Ruth's doctor's appointment

It had been quite a few years since our last "annual" physical checkup.  Personally, I think that these annual physical checkups are a total waste of the system's resources, but I understand that is just my opinion. Others think differently, and that is apparent from the different provinces health care plans.

In Canada, even though we have "free" or "universal" health care, the program is administered by the provinces and each province does things quite differently.

The best beer in the world

The other day, I was thinking that it's been a while since I've had a beer. A long while. About three months actually.

And I think that's probably the longest I've gone without a beer or three since I was about 18 years old!

Another update from Volkan and Heather- Reporting from Sweden

Back in May, you had all enjoyed a guest post from our friends Volkan and Heather who were visiting United Arab Emirates.  Here is a link to that post...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2015/05/whats-it-like-to-visit-middle-eastern.html

Now, our traveling friends are in Sweden and they've sent another interesting update for you all to read!

Power outage

Up until the last two weeks or so we had been having an exceptionally dry summer, however that has changed! We had a couple of inches of rain at the end of July, and the last day has been cloudy with thunderstorms on and off and we have woken up to rain again this morning.

Won't have to water the grass or the flowers for a few days! But, it is supposed to be a nice weekend.

Another RV'er giveaway!

When we travel, we like staying with people who are local to the area. That's why we're members of the couchsurfing community for when we are traveling without the motorhome. So when we heard that there was a similar website for people out exploring with their RV, we signed up right away!

And now, the good folks over at Boondockers Welcome have offered us the opportunity to give away one free annual membership so that you too can have a free place to overnight and meet some great local RV people in your travels throughout Canada and the United States!

Straight south!

Took a rare blogging day off yesterday.

I was looking at the map again...I must be getting itchy to get on the road! We'll be heading for Moose Jaw when we leave here, and then pretty much straight south from there. At least this way it'll be easy to choose a route that we've never done before.

We survived!

Well, we made it through the busy August long weekend here in Canada. The campground was sold out, and had been booked that way since the end of June. Today is the holiday Monday and so a lot of people will be leaving throughout the day.

Fortunately, we had great weather and it sure looks like everybody enjoyed their time despite things being a little bit crowded.

Sherman's roof

Sherman (our motorhome) is 20 years old this summer.

That means that the rubber membrane roof material that keeps the water out is also 20 years old, and near the end of it's useful life. In fact, even the Dicor company that makes  the roofing material says that their roof membrane is guaranteed for 10 years, but will likely last 20 years.

So that leaves two options if we want to keep Sherman healthy.

July Expenses

We did pretty much all of our necessary shopping in one month! Most of the items that we bought won't even get used until September or October, but it was going to have to be bought anyhow and we got some good deals.

So, grand total of expenses for the month of July... $1,685. (Keep in mind that these are Canadian dollars. For the U.S. equivalent you can subtract almost 25%!).

We don't often comment on news items

But the recent killing of Zimbabwe's Cecil the lion by an American trophy hunter has us wanting to give our own perspective on the incident.

First of all, the research I've done shows that there are approximately 3,000 lions in Zimbabwe. The country issues between 50 and 70 trophy hunting permits per year to hunt a lion. The lions are almost all located on public and private nature preserves.

Want to know how easy it is to hunt a lion?

Just about done with forums.

I used to sign up on various discussion forums, but I simply don't have the patience for wading through the useless posts and the lack of moderation. Drives me crazy, so for the most part I just avoid them now. I have tried two facebook groups recently, but I'm pretty much done with them now too.

Some of the discussion just makes you shake your head. Check this out...

Our top 10 blog posts

I noticed that yesterday was our 2,600th blog post. Almost eight years of our life, detailed for all to see. There sure is some interesting stuff in there. When I looked back at some of the early blog posts, I almost removed some of the stuff...things that I wouldn't write about today. But, they are part of the past and they reflect what I was thinking at the time so they can remain there.

The following are our 10 favorite posts, not necessarily yours, nor necessarily the most popular.

One more busy weekend to go

And then the worst is over.

The Canadian August long weekend is the busiest weekend of the year for us here at the park. This year, it's this coming Friday July 31st through Monday August 3. For those dates we've been sold out since the end of June, however there has been the odd cancellation due to harvest coming a little early this year. But when somebody cancels, the vacancy is usually filled the same day.

Carnival in Rio de Janeiro...?

Came across an airfare this morning from Mexico City to Rio de Janeiro. Around $350 USD return for each of us. Definitely a good price, but not a great price. I think if it was a great price, and the Canadian dollar exchange rate was just a little better then we might have booked it.

But going to "Carnival in Rio" does have a certain ring to it, doesn't it?

Traveler finances

Those of you who never leave your home country don't need to worry about this as much, however for budget world travelers it totally makes sense to keep an eye on what the currency markets are doing.

And they are doing some interesting things lately.