September Expenses

Well, a pretty good month, all things considered.

We spent a total of $1,736 CAD ($1,304 USD) for the month. And once again, the amount reinforces the fact that we spend as much money staying in one place here in Canada as we do when we're traveling and seeing new sights virtually every day when we're traveling in a motorhome.

It's all just gambling

Insurance of any kind is simply gambling. You pay the premium (place your bet) that something bad will happen to you and your insurance will pay for it so you can collect your winnings.

The difference is of course that you really don't want to win!

We leave in less than two weeks!

Canadian income taxes are normally due at the end of April. But because of Covid, the Canadian government kept delaying the date at which you would be charged interest and/or penalties and eventually the date became September 30th. So I bit the bullet and paid them yesterday. It sure did look better in my account than in theirs!

I feel like we didn't get very good value for our money. They don't tend to spend it very wisely.

Beautiful fall colors

 After a late Friday night campfire with one too many shots of bourbon, we got up and after breakfast drove up to the ski resort village of Mont Tremblant.

We made our way to the Nez-de-l'indien trailhead to find the parking lot already full, but managed to find parking nearby. Not surprising about the number of people... it was a gorgeous day with the fall colors in full bloom.

Good start to the weekend

Just a few photos today. 

I got a 9:00am start to drive up to a friend's cottage. A bit of a drive from Galetta, and I had to go through the city of Ottawa and into the province of Quebec. And, I had to make a quick stop at his house to pick up something he had forgotten.

I will not be buying eyeglasses here in Canada

So, yesterday morning we drove into Ottawa again. We had an 11:45am get together with my mom and sister, and I figured that we would stop at an optician ahead of that. But when I looked them up, they don't open until 11:00am, and I figured that might not give us enough time.

So we met with my mom and sister and had a good visit, then went to the Hakim Optical store in the Carlingwood Shopping Center.

Broken glasses!

I was outside yesterday pressure washing the siding on the house. The beige colored siding hadn't been cleaned in probably 15 years, and it was starting to turn green in some areas. Of course a lot of the water comes splashing back at you at times, and my glasses were getting pretty wet.

I took them off to give them a wipe, and one of the arms broke right off!

Just an update...

We're having a stretch of really nice fall weather here in south eastern Ontario. It's supposed to continue on through the weekend, so that's good news for my annual get together with the guys. Maybe a chance of some rain on Sunday, but that's still a few days away.

In the meantime... we'll take it!

What a frustrating job that turned out to be!

Busy day yesterday as we went in to Ottawa again. 

When we had picked up grandson Cameron the other day, we stopped in at Lowes and bought some new drawer slides for the six large drawers in the kitchen here at Ruth's dad's house. The old ones were simply worn out. Rather than replace them with cheap ones, I made the decision to get the pricey nice ones that have that fancy "soft close" mechanism.

Wir sind Kevin und Ruth

We are Kevin and Ruth.. in German!

We have several regular readers here that have German backgrounds. And in fact, Ruth and I both have some German background, but it goes back a couple of generations and unfortunately the language was never passed down.

The property where we are staying

The property where we are staying has belonged to Ruth's father Tony since they bought it in 1966. 

So he lived here for over fifty years. Ruth was only four years old when they moved in, and she lived here until she left for Ottawa at age nineteen.

When I met Ruth in 1983, her parents were actually living in the house next door which they had also purchased, and they lived there while adding a major addition to this house. They moved back into this house when the addition was completed in 1985.

It's Friday again? Already??

I had thought that maybe the next month would go by slowly because the stuff we are doing here at the house is starting to feel like work. But, I honestly can't believe that it's Friday again already!

And next Friday, it is my annual guys weekend away and I am really looking forward to seeing my friends.

Exploring caves with the grandkids, and some lucky good news!

 Hmm. Do we tell you about our day out exploring first, or do we tell you about our good luck first?

I think we'll save the good luck news for the end of the post. Keep reading!

Yesterday, we made arrangements to meet daughter Lindsey and the grandkids in the parking lot at Lac Philippe in Gatineau Park on the other side of the river in the province of Quebec.

If you want to travel internationally these days, you had better be prepared to be flexible with your plans

Our original Westjet flight booking was Ottawa to London's Gatwick airport with a connection through Halifax, Nova Scotia. That got changed a few weeks ago with a connection in Toronto instead, and of course different flight times.

We had also booked an onward flight with easyJet from London to Berlin that departed three hours after we landed in London.

It looks like we bought a brand new motorhome!

So, after going back and forth with a few last minute questions with our dealer contact in Germany, it looks like we have bought a new motorhome.

The final paperwork isn't completed yet, but the sales contract is in process. In an unexpected twist, we are not even required to place a deposit yet, and we don't make final payment until we pick it up...  which likely won't be until the end of March 2021.

Nice visit with our family. And Larry the spider!

