Camping in Europe

I've been meaning to do this post for a while now, simply so that we have a record of the following resources that we used while we were camping in Europe for two months. We will definitely be going back to Europe at some point to do some more RV travel. The best way to see Europe is in a campervan!

In fact, we might even buy an RV to use in Europe.

No more owls...?

The strong east wind never let up yesterday at all. It was a pretty constant 40 km/h (25 mph) all day, and right through the night. Remember yesterday I had said we were amazed that our owl nest stayed up in that tree?

Well I guess I spoke too soon...

33 years and the adventure continues!

It was 33 years ago today that we were standing in a small church in Galetta, Ontario saying "I do"!

We were only 22 years old at the time. Seems awfully young to be getting married, doesn't it? Especially since we had only known each other for 14 months or so! But, some things were meant to be, and here we are still carrying on.

Even the packaging is impressive!

We did a lot of flying this past winter, and we were offered the opportunity to try out a top quality set of earbud headphones so that we could enjoy a premium listening experience while watching the in flight entertainment systems on the various aircraft.

The Swedish brand Sudio sent us each one pair of their top quality earphones. Ruth chose the blue ones, and I chose the black ones!

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!