What's the plan?

Back in to Ottawa yesterday where we had a nice visit with my mother and older sister. Then it was off to pick up Ruth's dad and we brought him out for a drive. We also had some running around to do, including a stop to change some Mexican pesos into euros.

When we were preparing to leave Mexico last March, we thought we had our cash situation figured out so that we wouldn't have very much left over when we actually crossed the border. But because of Covid altered plans, we ended up staying in one spot the last ten days and that actually meant we didn't spend as much cash.

Day trip to the U.S. border, and final paperwork on the new motorhome

Yesterday evening we posted our expenses for the month of September. If you missed it, you can read it here...

https://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2020/09/september-expenses.html

We picked up the grandkids yesterday and took them out for a field trip day. The weather was kind of iffy, but we brought raincoats. The destination? The border town of Brockville, Ontario (pop 21,000) ... the site of Canada's first railway tunnel.

September Expenses

Well, a pretty good month, all things considered.

We spent a total of $1,736 CAD ($1,304 USD) for the month. And once again, the amount reinforces the fact that we spend as much money staying in one place here in Canada as we do when we're traveling and seeing new sights virtually every day when we're traveling in a motorhome.

It's all just gambling

Insurance of any kind is simply gambling. You pay the premium (place your bet) that something bad will happen to you and your insurance will pay for it so you can collect your winnings.

The difference is of course that you really don't want to win!

We leave in less than two weeks!

Canadian income taxes are normally due at the end of April. But because of Covid, the Canadian government kept delaying the date at which you would be charged interest and/or penalties and eventually the date became September 30th. So I bit the bullet and paid them yesterday. It sure did look better in my account than in theirs!

I feel like we didn't get very good value for our money. They don't tend to spend it very wisely.

Beautiful fall colors

 After a late Friday night campfire with one too many shots of bourbon, we got up and after breakfast drove up to the ski resort village of Mont Tremblant.

We made our way to the Nez-de-l'indien trailhead to find the parking lot already full, but managed to find parking nearby. Not surprising about the number of people... it was a gorgeous day with the fall colors in full bloom.

Good start to the weekend

Just a few photos today. 

I got a 9:00am start to drive up to a friend's cottage. A bit of a drive from Galetta, and I had to go through the city of Ottawa and into the province of Quebec. And, I had to make a quick stop at his house to pick up something he had forgotten.

I will not be buying eyeglasses here in Canada

So, yesterday morning we drove into Ottawa again. We had an 11:45am get together with my mom and sister, and I figured that we would stop at an optician ahead of that. But when I looked them up, they don't open until 11:00am, and I figured that might not give us enough time.

So we met with my mom and sister and had a good visit, then went to the Hakim Optical store in the Carlingwood Shopping Center.

Broken glasses!

I was outside yesterday pressure washing the siding on the house. The beige colored siding hadn't been cleaned in probably 15 years, and it was starting to turn green in some areas. Of course a lot of the water comes splashing back at you at times, and my glasses were getting pretty wet.

I took them off to give them a wipe, and one of the arms broke right off!

Just an update...

We're having a stretch of really nice fall weather here in south eastern Ontario. It's supposed to continue on through the weekend, so that's good news for my annual get together with the guys. Maybe a chance of some rain on Sunday, but that's still a few days away.

In the meantime... we'll take it!

What a frustrating job that turned out to be!

Busy day yesterday as we went in to Ottawa again. 

When we had picked up grandson Cameron the other day, we stopped in at Lowes and bought some new drawer slides for the six large drawers in the kitchen here at Ruth's dad's house. The old ones were simply worn out. Rather than replace them with cheap ones, I made the decision to get the pricey nice ones that have that fancy "soft close" mechanism.

Wir sind Kevin und Ruth

We are Kevin and Ruth.. in German!

We have several regular readers here that have German backgrounds. And in fact, Ruth and I both have some German background, but it goes back a couple of generations and unfortunately the language was never passed down.

The property where we are staying

The property where we are staying has belonged to Ruth's father Tony since they bought it in 1966. 

So he lived here for over fifty years. Ruth was only four years old when they moved in, and she lived here until she left for Ottawa at age nineteen.

When I met Ruth in 1983, her parents were actually living in the house next door which they had also purchased, and they lived there while adding a major addition to this house. They moved back into this house when the addition was completed in 1985.

It's Friday again? Already??

I had thought that maybe the next month would go by slowly because the stuff we are doing here at the house is starting to feel like work. But, I honestly can't believe that it's Friday again already!

And next Friday, it is my annual guys weekend away and I am really looking forward to seeing my friends.

Exploring caves with the grandkids, and some lucky good news!

 Hmm. Do we tell you about our day out exploring first, or do we tell you about our good luck first?

I think we'll save the good luck news for the end of the post. Keep reading!

Yesterday, we made arrangements to meet daughter Lindsey and the grandkids in the parking lot at Lac Philippe in Gatineau Park on the other side of the river in the province of Quebec.