May Expenses

Not a bad month, all things considered. More than we'd like, but we had to get the little blue car registered in Saskatchewan, and with the rip off government mandated vehicle inspection it's not cheap to do that. But, we had no choice.

We spent a total of $1,143. (Note: These are all Canadian prices. Subtract 20% to get the approximate American equivalent.)

Go west, young man...

This phrase was first used in 1851 concerning westward expansion. The fertile farmland of the west was considered an ideal place for people willing to work hard for the opportunity to succeed. The phrase came to symbolize the idea that agriculture could solve many of the nation's problems of poverty and unemployment that plagued the big cities of the East.

My grandfather was born in Nova Scotia. When his older brothers became of age, every summer they hopped on a train to Saskatchewan to work the harvest. Eventually, it was my grandfather's turn, and he headed to Saskatchewan as well.

What's it like to visit a Middle Eastern country?

I had a note yesterday from our traveling friends Heather and Volkan. We had met them in March of 2014 in New York City after communicating several times by email. We only met for a quick hour and a half lunch at the time, but I know we'll see them again some day.

Heather and Volkan don't have a blog, but they send out regular emails to their family and friends and they've given us permission to share their last email with you. I think it's really interesting. They're in Paris now, after having spent three weeks in United Arab Emirates. We love visiting different places, and middle eastern countries are certainly different. UAE is very  different, and Heather's email details their visit to this world of indoor ski hills and Lamborghinis. So, without further ado, here is Heather...

Canadian Tire - The saga continues...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about our unpleasant experience having some work done at Canadian Tire's automotive service department. You can read about it here.

This was all because Saskatchewan has government run auto insurance and requires a vehicle safety inspection before an out of province vehicle can be registered and insured in the province. The little blue car needed front brake pads, so I changed them the other day. But, I had to bring the car back to Canadian Tire for a re-inspection so that they could see that the front brake pads had been changed.

Slept in...

It seems our alarm clock needs a new battery! We have to have the little blue car in for it's re-inspection at 8:00am this morning, so we have to leave in 20 minutes and haven't even had breakfast yet.

So this is all you get for a blog post today. Sorry!

Just an update...

Reservations for our busy season continue to dribble in. Busy season for us essentially lasts from June 27th (the day after the kids get out of school) until August 9th. About 6 weeks.

 I was comparing to last year, and we're definitely taking more reservations for the week before the July long weekend, and the week after the August long weekend. And August long weekend will again be sold out this year, in fact there are only six full hookup sites still available.

We're approved!

I'm disappointed. I expected more response to yesterday's post. I figured that you all were a technologically advanced lot who would have hundreds (or at least tens) of suggestions of exciting apps for our smartphone. But, maybe you all use these fancy devices simply to make phone calls. To those of you who did leave a comment, thank you!

We're often surprised by what topics engage people and which ones do not.

Show us your apps!

Okay, so I'm slowly getting used to our iPhone. One thing I'm learning is that it seems to use an awfully lot of data. It's always wanting to update something or other. Same with iTunes, so I don't let it update on the laptop either. And because we are on a fairly expensive pay per use cellular data supply, I now don't even turn on data for the iPhone here at the park. I wait until we go into town for grocery shopping and let the free Walmart wi-fi download all of the updates. One of the mapping apps we use needed to do a 78 MB update!

If you don't keep track of these things, it adds up really quickly.

It's that time of year

We would have thought that the lack of rain would have translated into a lack of mosquitoes. Or at least we hoped that it would have, but that's not the case. Unfortunately, the little buggers are out in full force!

Maybe we shouldn't have watered the grass so much.

Using your GPS - Hints and Tips

When I read stories from people who say that their GPS sent them this way, or sent them that way, or made them turn their vehicle into a corn field, I have to shake my head. Seriously? It made you turn into a cornfield? It's like they turn on their GPS, and turn off their brain.

Your GPS device is made to be used as a guide, not meant to be followed blindly.

Saskatchewan gets a bum rap

Most people who tour Canada don't put the province of Saskatchewan anywhere on their list of "things I want to see". Even Canadians! I think that's because people envision flat prairie land and they think that all you'll see is fields of crops growing.

Don't get me wrong...you will definitely see fields of crops growing! But there are pockets of beauty in Saskatchewan, such as our very own Cabri Regional Park.

Stuck in the mud

We finally had a beautiful and fairly calm day yesterday. The wind had been really bad for at least a week, and it was sure making our clean up operations difficult. And frustrating! It'll be nice when we're done all of this cleanup and we can concentrate on other projects that are on the agenda.

The forecast for the next week looks gorgeous though. Highs of around 24C (75F) and sunny!

Frozen

We had an abnormally cold night, and woke up to -4C (25F) yesterday morning. Almost a record low for this area. Some of the campers had frozen water lines, and a copper line that runs on the outside of our office building had split. Things warmed up quickly though, and soon that split line was pouring out water. Easy to turn the water off to that line, and I fixed it later in the morning.

And, I had purposely left a few of the water sprinklers on because things have been so dry. Didn't plan on things getting that cold though. No harm done, but the picture is kind of funny...

"Which country is your favorite?"

One of the most common questions we are asked is... "Of the countries you've visited, which one is your favorite?"

And it's a tough question to answer.

First of all, we've only been to somewhere around 23 countries. So considering there are around 195 countries in the world, we really don't have that many to choose from. However, it's still a valid question.

Slightly busier this year

Last year we had a total of 20 RV's for the May log weekend. This year, we have 28. Part of the reason it's busier is that spring is a little early here this year and many of the local farmers have finished seeding operations.

It's certainly not busier because of our long weekend weather. We've never seen it so windy here as it was yesterday afternoon and evening.