The first day we met Sherman...

It was nine years ago today on August 19, 2007, that we did the five hour drive down from Ottawa, Ontario to the outskirts of Albany, New York.

We went there to look at a motorhome!

It was also the very first motorhome we had looked at. But, I knew what we were looking for and had scanned a lot of advertisements over the three weeks prior to that.

Good news, and bad news...

We own two vehicles...Sherman the motorhome, and the little blue car. And they both have windshield problems! Not bad, but enough to be annoying. The motorhome windshield is two pieces...there is a left side and a right side. The left side has two small stone chips, and one large one. The right side has a crack about a foot and a half long

So yesterday I made some phone calls.

Better to repair than to replace

In some situations. In other situations, it's better to replace than to repair!

But I had to come to some kind of decision about these lower door latches on the motorhome, because if I was going to order new ones I had to give them enough lead time so that they would arrive here before we leave towards the end of next month.

It's just the two of us now...

Our seasonal employee Valine had her last day of work on Sunday. Things start to quiet down here around this time of year and so she was scheduled to be finished now.

We also had two different gate staff helping through the busier period, but neither one of them lasted very long. Let's just say they didn't need the money very badly. At $12.60 an hour, you'd think it would be easy to find a teenager committed to the job, but apparently that's not the case.

And so it's just the two of us now to run the park for the rest of the season. That's what we've done the last two years, so we know that it's not a problem.

We want our money back!

Very often when you buy fruit in the grocery store, you don't know what you're getting. Oranges, cantaloupe, watermelon, and pineapple are all fruits that we have bought where you don't know until you get it home to eat it if it's any good on the inside.

And we're not putting up with it any more.

We bought a kayak!

Ever since we started RV'ing, we've always wanted a kayak. But we didn't want one of the hard sided ones because it would be too difficult to carry around. And the good quality blow up ones are like $400 or $500 and because we weren't sure how much we would use it, it was hard to justify spending that kind of money.

But yesterday, I spotted a deal. And when I showed it to Ruth, we both looked at each other and said "buy it"!!

Finally got the mosquitoes under control

Because of all the rain we've been having here at the park, the mosquitoes have been really bad. There was one week in July where you pretty much couldn't go outside without slathering on the bug spray. But I think we've finally got them under control with our new heavy duty mosquito fogging machine.

It took me a while to figure out the proper formulation to use for the chemicals, and the right settings on the machine. But now, it seems to work perfectly and is very effective at doing the job.

A few minor things going bad

Got into the motorhome yesterday to check out some of the problems our motorhome exchange guests had. They had very few problems actually. Sherman behaved himself while he was in their care! The major things were the inverters. The big one had gone bad a couple of weeks ago, and then the small one stopped working the day before they brought him back to us.

But yesterday, the small one turned on right away. As soon as I pressed the "On" button!

That is a lot of firewood!

We go through a lot of firewood here at the park. Of course it's not really camping if you don't have a campfire going, is it? At least that's what the majority of our campers seem to think.

And so we order a tractor trailer load of firewood once per year. It works out to 22 full cords. And no, you don't get much of a discount for ordering in bulk. $225 per cord, delivered all the way from Prince Albert, about 400 kms (245 miles) north of here.

Things are starting to wind down

It's hard to believe that things are starting to wind down already here at the park. I've got a simple little app on my phone called Dreamdays that counts down the number of days to important events. I don't look at it every day, but it's kind of fun to know that there are only 46 days (give or take a day or two either way) until we leave here.

Oh, and only 83 days until we fly to Romania...and 137 days until Christmas!

Solar Panel Basics

When we were talking about 12 volt battery basics the other day, I had mentioned that it would be pretty easy to write an entire blog post about solar panel basics...so here it is!

We think that there is no better feeling than to be self sufficient for the electricity in your RV. No more having to worry about finding a place to plug in, no worries about whether it's stable source of electricity, and no need to buy surge protectors or voltage regulators.

Guess who is home?

Yep, two months have flown by, and Sherman is now back home with us. Tana and Graham arrived here yesterday afternoon at about 4:30pm. What an adventure they have all had!

They left here June 8th and headed to Drumheller, Alberta and the dinosaur park there. Then, it was off to Banff and Jasper and the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

We didn't understand 12 volt batteries!...Part 3

In part 1, we talked about the basics of the 12 volt electrical system in your RV. In part 2, we talked about the different types of RV batteries. Today in part 3, we are going to talk about how to keep those batteries charged and maintained.

There are four common ways of charging your RV batteries.

