We're ready to order our Tilley hats!

We tried on some Tilley hats yesterday.

As much as it is surprising to find some Tilley hats for sale in the tiny city of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan (pop 35,000), we were not surprised that the selection wasn't great and that some of the hats were older discontinued models.

But we still had fun trying them on!

Another job done!

When we took a walk around the park with some of the board of directors in the spring, we had been looking at various jobs that needed to be done. One of them was a big old tree stump by the beach that was pretty unsightly.

There had been a storm through here last year and a few trees had toppled over. They had cut them at the base, and most of them were okay to be left that way, but this one stump needed to go. Problem was, it was pretty big!

Finally, some peace and quiet.

We had another busy weekend here at the campground, but it went fairly smoothly. It wasn't sold out, but there weren't many empty sites.

Come yesterday evening though, the place feels like a ghost town.

The Top 100 Canadian Travel Blogs

There are literally thousands of travel blogs to be found on the internet. And there are lists of what are considered to be the top 100 travel blogs in the world, but there has never been a list that specifies the top 100 Canadian travel blogs.

Until this morning. And the most exciting part? We're on the list!

A facebook milestone for us!

We passed the 1,000 "likes" mark on our facebook page yesterday!

We know that many of you don't "do" facebook, which is why it's taken us a while to reach this particular milestone. This seems to be a generational thing and the number of facebook users declines dramatically over the age of 45. And most of our readers are between the ages of 45-65, so it's definitely a factor for our page.

What's wrong with this map?

Came across something interesting this morning, and it's going to be your geography lesson of the day! And, when we tell people we're going to Africa this winter, we really need to be more specific. Africa is a huge place...

Could be a busy weekend

Because we're actually having a stretch of summer weather! After nearing record cold overnight temperatures last week at 4C (39F), we've gradually warmed up every day and we hit 32C (90F) for yesterday's high.

And it's supposed to be warm again today. Quite a few campers showed up yesterday, and we're being told the lower campground is sold out for the weekend. We'll see. There always seems to be a cancellation or screw up that leaves us with a couple of empty sites and we haven't seen it totally full yet.

Help us choose the best hat!

We've always been "baseball cap" kind of people. In fact, I don't think we've ever owned a hat other than a baseball hat. Or a winter hat. We're from Canada, so of course we've owned a winter hat! But this coming winter, we're headed for a part of the world that is going to be sunny and very hot.

So when Tilley Endurables agreed to sponsor our African trip by supplying us with two of what are arguably the best hats in the world, we were pretty excited and looking forward to making our selection.

But there are too many to choose from. We've narrowed it down a bit, but we need your help!

Ruth's best gluten free bread recipe

A little off topic for a travel blog, but because many of you know that Ruth eats gluten free we're often asked about eating that special diet. When we're not traveling, Ruth makes a lot of food from scratch and bread is one of the more popular items.

Gluten free bread is often heavy, and falls apart easily. This is by far the best bread recipe she's found, and I like it too!

What to do with the little blue car?

With our travels from September 2013 to April 2014 basically planned out, one thing that we're not sure about is the future of the little blue car.

It's okay for this winter...we have a prepaid season of storage already arranged.

Another weekend gone

Seems we're back at the point where we're only going to be busy on the weekends here at the campground. Quite a few empty spots this morning as the weekend campers went home yesterday. We had a family reunion group up in the overflow area, but they were pretty easy to look after as they policed themselves and all we had to do was to drop firewood in two piles and empty their trash cans.

Trying different food

We've become pretty open minded when it comes to food and traveling. There are definitely some different "delicacies" around the world, and even though some of them sound a bit strange to us North Americans, the locals in these other countries don't think twice before popping it in their mouths.

So we're anticipating trying some different foods while we're in Africa. What's popular over there?

We're going to Cancun, Mexico!

Not until March of next year, but the flight is booked.

We knew that our return flight from Africa arrives in New York City on March 8. And somehow, we wanted to make our way back to our motorhome which is parked near Guadalajara, Mexico.

The strange things you see...

Yesterday was my day to head in to the thriving metropolis of Prince Albert (pop 35,000). Ruth goes in to do the grocery shopping on Wednesdays, and I go in on Thursdays. I usually go if there's anything that needs to be picked up for the campground and to fill the camp truck up with fuel. Plus, it simply gets me out of here for a few hours!

Quiet hours 11:00pm to 7:00am

What's so difficult to understand? Seems pretty self explanatory, yet this simple campground rule is the one biggest thorn in my side as a campground manager.