We had a mostly rain day yesterday until mid afternoon when the clouds started to break up a bit. And we had visitors coming over... our daughter Lindsey and her family, and our son Alex and his girlfriend CJ. We haven't seen Alex and CJ since last fall, so we were looking forward to getting caught up with them.

But, CJ's parents are in a high risk group and so we did our best to maintain distancing measures. We had been planning on spending most of the visit out on the back deck, but because of the rain, we set up plan B.

We love our Tilley hats!

Tilley makes good quality stuff. Of course the company is most famous for their popular hats, but they also have a line of clothing that is both durable and practical.

We both have Tilley hats, backed by their famous lifetime guarantee. We got them at the same time in 2013, but they were slightly different models. Mine was made out of nylon and polyester, while Ruth's was made out of organic cotton.

Our choices for Worldwide Medical Insurance

We plan to be away from Canada for at least two years. Part of the plan includes eventually applying for German resident permits, which state that you have to have your own private medical insurance. But even if we obtain German resident permits, we would want to be doing quite a lot of travel outside of Germany as well.

So we have been shopping for worldwide medical insurance that would include coverage for when we return to Canada for family visits.

We think it is safe to fly

We took a rare blogging day off yesterday! The morning just seemed to disappear, and I simply never got to it.

But, we are back on schedule today.

I was asked the other day if we thought it was safe to fly. Of course, if we are to be in Europe next month to look at and buy a motorhome, we have to somehow get there right? And the only way to get there from Canada is by airplane.

Yesterday, we went to see a numismatist

"A numismatist?" you say. "What is that? Some kind of doctor?"

Nope. A numismatist is an expert who deals in coins and banknotes.

I mentioned the other day that we had found a box of old coins in the basement. I did some research and found out that Alliance Coin and Banknote in the nearby town of Almonte is the best place to go in the area to get an appraisal. So I made an appointment and we went for a drive over there yesterday morning.

Here's the spec sheet for the motorhome we're looking at

There is a big RV show going on right now in Dusseldorf, Germany and of course all of the European manufacturers are there, although in a reduced capacity to deal with Covid distancing restrictions.

And the RV dealer that I am currently speaking with has some of their people at the show checking out the new models. One of which is the 2021 Adria Matrix Access 520 ST that we are interested in.

Another nice European motorhome

I've been in contact with an RV dealer in Germany that was recommended to us. This is one of the largest dealerships in Europe, and the guy says they are extremely busy. I told him what we were looking for... a 2017 or 2018 model with under 40,000 kms (24,000 miles) as well as our list of specifics... he said that it was highly unlikely that we would find exactly what we were looking for in a used model.

However, he has a new 2021 that is already on pre-order with an expected December - January delivery.

Bike ride to the pretty little village of Pakenham

It's been a little windy this past week and so we haven't been out on the bikes. But yesterday, the wind had calmed down a bit and so we got out early on the bikes for a ride down to the village of Pakenham.

We had to bike on the highway for about half the trip, but on the second half we got onto a rail trail. Not that scenic, and pretty much flat. But we knew that in advance, and it was the destination that makes it worth it.

Well, we knew this time would come

When we are out traveling, we are typically good for maximum one month in the same spot. And that's if we really like the spot! It's usually time to move on after two weeks.

So we had a good idea that staying here in Galetta for over two and a half months was going to be too long, but we didn't know exactly when the feeling would hit.

Back to where it all began

We were back in Ottawa again yesterday, first for a morning visit with my mom and older sister. After that, we were supposed to meet up with a guy to sell a little 12V Bosch drill that we used to travel with in the motorhome. But stupid me, we got half way to Ottawa when I realized that I hadn't put it in the car! Dummy. I hate when I do things like that.

So I managed to contact the guy and we are dropping it off on Saturday since we have to go back into Ottawa again anyhow to renew the little red car rental contract after the first month.

Feel like we didn't get much done yesterday

It was supposed to rain on and off, but it never did until we got a thunderstorm around 4:30pm. Actually, I did manage to get outside for an hour and a half and I put back together what I could of the old wood splitter. It's pretty much good to go now, at least the mechanical part of it.

I bought a used battery for it for $50, and tinkered with things enough that you turn the key and it fires right up, whether the engine is hot or cold. Not bad, considering it sat for close to ten years.

Bought some more flight tickets...

We already have tickets to fly from Ottawa to London, England (Gatwick) on October 12th, less than six weeks from now. The original booking called for us to fly Ottawa to Halifax, Nova Scotia, then connect to London.

I received notice last week that they changed the routing so that we now fly Ottawa to Toronto, then connect to London. And I'm not surprised. There probably wasn't enough demand for the flight from Halifax to London.

September is the best month to be in Canada.

Or perhaps more accurately, it's the best month to be in the Ottawa area.

I joke (sort of) that Ottawa really only has one good month of the year, and that is September. After all, we have a brutal winter that lasts from November through March. Both October and April can be iffy though, and I would certainly not count on getting any half decent weather in either of those months. Out of the twelve months of the year, those seven can be scratched.