Coho's first mousing experience!

For the past week, they've been forecasting rain for today. Of course at first, you don't believe them because the 7 day forecast means nothing. But as today got closer, they didn't waiver. It's going to rain, they say. The only question has been "how much rain?", as their estimates have changed daily from a half an inch to two full inches.

And sure enough, we got up this morning, and an hour later it started to rain.

Postcards from Sherman

Busy weekend here at the park, so I've been doing my middle of the night walks to make sure that nobody is out being stupid. That means I usually don't sleep well, and when we finally got up at 7:30am yesterday morning we were till pretty tired.

But I had to get up because at 8:00am, I had a job to do!

The little blue car has a boo-boo

Ruth went into Swift Current on Wednesday to do groceries and a bunch of running around for the park. We always pack the little blue car full of recycling and returnable bottles and cans to collect the deposits back for the park. This generates revenue for the park to the tune of over $2,000 per season!

Anyhow, when she came back, the first thing she said was "the little blue car has a boo-boo", and of course I instantly thought uh, oh...there's a scratch or dent somewhere...

Should you buy a new...or used RV?

With the recent RV news headlines stating that sales of new RVs are hitting record highs around North America, it's hard to figure out why.

All of my research and figures say that it simply doesn't make good financial sense to buy a brand new RV. But, maybe it's because a lot of people simply don't have good financial sense! It's possible they just don't know any better. Or, maybe they've got too much money in the first place and they simply don't care.

What does it cost to buy an older RV?

Ruth was having a discussion on a facebook forum the other day, and someone was arguing with her about what it costs to buy and maintain an older RV. This guy pretty much called Ruth a liar when she told him that we've never had anything major go wrong with Sherman in the nearly ten years that we've owned him.

He also said that in those ten years we probably could have bought a new motorhome with the amount we've spent on repairs and maintenance. Which obviously is ridiculous.

A bit of a sad day here at the park...

One of the things we've enjoyed at the park is watching the great horned owls every spring. When we arrive in May, one of the first things we do is walk over to the nest to see how many babies there are.

The first year there was only one. But both last year and this year we've been able to watch two babies grow up and leave the nest.

We found out yesterday that one of them didn't survive.

Happy Independence Day to our American readers!

We've spent a fair bit of time exploring the United States of America, and today we're going to help our American friends and readers celebrate their national holiday by showing you a variety of pics we've taken over the years that symbolize the patriotism that most Americans share.

Happy Birthday America!

June Expenses

The summer months are supposed to be when we don't spend much money. But so far, it's not really working out that way! I swear, we spend less money when we're out touring in the motorhome than we do when we're sitting still.

But, it was a good month. We had fun with Lindsey and the grandkids at the beginning of the month, and we also did some shopping and paid out some expenses towards our motorhome exchange in Spain next January and February. Total was $1,428!

(Figures are all in Canadian dollars...for U.S. dollar equivalent you can subtract about 25%).

Fundraising here at the park

There is a big volunteer contingent here at the park, and some of the biggest are the people who sit on the board of directors. Many of them make a two or three (or more) year commitment to sit in on meetings, come up with ideas, voice their opinion, and have a turn at running the park along with six or eight other people.

As park managers, we are in the special position of being able to see most of what goes on behind the scenes, and these people who sit on the board don't get enough recognition for the hard work they do in benefit of the park.

Happy Canada Day!

July 1st is Canada's birthday, and this year the country celebrates 149 years as a nation.

On this day, there is no better place to be in Canada than the capital city of Ottawa. If you've never been to Ottawa, it's a beautiful city. Ruth and I both grew up in Ottawa, so we know the city well and we have spent many Canada Days downtown enjoying the festivities.

The big weekend is here!

It's a holiday weekend in both Canada and the United States. In Canada, the holiday is on the Friday and in the U.S. the holiday is on the Monday. So here, the campers will be pulling in later this afternoon.

This is the start of our six week busy season. We've still got some open sites though, so it won't be sold out for this weekend. We actually had a few cancellations called in yesterday which is too bad, but we kind of expected that with the water level being so low.

A lot of airfare deals!

Wow, there sure are a lot of great airfare deals out there. I check several times per day for our January 1st (or so) flight to Spain to come on sale, but nothing yet because our return flight is in April of next year. Still tons of time left for the right deal to come along though.

But as I watch for the right price point for that deal, I see all these other deals! Like Toronto to Warsaw, Poland for only $360 CAD return! Wow. Anytime you can fly across the pond for under $400 return, it's a fantastic deal.

Before and after

There are a lot of hedges here in the park, and most of them have never been looked after. At least not for many, many years. So over the past three years, we've been slowly cleaning them out and cutting off the dead stuff and trimming them back.

Ruth did a bunch of work on one messy looking section last week. It was a big job.

When you see a deal, you have to jump on it!

We've been wearing Merrell hiking boots for quite a few years now. And I wear mine every day, so we've learned that I can get a solid two years out of them before it's time for another pair.

And the last pair I bought was in August of 2014, so I figured I had better keep my eyes peeled for a sale online at some point over the next 3 months.

Thinking about new luggage

We've had our Heys rolling backpacks for four years now, and they've been on some fantastic trips with us. And they've served us well. But even though we think they're still ready for another trip or two, we find ourselves looking for something new and different.

The new bags are pretty high tech and of course some of the materials used to make them are much lighter than before. Our current bags weigh 7 lbs empty, and have 45 litres of carrying capacity.