Week ending August 30

Wednesday was spent hanging around the campground, firstly washing the bugs off the front of the trailer and then laying around suntanning in the hammock.

Thursday we took care of some business in Calgary.

Friday was Joan's massage day. Her massage therapist (Wendy who has given her massages for many years) arrived at the trailer. While Joan was enjoying her massage, John went for a bike ride along the Bow River in Cochrane. Afterward, we sat outside in the sun and had a great visit with Wendy. Early in the afternoon we headed to Bowden to visit with John's parents and treated them to dinner at their favourite restaurant in Bowden.

Saturday was farmers' market day in Cochrane. It's nice to get fresh produce and fresh farm beef. After checking out the local laundromat (the campground doesn't have machines large enough for sleeping bags and duvets), we headed for Mackay's ice cream. Occasionally it is important to have dessert before lunch, and contrary to what most the of the ice cream places that advertise they have the best ice cream in Canada say, tiger ice cream is still available in the ice cream place that truly does have the best ice cream on Canada.

Sunday we headed to the Sibbald Creek area and hiked the Deer Ridge Trail. We chose it because it was not very long and reasonably close to Cochrane. Well, after missing a trail sign, the hike turned out to be a bit longer than we had planned, but we did manage to get to the top. The views from the ridge were great.

 

Back down in the valley, we came across an aboriginal structure, with prayer flags on it that reminded us of the Bannock Point petroforms which we visited in Manitoba.

Monday morning was spent at the laundromat. In the afternoon, we enjoyed a nice visit with Alan and Sharon Cole, friends from Canmore.

Tuesday was a quiet day, as it was overcast with occasional showers. We did go into Calgary to shop for pillow cases to replace one which mysteriously disappeared when we did the laundry on Monday.

Week ending August 23

Originally our plan was to leave High River Wednesday morning, but Sue was not released from the hospital until Wednesday morning. We had promised to pick her up, so stayed the extra day. Luckily the boys are old enough to look after her, so we headed back to the campground to do the usual housework. Then we went to the library to check email and then went for a walk. After lunch we did what all retired folks do best, have an afternoon nap.

Thursday morning we moved to Cochrane to the Bow Rivers Edge Campground. It is quite nice with wide level gravel sites, reasonable wi-fi and easy access to a satellite signal.

Friday we headed in to Calgary to have the 'axle discussion' with our RV dealer. They requested that we get copies of the receipt for the axles from Dexter in the US. We have hope that they will do the right thing and reimburse us. In the afternoon we visited with the Scotts, who we have known since Trever was playing Little League baseball. We had not visited them for quite a while. Our definition of good friends is that when you get together after a long absence you pick up just as if the last time you saw them was yesterday. This was the case with Don and Jackie. We visited for most of the afternoon.

Saturday we didn't do much, just enjoyed the warm weather while walking along the Bow River beside the campground.

Sunday we did some more campground recon. As we were driving into the mountains we decided that we knew which parks in Canada are the most beautiful. We still like the parks in Rockies the best. We picked up our friend Elizabeth in Canmore, and headed to Timmies for a drink.  As we were waiting in line, John noticed Steve waiting in the Wendy's line.  Steve had driven John into Calgary for the last couple of  years that we lived there.  It was great to catch up on what we had been up to since we last talked.  Then we went to check out Tunnel Mountain Trailer Park in Banff. It would be the perfect campground, if it only had wi-fi. We had hopes that since Fundy NP had wi-fi, that the Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court would have it now. We will have to send off an e-mail to the Parks to recommend that they add wi-fi to their amenities.

Elizabeth did a very nice barbeque dinner on her deck for us.  Here are pictures of a couple of the mountains that you can see from her deck in Canmore.

On Monday, we received an e-mail copy of the invoice we needed for our axles, and forwarded it to the RV dealer. Then we celebrated Jamie's, our youngest grandson, 11^th birthday, a day early. It is our practice with the younger boys to take them shopping. This year, instead of going to the toy section, he wanted to pick up some books. He also graduated to the adult menu when we took them out for supper.

When we got back to the trailer after supper, we had a knock on the door. A young lady asked if I (John) wanted to make $50. She was trying to set up her satellite system, as she will be here for a few months working in town, and one of the shops had told her it would cost $130 for someone to come out and set it up. We hooked everything up but unfortunately weren't able to get it working.

