June Expenses

Well, we were pretty much on track with expenses until we bought three new pairs of eyeglass. But, it had to be done. And, our grocery expenses were still above what they should be but we continue to believe (hope?) that things will average out in that department over the next three months.

So, we spent a total of $1,033 CAD ($800 USD) for the month of June. Here's how it all broke down...

Barbados update...

We told you a couple of weeks ago that we booked a trip to Barbados. We leave Ottawa October 25th for 19 days of island life in the sun. It's been a long time since we've been to the Caribbean, and we're really looking forward to relaxing and exploring the island.

But Barbados is fairly expensive, so in true Kevin and Ruth fashion I started looking for a deal. Fortunately, one thing in our favor is that we'll be there before busy season actually starts.

Canada Day at the Park

The day didn't start off great. Our water pump went down at some point overnight, and I spent most of the morning trying to fix it to no avail. I ended up calling our local specialist, and he came out on Canada Day to fix up our problem. Turns out the impellers inside the pump had broken and nothing I could have done was going to fix it without having the right parts. But I tried really hard because I didn't want to have to call him on a holiday.

Meanwhile, Ruth was going around supplying water to the toilets to flush them manually because we still had a park full of people to look after!

Happy 150th Birthday Canada!

Ruth and I were only about 5 years old when Canada celebrated its 100th birthday on July 1, 1967. So we don't really remember the big event. And so we had better enjoy this one because it's highly unlikely we'll be around to see Canada's 200th birthday in 2067!

Even at 150 years old, Canada is a relatively young country. And it almost didn't make it this far. Most recently, the independence of the province of Quebec has been an issue, and in 1995 there was a referendum in that province where the people voted on whether or not to become an independent nation.

We have been *really* busy...

Our regular readers may have noticed that we've skipped a few of our daily posts this month, and at other times when we have posted they have not been at our normal posting time, which is usually mid morning.

We've just been super busy here at the park getting things ready for our six week camping season. The time seems to just fly, and now here we are at the end of June and our busy period starts today!

New Brunswick - Canada's only bilingual province

Canada is an officially bilingual country, but each province can choose whether or not to be provincially bilingual. Yes, it's all very complicated! There is only one province that has chosen to be officially bilingual, and that province is New Brunswick.

New Brunswick is a province that we haven't spent much time exploring. Much like Saskatchewan is a province that many people drive through while on their way west, New Brunswick is the province many people drive through to get to the east coast. And we are guilty of that as well!

Quebec - Canada's French speaking province

Continuing our series leading up to Canada's 150th birthday, we are now heading east to the province of Quebec.

Quebec has a population of 8.3 million, with most of the people living in and around the two major cities, Montreal, and Quebec City.

Rent out your RV...?

I saw a question posed on facebook the other day. It was asking people what they thought about the idea of renting out your own personal RV when you're not using it.

The responses were astoundingly negative. I mean, there must have been over 100 responses and they were all negative...

Except mine.

A new swim raft for the park!

A beautiful day yesterday and with quite a few campers in the park we recruited some of the guys to help out putting our new swim raft together. It's quite heavy duty, and it's huge! 16' x 16'.

It came in two sections that had to be bolted together, and of course it's heavy. So then you have to build it on a trailer of some sort so that you can put it in the water right side up.

New glasses

Because we are so "frugal", we got to the point where we had to order new glasses for each of us. I was using three different pairs of glasses! One progressive, but the lenses were plastic and they got scuffed up easily over time. And one pair for working on the computer. And one pair for watching movies on the computer at a distance.

Ruth's glasses were still fine, but her prescription had changed. Then the other day, the glasses started coming apart. So it was time for some new ones for both of us!

A dramatic evening sky...

Wednesday is our grocery day, so we drove the 45 minutes each way to the town of Swift Current. We always have some running around to do for the park while we're there, and so besides getting groceries, yesterday's goal was to find some specialty stainless steel nuts and bolts to put our swim raft together.

We thought we were going to have to special order them, but the third place we checked had them in stock.

Why not do it now...?

I saw a blurb on facebook that said the Quebec couple who stopped in here back in early May while on a long distance canoe trip were interviewed on television in Winnipeg yesterday.

Pierre and Jennifer, along with their dog Jasmine, had been here at the park for a night and they were an interesting couple to talk to. In fact, we found we had a lot in common with them. Well, other than the fact that we don't do long distance canoe trips!

Ontario - Yours to Discover

Continuing our series on Canada's different provinces and territories leading up to Canada's 150th birthday on July 1st. As we head east across Canada, we are now at the province of Ontario.

Ruth and I were both born in Ontario, so we've spent lots of time there. Mostly in and around Canada's capital city of Ottawa... but we've explored a lot of the rest of the province as well...

We're booked for Barbados!

After humming and hawing for the morning, we finally decided to book the trip. As I had said yesterday, the airfare wasn't a screaming deal, but it was a decent deal. And, it was flying from Ottawa so we didn't have to make our own way to Montreal or Toronto.

