nearby mountains.

And so, we were looking for something indoor to do. And apparently so was the rest of the city.

Sometimes I think we must be a little bit crazy...

Just a little bit though!

Yesterday, I spent a good part of the day finalizing our trip plans to eventually end up in Adelaide, Australia where we will now arrive on May 27th... only 10 days later than originally planned.

But it's still a bit of a convoluted route as to how we get there.

Through the hoodoos to Calgary, Alberta

Well, despite a few rough patches over the last week or two it looks like everything is coming together.

Yesterday, we made our way from Cabri, Saskatchewan to Calgary, Alberta. Originally, we were going to have to be in Calgary by 11:00am to drop off the car rental, but now that we are not leaving Canada until Monday I managed to extend the car rental until Sunday.

Great news!

I opened my email this morning to find my Australia visitor visa approved!

The whole situation sucked though. It never should have been an issue to begin with. But, what's done is done, so there's nothing to do but look at the bright side. And the bright side is that we are now going to be seeing Singapore and Malaysia as well. It feels like we're getting a whole new trip out of the deal... which essentially we are, however it has cost us quite a lot more money as well.

When life hands you lemons...

...you need to make lemonade!

So yesterday, we made our way to the fancy new medical center in the town of Leader, Saskatchewan (pop 870). About an hour drive, but worth it compared to having to go back to the hospital in Swift Current!

Well, where do I start?

Lots to talk about today.

Let's start with our Australia trip. I still don't have a visa to travel to Australia, but of course that could change at any moment. Still, we're now planning on it not showing up in time. So, our inexpensive Australia trip is about to become an expensive Australia trip.

What a circus this has become. And complicated more by the fact that Ruth is still not feeling well and may not be well enough to travel on Thursday anyhow.

Back to the pharmacist

Well, Ruth felt quite a bit better yesterday, but she was complaining of a debilitating headache that just wouldn't let up. We finally decided that it was one of the side effect of the antibiotic Trimethoprin that she had been prescribed.

But we really didn't want to go back to the emergency room at the hospital. And since the Trimethoprin had been available at the pharmacist without a prescription and he had said there were other substitutes available we decided to drive back into the city and get something different.

Just an update

Ruth didn't have a great morning yesterday, but by noon your well wishes were starting to make a difference. And it helped that the medication was kicking in too! The doctor had said that it would take 24 hours or so for the antibiotics to start to take effect, and about a week to totally get better.

While Ruth stayed home to recuperate, I went out to the park to see how I could help out.

Off to the hospital

We don't often talk about health issues, unless they directly affect our travels. And really, we don't have any health issues. We're both healthy and in good condition and neither one of us take any medications for anything.

So when something goes wrong, it's a bit frustrating.

Back at Cabri, Saskatchewan

Yesterday we did the long drive from Calgary, Alberta to Cabri, Saskatchewan. It's not a really exciting drive, and we wanted to do it all in one day. So we stuck to the main 4 lane highway.

It certainly could have been more interesting to use some back roads, but it would have taken at least an extra hour and a half, and as it was it took six hours. That's enough for us.

Smooth flight to Calgary

We had an uneventful flight to Calgary. Everything right on schedule. Arrived at 10:30am local time. A little chilly, at 7C (45F) though!

We hopped in an Uber from the airport to the car rental place. The Uber was pricier than expected, at $37 CAD, ($27 USD) for the 22 km (13.6 mile) ride, but it still made more sense than taking the local bus. And, our car rental is so cheap that we could justify the convenient but pricey Uber ride.

On our way to Calgary

We are at Ottawa airport as I write this, waiting for our four hour and twenty minute flight to Calgary. This flight was a freebie, paid for with travel point from our Visa credit card. But, I still got a deal on it because it was on sale at the time for $210 each one way so I needed to use less points to cover the fare.

We will arrive in Calgary at around 10:20am, and will likely use Uber to make our way to the car rental place located about 20 minutes from the airport.

I can't believe I'm still paying for this...

Okay, this is a long story... you better make yourself comfortable!

Some of our long time readers might remember that I (Kevin) need to get a special visa to visit the United States. I've talked about it before on this blog, but it's been a few years so I'll refresh your memory.

Ottawa River Flooding

It was a gorgeous spring day yesterday, so Ruth and I spent a fair bit of time outside. We had stayed overnight at a friends place near the Ottawa River, so we went for a walk on the paths above the shoreline.

You may have seen on the news that the Ottawa River has experienced record flooding this spring. The river flows from the north, starting at Lake Timiskaming and then making up the Ontario - Quebec border as it makes its way to the St. Lawrence Seaway at Montreal.

Visiting with some new full time RV'ers

Saturday afternoon, we went and visited with Judi and Ian, a couple we had met with a year and a half ago when they were contemplating selling their house and buying a motorhome to live in.

Now, they have done exactly that.

You probably noticed some advertising

While we've been having some downtime here, I've been getting caught up on some things that we just don't have time to do when we're off traveling. I know it's a little boring for you right now (I can tell from our lower blog statistics!), but we'll be back in the air on Wednesday and off to have more adventures.

One of those things was to look for a new advertising partner for this website.

Our new Chester luggage

I promised to tell you about our new carry on luggage. It's quite a different style compared to the backpack type we had been using since 2012. But the backpack style ones were getting pretty rough looking, having traveled with us to somewhere around twenty different countries since we got them.

And, with airlines getting more and more strict about the size and weight of carry on luggage, we figured it would be in our best interests to look for something that is specifically designed for that purpose.

Cold start to May

Yesterday, May 1st, the high reached 4C (39F). With sleet, freezing rain, and some snow flakes. Definitely an abnormal start to the month up here in Ottawa, Canada. Still, we managed to get out for a hike in the morning with Bob and Denise (they were on the last Mexico RV trip with us) before the precipitation started.

They arrived on Tuesday afternoon, and it was actually quite a nice day.

April Expenses

Well, you can tell we're not in Mexico any more!

But despite that, our expenses for the month came in about where we expected. We spent a total of $2,155 CAD ($1,630 USD) for the month. And considering that included our flight up here and the car rental, it's not bad.