Canada's 150th Birthday

This is a big year in Canada, with lots going on in celebration of the country's 150th birthday. So over the next few weeks leading up to the big day on July 1st, we're going to be talking a lot about Canada.

There are 10 provinces and 3 northern territories that make up Canada.

Sunday morning pancakes

Actually, they are "weekend" pancakes for us, because we only happen to be having them this morning. So while they are Sunday morning pancakes today, they could just as easily be Saturday lunch pancakes next weekend!

Ruth and I have a bit of a tradition with weekend pancakes. As well, we do weekend bacon and eggs!

Great RV and Camping Deals

As you know, we love a great deal. In fact, who doesn't love a great deal? Even people with lots of money love to get a great deal. That could even be how they got to have lots of money! After all, they say that a penny saved is a penny earned.

Most of our regular readers know that I'm pretty good at finding great deals.

Opening day!

Well, it's opening day for most campgrounds here in Canada. Monday is "Victoria Day" so it's a holiday long weekend up here in the great white north. Americans have to wait another week yet for their "Memorial Day" May long weekend.

But things are not so white up here any more! Mostly very green. And they're calling for a beautiful weekend with sunshine and highs around 21C (70F) for the next four days.

We found our baby owl...

Late Tuesday afternoon, our summer employee Kevin was cutting some grass in one section of the park and he spotted our baby owl! We came and had a look, and sure enough, there it was sitting against the bushes. We were so happy to see it alive and well.

We had seen the mom in the same area, so she's definitely looking after it and making sure it's fed. After dinner, we decided to go move it and put it in a nearby tree. So we grabbed the camera and went to see how it was doing.

Our three favorite places in Mexico

We've been to 29 of the 31 states in Mexico. We're still missing Hidalgo and Tlaxcala. And while there are many places that we like in Mexico, there are three places have become our favorites. These are not normal Mexican vacation spots.

You'll notice that places like Puerto Vallarta and Cancun don't make the list of our top three!

Casino Camping

Back on October 17, 2007, on only our second night in our motorhome, we woke up in the Sudbury Casino parking lot. No, it's not because we drank too much, or because the engine wouldn't start. We had actually asked if we could overnight in their parking lot.

At the time, and even today, many RV'ers will overnight in parking lots if they're in transit. Walmart parking lots are somewhat famous for this activity, however we've always found that there are better options.

Casino camping is one such better option!

This mom is going to be busy!

Well, we're more than a little disappointed to say that there has been no sign of our little baby owl. Yesterday, Ruth saw both the mom and the dad in nearby trees. This is rare, because we hardly ever see them at the same time. Usually the dad is off doing... well... dad things. But, haven't caught sight of the baby. We're still hopeful that it's safe and sound stashed away somewhere.

Sitting here this morning, and we saw a deer come wandering into the bush beside our house trailer.

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.