And to top it off, it came out to be cheaper than we were expecting!

Barbados for two weeks?

Hmmm. A flight deal passed across my screen yesterday evening. $579 CAD ($440 USD) return from Ottawa to Bridgetown, Barbados.

We've got about three weeks in the October/November time frame where we're looking for a trip. We haven't been to anywhere in the Caribbean for a very long time. The flight deal happens to be through Air Canada, and of course we've got those travel vouchers to use up at some point. Our out of pocket costs for the return flight would end up being $142 CAD ($110 USD) each for the round trip flight.

The water is rising

The water level of the lake here at the park is dependent on the runoff from the snow melt in the Rocky Mountains west of Calgary. They had a fair bit of snow this past winter, and we are now getting the benefit of that. The last two years our water level has been low, but this year is going to be different!

We have a marina area that hasn't been usable since our first year here in 2014, so it will be nice to see it full again.

Manitoba - Fishing, Hunting, and Polar Bears!

Continuing our series on Canada's different provinces and territories in celebration of Canada's 150th birthday coming up on July 1st.

Manitoba is geographically the middle province. It's more often than not considered part of western Canada though. With a population of around 1.3 million, it has only slightly more people than its neighbour Saskatchewan.

The White Towns of Andalusia, Spain

This past winter while we were RVing in Spain we came across many towns and villages that were all painted white, they are known as "White Towns". These towns are mostly found in the region of Andalusia in the southern portion of Spain and they are usually found in the mountains.

Pics around the park

Pretty quiet weekend here at Cabri Park, despite the fact that it wasn't bad weather-wise. But, we were told that there were quite a few events taking place in the area, so perhaps people were just busy with other things.

Reservations are on the upswing though. Not many sites left for August long weekend, but of course we will be pretty much sold out for that period, as happens every year.

Well, I heard back from Air Canada

In case you missed our earlier story about Air Canada, you can read all about it here...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2017/06/we-tried-to-book-flight-to-china-this.html

Anyhow, I had sent a formal complaint by email to Air Canada. This is the only avenue available to you to register a complaint. You cannot actually speak to someone on the telephone, other than a standard customer service agent. And if that customer service agent can't fix your problem, they will tell you to register a complaint online.

Saskatchewan - Land of the Living Skies

Next up in our series leading up to Canada's 150th birthday is the province of Saskatchewan. Also known as... the province you have to drive through to get to Alberta.

Most people driving across Canada don't spend much time in Saskatchewan. The province is overlooked because the Trans Canada highway crosses in an area where there is not much to see. And instead of getting off the main highway to see some sights, people simply carry on and only see the worst the province has to offer.

Rodent problems

We're fortunate to have central air conditioning in the old mobile home that we live in here at the park. It sure does make things a little more comfortable when the temperature gets up over 28C (81F) or so. Although, we never had air conditioning at home, so we know that we could get by without it if we had to.

Good thing, because we thought we were going to have to get by without it.

RV Tire Pressure

Man, there's a lot of bad information being distributed on the internet. Yesterday, Ruth was reading one of the RV'ing groups that we belong to on facebook and they were talking about tire pressure.

The question was "Do you inflate your tires to what it says on the tire, or what it says on the vehicle?"

Home on the range

Where the deer and the antelope play.

Ruth went to pick up some flowers for gardens that she has made here at the park, and along the way she saw a few pronghorn antelope. There are quite a few of them in this area here on the prairies, and it's funny how we occasionally see deer in and around the park, but the pronghorn seem to stay up on the flat parts.

We tried to book a flight to China this morning...

I was all set to write the blog post this morning when I saw a flash up on my facebook notifications....

Montreal to Shanghai, China for $683 CAD ($515 USD) return on Air Canada.

For some reason, at the time I thought it said $638 return, but it was a great deal nonetheless. Anyhow, we have those two Air Canada flight vouchers from when we got bumped on our way out to Regina at the end of April, so we thought about it for a couple of hours and then decided to book.

At some point, we want to do something epic...

Meeting a couple of guys like Mike and David makes us want to get out there and do more neat stuff. As much as some of you think that we are fairly adventurous, our activities pale in comparison when we see what other people are doing. I mean really, can you imagine what it takes to paddle a canoe across Canada? We have no ambition to do that. The same way that we have no ambition to climb Mt. Everest.

But, there are some things we'd like to do. Something epic... something that makes people say "wow" when you tell them what you did.

A moose on the loose!

Lots of fun having Mike Ranta and his dog Spitzi here at the park yesterday. And meeting photojournalist David Jackson was interesting as well. He is traveling with Mike and Spitzi and documenting their journey.

Yesterday morning, Mike was scheduled to do a talk at the long term care residence in Cabri, so Ruth and I took some time out of our busy schedule to go up and listen to him and what he has to say.