Toronto Zoo tickets booked

I took a rare blogging day off yesterday! 

We were up at the house again. But we have to go up again tomorrow to put the trash out by the side of the road for Wednesday morning pickup. We thought we were almost finished, but we moved a big cabinet in the kitchen that had been sold to find a big hole in the wall behind the cabinet. More patching and painting. Going to have to do the whole wall. We're sure getting tired of doing that drive.

Still enjoying watching Blue Jays baseball. They're in a race for a wild card spot and they've won 4 in a row. It's going to be tough, but it could still happen. Would be nice, but either way we are enjoying it.

Max's propane problem, and granddaughter Sadie comes for a visit

I've been trying to work on the solution to our RV propane problem with our motorhome Max who is waiting for us over in Germany. What we want is tanks that can be refilled at a self serve style gas station type of propane pump that are common all over Europe. It's the cheapest and most convenient way of filling your propane.

But the problem is that I can't get anybody to install a system in Germany that is cost effective. 

So, there's another thing out of the way

We were back up at the house yesterday. We are almost done though... probably one more day to finish everything up, so we won't go up again until Sunday. I got both the back and the front entrance doors painted while Ruth's brother Colin had rented a heavy duty carpet cleaner at Home Depot and did the rug in the family room. It was in pretty nasty shape, and we considered actually changing it out but the end result using the cleaner was better than expected so I think we'll just leave it.

When selling a house it's always a big question mark as to how much painting and decorating to do, isn't it? Because many people will move to a new home and redecorate anyhow the way they want it.

You can't see everything

You may have noticed the header photos are showcasing our Africa trip during 2013-14. It occurred to me that we didn't have very good internet at times during that trip, and not as many photos got posted to this blog. Anyhow, we're not doing much that warrants a new header photo right now so I thought I would put some of the better ones up through this month.

We recently spent two months in Tanzania and never went on safari. We simply couldn't justify the ridiculous cost, especially right after we spent ridiculous amounts of money climbing Kilimanjaro. And actually, I don't regret not doing the safari thing.

September is the best time of year to be in Canada

In our opinion, September is definitely the best time of the year to visit any part of Canada. That's why we purposely try to plan our visits to Canada during this month.

In Canada, most of the kids go back to school the first week of September, so if you're out exploring things will be quieter. The mosquitoes and black flies that typically infest most of Canada during the other good weather months of May through August have pretty much died off by September. And September weather is usually exactly the way we like it... not too hot, and not too cold.

August Expenses

Not a bad month.

Considering we had pricey summertime flights from Germany back to Canada, and paid for an expensive 10 day car rental, our expenses were only slightly higher than we expected them to be.

We spent a total of $2,836 CAD ($2,255 USD) for the month. Here's how it all broke down...

Moving to another country

As most of you know, we haven't spent much time in Canada the last three years. Since we left in the fall of 2018, we have spent a total of about three months here. And the main reason we have come back at all is to visit family and friends. 

We actually have no intention of ever "living" here again. While we are currently nomads, and don't see ourselves settling down in the foreseeable future, it's impossible not to have a residence address somewhere because you need to for banking and tax purposes.

September plans

We've now been in Canada for just over two weeks already and August is coming to a close. We will still be here for the full month of September though.

Since we have arrived, we have seen all of the family except for my younger sister. We also haven't seen any of our friends, and we know how quickly the next four and a half weeks will fly by. So we need to make some plans.

Finally made it out for a bike ride

We hadn't been on our bicycles since September of last year! Almost a full year ago. 

The hot weather finally broke yesterday, and with some cooler temperatures (high of 24C, 75F) we went out fairly early to get some exercise before heading back up to do some more work at the house. There is a long mixed use rail trail near here, so we headed over there to see what there was to see.

How the other half lives

Our morning power walk takes us through a very wealthy neighborhood. On our 5 km (3 mile) route, we pass by many multi million dollar homes. Even the house that we're living in is a beautiful home, but it doesn't compare to these mansions.

I bet we could live a good life just on the amount these people spend on utilities and maintenance!

News from Germany

We had left Max at the dealer in Germany with a list of items that needed to be done. Most were minor warranty things, but they weren't even really that important. The important one was the upgraded refillable propane system that I want to have installed. 

Their service unit got back to me yesterday with a price of €1900 ($2,800 CAD, $2,250 USD) which is ridiculous. I had been expecting a price around €1,000.

I don't like real estate agents

I guess I should clarify that. I don't like the real estate agent profession. Mostly because I think they're unnecessary, and overpaid for what they do. But also because some of them come across like smarmy used car salesmen. 

Unnecessary because selling (or buying) a house is not that difficult. You choose a price that you're happy with, you advertise it, and you show it to people who are interested in buying it. If nobody buys it in three months, then your price was too high to begin with. Look at the market and decide what's reasonable. Don't be greedy.

Back from the dead!

We were originally supposed to be looking after two cats at our house sit. But when we arrived here, we were told that one of them, named Enke, had disappeared over a week ago. The homeowners were devastated, but by the time we got here, they had pretty much come to terms with the fact that Enke was gone and was probably no longer alive. He was an older cat and there are coyotes and foxes in this area.

