April Expenses

We spent a lot of money in April!

Total expenses came to $2,993 CAD ($2,250 USD).  I checked back through the records, and April is always an expensive month for us because we're often returning to Canada at that time of year. This year was the highest yet though, because there was a lot of flying involved. Plus, we were a couple of weeks in Ottawa and we always seem to spend more money there than when we're traveling!

Here's how it all broke down...

Something we don't see every day at the park...

Well, I was not very successful with repairing the water leak underneath the house trailer. I was under there four or five times, and there's not a lot of room!

There is a tarp type of material holding in the fiberglass insulation under the floor. You have to cut that away to get at any of the pipes, and of course where the water is coming out is not necessarily where the actual leak is.

And, did I mention there's not a lot of room?

Back at Cabri Regional Park

Said goodbye to Wendy and Phil in Moose Jaw yesterday morning (thanks again guys!) and we were on the road yesterday morning just after 9:00am.

Not much in the way of traffic. Just put the cruise control on and drove. Made it to Swift Current around 11:00am and we headed straight to the Salvation Army Thrift store!

Back to the Prairies

Up bright and early yesterday morning at 5:00am. Had to be downstairs at the Radisson Hotel Toronto airport for the shuttle bus at 6:00am. Got to the airport and through security and to the gate with lots of time to spare for our 8:00am flight.

It's a good thing airports have finally figured out how important it is for them to supply free wifi to people in the terminal. We've been in 10 different airports so far this year alone, and they have all had fast free wifi.

There wasn't any kicking and screaming from us!

Well, this was an interesting day!

Let me back up to Wednesday morning when we were first able to "check in" online for our 9:00am Thursday flights from Ottawa to Toronto and Toronto to Regina. At that time, our seat assignments for the first flight from Ottawa to Toronto came up normally. We had seats side by side and on a larger jet that had economy seating three rows on each side with an aisle in the middle.

But on the Toronto to Regina leg of the trip, I noticed that things seemed abnormally "full". In fact, when the system tried to assign seats, it put Ruth in an upgraded seating section with no extra charge, and me in a single seat in the economy section at the rear of the plane.

Back in the air again!

Sitting here in busy Toronto airport, waiting for our flight to Regina, Saskatchewan. We weren't supposed to be here this early. Our flight from Ottawa was scheduled to leave at 9:00am, but there was another flight at 8:00am, and they asked if anybody would volunteer to leave early. Okay!

Then, we sat on the plane for an extra 45 minutes because they are repairing a runway in Toronto and the arrivals had to be scheduled... or something like that! Can't win. But, we don't care and it's out of our control anyhow. It's all part of travel.

What's on the agenda for next winter?

Did some work around Ruth's dad's house yesterday. Ruth did some yardwork while I took off the winter tires and rims on his vehicle and installed the summer ones.

In the afternoon, I went for lunch with an old friend of mine who used to be my accountant partner when I owned the auto body repair shop many years ago. Nice to catch up since I hadn't seen him in about two years.

Do you remember Expo 67?

Our daughter Lindsey lent us her car, and we drove up to Ruth's dad's yesterday. On the way, we stopped at a Walmart to pick up a few things. One of those things was a new battery for one of Lindsey's key fobs. These new cars don't have an ignition key. Simply a thing (called a fob) that hangs from your key chain, and so long as it's in the car, the car will start with the push of a button.

But, these fobs won't work when the tiny battery in them goes dead.

What have we been up to...

We finally had a nice spring day. Yesterday was up to about 20C (68F) and mostly sunny although there was a bit of a wind. You can tell that winter is over in this part of the world, but April in Ottawa is a bit of a wildcard. Sunny again today, but only a high of 11C (52F).

Saturday morning, Ruth and I took our grandson Cameron out for his birthday.

Another update from our friends Volkan and Heather

It's been a while since we've had a guest post from our friends Volkan and Heather. They had sent us an update on their travels while we were away in Europe, but we never got around to publishing it for you.

They recently spent some time in New Zealand and wrote to tell us about it...

What does it cost for five months of travel in Europe?

Well, it's not as much as you might think.

We spent $14,000 CAD ($10,800 USD) for the six month period between November 1st and now. An average of $2,333 ($1,800 USD) per month. That includes all flights as well as our return trip back to Canada at Christmas time.

That total also includes all of our expenses, because that's the only way that it's meaningful to anybody. It even includes our new Samsung smartphone. Yep. Everything.

Too many rules!

We've just been spending time with our daughter's family these last few days. Grandson Cameron (6) is in grade one, so he's gone to school all day. So granddaughter Sadie gets a lot of our time.

She sure is a character!

Could we live there?

Well, we sure did have an interesting winter, didn't we?

Certainly not a "normal" winter for us. Sherman the motorhome remains parked up here at our daughter's house where he has been since last October. And he'll be sitting here for a while yet because we have no plans to move him until October of this year!

And, we have now visited 33 different countries. We've been in 12 different countries in the last six months alone! Wow!

Body Bark

A company we had never heard of sent us a couple of t-shirts last Christmas. They simply asked us to try them out, and write about them if we liked them.

We're always willing to offer our opinion, especially on a product that can be related to our travels. And most of you know that we travel very light. So when we did some research about this lightweight, comfortable, easy to wash and dry clothing, we took them up on the idea!

Not a bad deal on a Canadian SIM card...

On the way up to Ruth's dad's place yesterday, we stopped at the off leash dog park. This is a really popular place for dogs to be running around loose and playing with other dogs. I'm pretty sure that many people come here every day to give themselves and their pups some exercise.

It was a little chilly, but after all it is only mid April...and we are in Canada!