How to save money grocery shopping!

We are having a bit of sticker price shock here in Saskatchewan. It's only May 10th, and we have already spent over $600 on groceries this month. Partly because we didn't have the motorhome with us and so we arrived to totally empty cupboards and a totally empty refrigerator.

So there was some stocking up to be done.

Booked another flight ticket!

This time, it's for our return flight back to Ottawa at the end of September. Of course we have those $800 each travel vouchers from our Air Canada flight bump experience a couple of weeks ago. But just because they were given to us doesn't mean we would squander them.

So yesterday I saw that the Regina To Ottawa flight had dropped from $323 CAD to $191 CAD. To put that in perspective, we had paid $235 CAD each for our flight from Ottawa to Regina a couple of weeks ago.

I should have been a plumber...

We noticed yesterday that the drain under the kitchen sink was dripping. It's a double sink, and the dishwasher hooks into the same drain. It was only a small drip, but it wasn't going to get better on it's own!

Turns out the seal between the drain pipe and the sink itself was broken and it needs a new pipe. After taking it apart it wouldn't go back together, so of course now we can't use the dishwasher. But fortunately we can still use the second sink but we have to be careful and drain it slowly.

How to do a motorhome exchange

In the summer of 2016, we gave our motorhome to strangers from Europe to use here in North America for two months. Just imagine that. People we had never met before were going to be using our motorhome. And they were going to be using it for free.

However... a few months later, the tables were turned. We went to Spain and used their motorhome for two months! For free. All of a sudden, this is looking like a pretty good deal!

You can almost watch the leaves opening up!

Ruth was busy all day yesterday doing leaf clean-up. Hard work when it's this warm. The temperature got up to 30C (86F) yesterday, but there is no humidity at all, and there was a breeze all day as well. Supposed to be warm again today, then back to normal with highs of around 20C (68F) and sunny all next week.

Perfect weather.

We have another baby!

A baby great horned owl, that is!

After 5 days of watching mom owl in her nest, we have finally caught sight of the baby. There had been no indication at all that there was a baby there yet, except that mom was spending an awfully lot of time in the nest, and I had found some broken egg shell directly below the nest.

But, it's definitely the latest in the season so far compared to past years.

Park clean-up has started!

Kevin is working in the office this morning taking reservations.  Today is the first day and it is always non stop for about 4 hours so today you are getting a rare post from me, Ruth!

Where we live at Cabri Park

The guy who normally looks after our water pump here at the park came and had a look at the water leak under the house trailer. He crawled under there and started poking around and he got lucky! The first place he started looking, he found the leak. And he had a bunch of fittings with him and was able to fix it right away. I had been under there four or five times without any luck, and this guy comes in and makes it look easy!

Well, he's our hero of the day. So, the place is livable again and we can use the washing machine, dishwasher, and shower! Good news!

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.