We didn't understand 12 volt batteries!...Part 2

In yesterday's blog post we talked about your RV's battery and 12 volt electrical system. We're trying to stick to the basics, and we're trying to explain everything in terms that the average person will understand.

Today, we'll get into the most popular different types of batteries.

We didn't understand 12 volt batteries!

When we first bought our motorhome Sherman nine years ago this month, we didn't realize the importance of the 12 volt battery system. And I bet it wasn't until almost two years later that we fully understood how the 12 volt batteries work, and their limitations in an RV.

For those of you who don't RV, this article will be of little interest. But for those of you who still don't fully understand 12 volt batteries, I'm going to try to explain in basic terms how the battery system works and how you can make yours better.

Ginger tea, rain, and visitors!

Ever since I stopped drinking coffee a couple of years ago, I have struggled to find a hot drink substitute that I like. When we're in Mexico, we buy a nice Mexican hot chocolate called Abuelita made by Nestle. It's also available in the U.S., but we can't seem to get it here in Canada.

So now, I make hot chocolate the old fashioned way with cocoa powder, brown sugar, and milk. But when our daughter Lindsey was here in June, she showed me another hot drink that she liked, and it turns out that  I really like it too. Homemade ginger tea!

New 10 year passports!

We received our new 10 year passports in the mail yesterday. Back in 2013, Canadians were finally given the option of buying either a 5 year passport or a 10 year passport. I can't really figure why anybody would buy the 5 year one now.

Unless you're maybe 90 years old. Then perhaps you want to choose the 5 year!

Scorpion!

I'll bet you didn't now that there are scorpions in Canada. I mean after all, this is the great white north...scorpions couldn't survive up here, could they?

Well, they can and they do.

August is here!

And that means we can say "next month, we're outta here!".

Our last really busy weekend is over and done with. July seems like it went by fairly quickly, and hopefully August will too. September will drag a little as our departure date gets closer. But, there will still be a lot to do getting the park ready to shut down for the season.

July Expenses

Well, if it weren't for paying for our new passports ($320 CAD) this month, it would have been a really cheap month!

The following figures are all in Canadian dollars. You can subtract about 25% for U.S. dollar equivalent...

One more week!

Isn't it hard to believe that our motorhome Sherman has been gone for almost two months?! Yes, he returns to us next weekend, in only one more week. It's funny that we're excited to see him again!

We received a couple more photos of him. He's actually been down south across the border! Tana and Graham had mentioned that they were interested in going to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, and of course that's only 400 miles (640 kms) south of the Canada/U.S. border.

Cultural Travel

A couple of weeks ago, I had written that we enjoy getting to know the people who live in other countries. We've found that it's the best way to understand different cultures, and to realize that the way we do things as a society here in Canada or the Unites States isn't the only way, or necessarily the best way.

And so reader Sara Horton had asked for an expansion of those thoughts. How exactly do we set ourselves up to have those cultural experiences while we travel?

Planning for Romania

In less than 100 days (96, to be exact) we will be on a plane to Romania where we will spend six weeks touring the country. While that still sounds like it's quite a long ways off, we've been spending some of our free time on the internet getting familiar with the country.

It always amazes me how many cities are out there that you've never heard of. I mean, everybody (I would assume) has heard of Bucharest, Romania. But you've probably never heard of the city of Cluj-Napoca, and yet is has a population of 300,000. Or Sibiu with 175,000 people.

Just stuff

Getting ready for the big long weekend here at the park. We're officially sold out, and the weather forecast looks perfect. Even all of the tenting spots are reserved!

August long weekend is always sold out here. The weather is usually good, and the water level is usually at it's highest. And, it's kind of the last hurrah for a lot of the locals who use the park because harvest usually starts shortly after August long weekend.

The nearest town to the park

Cabri Regional Park is named after the town of Cabri, but the town of Cabri is actually located 20 kms (13 miles) away via a fairly good (usually!) dirt road. It' the nearest town to the park and I usually go there once a week or so during the summer.

The town of Cabri has a population of around 400 people, and quite a few services for a town that size.

Ruth's flower gardens

Ruth's mother was an avid gardener, and she loved her flowers. Some of that enthusiasm was passed down to Ruth, and when we owned a house Ruth spent a lot of time working on her flowers.

When we arrived here at the park, there weren't many flowers around and Ruth set about to change that!

Fireworks at the park!

One of our seasonal camper families likes to put on a fireworks show for the park, and last night was the night.

They go around earlier in the season and collect donations from anybody who wants to give to the fireworks fund, and with the total money collected they put on quite a show!