They had put up "lost cat" posters on the community mailbox, but nobody had seen Enke.

Family reunion and the price of bacon

So Ruth and I are now pretty much moved into our house sitting home for the next five weeks. We're located near the village of Manotick which is a kind of a trendy upscale village with a lot of very high end homes that line the Rideau River.

But we're a little unfamiliar with what are the best (least expensive?) grocery stores in the area. We ended up at a Your Independent and Ruth went inside while I stayed in the car.

Well, that was a successful day!

We were up at 5:30am Saturday morning, moving stuff around before it got too hot out. Man, that was a lot of work. We can't believe how one guy can own that much stuff. It really makes us appreciate our simple lifestyle!

People began arriving at about 8:00am for the 10:00am start of the auction. The auctioneer himself arrived at 9:00am, along with his five helpers! 

Ready for the auction!

Well, the big day is here. It took five of us pretty much all day to move almost everything outside. Only the larger furniture items remain inside. 

But it was pretty warm trying to move all that stuff around when the temperature was 32C (88F). We took a lot of breaks and drank a lot of water.

New sandals, and Sydney the cat...

Starting Saturday evening, we will be house and cat sitting for the next five weeks. So yesterday, we drove over to the community of Manotick just south of Ottawa to say hello to the couple who own the house, and to meet Sydney the cat.

We were supposed to be looking after two cats. But when we arrived, we were told that they had lost one. At first, we took that to mean it had passed away. But it was only ten years old. 

How to Keep Yourself Entertained as you Travel

By its nature, traveling will often have downtime where you have to spend hours doing little to nothing, which is why you should always be prepared to entertain yourself.

Travel with a Buddy

The first rule of traveling is to always travel with a buddy when you can. There are plenty of reasons why it’s a good idea to have a travel buddy, from safety to boredom, so it’s probably a good idea that you just make sure to take someone with you when you can. Travel to work with your coworkers, take your friends or family on holiday, go to the movies with others. Wherever you are traveling, don’t do it alone.

Cameron's watermelon pics

Another day of organizing auction stuff. We're actually just about done as much as we can do for now. There is nothing left in the basement except for our stuff which we will go through today. And upstairs is pretty much empty except for the heavier furniture.

When we had sold our house in 2007, we ended up with about a dozen Rubbermaid storage bins and had whittled that down to three over the years. As time went on, we just couldn't justify keeping the "stuff" and wondered why we kept most of it to begin with. 

The Essential Road Trip Tech

Whether you’re in an RV, camper van or in the SUV driving to your next holiday destination, there are a few essential tech items that you must have with you. Travel is always an exciting time and often there are things that are neglected in the planning phase that will adversely affect your trip. One of the main aspects that can be neglected is the tech that you take.

We'll get out and do our walk early before things warm up!

There's a really good circular walking route that we follow here in Galetta. It's exactly 5 kms (3 miles) and it's got a few small hills so it's really good exercise when it's done at a fast pace. As a bonus, it's really quite scenic too.

When we've done it in past years, our time for doing such a walk is usually about 45 minutes. That's a decent pace for walking, and we're definitely sweating when we're done. It's a good workout.

How to pass the time on long motorhome journeys

Motorhome journeys can be long and tedious if you aren’t driving and can feel like enormous wastes of time. Reaching the destination is exciting, but the route there is rarely so interesting. 

However, when you tweak your perspective and have a few great activities to keep you busy, the time will fly by.

Just a place to keep your stuff

The last few years it hasn't been that enjoyable for us to return to Canada. Sure, it's great to see family and friends again, but the majority of our free time had (and has) been taken up with dealing with Ruth's father and his possessions. 

I know, it's all part of life. But we'll just be glad when we can put this part of life behind us. And fortunately, we can see that happening on this trip.

It's going to be a busy week!

It's taking us a little longer to get used to the seven hour time change than it has previous trips. Despite going to bed at 10:30pm, we were still wide awake before 5:30am this morning. Maybe another couple of days and we'll be back on a normal schedule.

Yesterday we drove into the city to have lunch with my mom. 

Lots of work to do this week

We had stopped and picked up a few things on our way to the house on Friday night, but we needed to do a decent grocery shop. We were both awake really early because it'll take us a few days to get used to the seven hour time change. So we were able to head out right at 8:00am when the stores open to do some grocery shopping.

When we stay here, we usually drive into the town of Arnprior (pop 26,000) to do grocery shopping. It was pretty quiet at that hour on a Saturday morning.

We are back in Canada

Well that was a long day! But overall, everything happened according to plan and we are back at Ruth's father's old house in the village of Galetta near Canada's capital city of Ottawa.

Last we left you, we were at Frankfurt airport waiting to board our flight to Toronto. What a circus that was!

Not entirely stress free, but it all worked out okay

We dropped off Max at the dealer at about 10:00am Thursday morning and walked the two kms to the Dulmen train station. We travel light and we each had a small backpack and a rolling carry on suitcase. And even the carry on bags were half empty! They will be full when we return though.

Dulmen has only a small station and tickets are purchased only at a machine. There is nobody to talk to. We were concerned because I had read that morning that we were in the middle of a two day railroad engineers strike and only 25% of the normal trains were running.