On Tuesday, we got up early and moved the trailer two sites up the row we are in. We had only booked for a few days when we arrived, being cautious about making long term commitments in campgrounds. When we asked to extend our stay until just before the long weekend (when we head back to the High River campground), we found that the site we were in had been promised to people coming in to visit with their parents in the site next to ours. We are spending the rest of the day waiting for a Shaw Direct technician to check out our dish because when we moved to this campground, we found that we didn't have about 8 channels anymore. These are the Alberta channels, so they are ones we like to have to keep up with the local news. After moving the trailer, and of course the satellite dish, this morning, we had the Alberta channels back. However, since this is likely still a loose connection in the dish, we need to get it fixed.

Week ending Aug 16

Tuesday and Wednesday we spent shopping for some small repair parts for the 5th wheel.  As our luck would have it, most of the items we required where not in stock.  We did get information and when we get to Calgary we will order the required items.  We had a bit of a rainstorm one evening in the campground, which resulted in a nice rainbow.

Thursday we scouted some RV parks for our next trip to Edmonton. However, we discovered that we had chosen the best in the area at Glowing Embers. As we were leaving the next morning, the people next to us were moving to a brand new park near Stony Plain, so we may check it out next time.

Friday morning, we moved to Coyote Creek Golf and RV park about 6 km west of Sundre. It is a great park with beautiful wide, long sites and is extremely well organized. The bathrooms are some of the best we have seen and the showers are the best by a country mile. But as usual there is always some issue, in this case no wi-fi.  As we are here to visit John's parents we can do without it for a few days. We have been chatting with John's parents on Friday nights via Skype, but today we will be with them in person.  After we got set up we headed to Bowden and spent the rest of the afternoon with John's parents.  After dinner we came back to the campsite and watched the Calgary/Sask football game.

Saturday we spent the day in Bowden. John's Dad had volunteered to help move the library books from the old library to the new one so John spent 6 hours Saturday with his dad on this project while Joan spent the day with John's mom, doing laundry and visiting.

Sunday we moved to High River, arriving about lunch time.  We have come back to the campground that was the beginning of our trip this summer.  Our grandsons were home alone, so they came over to the campground for lunch.  Trev came over after work, then we went for dinner at the Chinese restuarant where Sue works.  After dinner everyone came back to the trailer to visit.

Monday morning, Sue went into the hospital for an operation, so we went over to Trev's to pick up our mail that Jamie had been collecting for us for the last three months and then took the kids out for the day.  We checked out a few campgrounds in the Calgary area, since the High River one doesn't have the essential wi-fi.  Then we did the little hike up Heart Creek where we got some pictures of our grandsons, Anthony, Taylor and Jamie.

When we got back to High River we picked up some chicken and sides for dinner. Trev took the boys to see Sue in the hospital between dinner and desert. She was feeling well. 

Since the temperature was expected to go down to only 5 degrees overnight, we turned on the furnace for the first time in months.  Consequently, we have to fill a propane bottle for the first time since Rocky Harbour in Newfoundland.  

Tuesday Joan went to the High River Hospital to get her blood work done. This needs to be done 2 to 3 weeks before her CT Scan, for her next cancer check. We have learned that small town hospitals are much better to get this kind of thing done since the waiting times tend to be much shorter.

Week ending August 9

Tuesday and Wednesday we drove from Regina to Edmonton, via North Battleford. Anyone who has had the pleasure of that drive understands why I have nothing to say. Actually that is not true, we stopped in Lashburn at the little grocery store, hoping to find a muffin to go with our mid-morning coffee, which we had made and kept in a thermos we bought in Regina. They have a little (and I mean little) bakery in the rear of the store where all they make is cinnamon buns and bread. The cinnamon buns would not be done until 1:00 P.M. but they did have one of yesterday's models. The day-old bun was really tasty and fresher than many we have had at other bakeries, that were supposedly today's model. So if you are ever driving by Lashburn Saskatchewan and in need of a treat, stop at the only store in town. Late Wednesday afternoon we pulled into Whitemud Creek Golf and RV resort where we had only been able to get two nights.

Thursday morning we spent some time shopping and then visited with Annie and Buncha. They treated us to a great Chinese dinner and then we visited with Sue and Elizabeth, her daughter. They came out and saw our new home.

Friday morning we moved to the Devon Lions campground. It advertised that it had full service sites with 30 amp power, so we arranged to stay for 2 nights. Since our experience in Manitoulin Island with the mold, we are leery about booking too long before we see the place. When we asked if visitors needed to stop at the office before coming to our site, we were surprised that there is a 6.00 per vehicle charge for visitors. The only other time we expected visitors was in Regina, and neither campground we used there had a visitor charge. I guess the Lions club here is in need of money. The site was a seasonal site that the regular tenants had released for a while and was very nice with a large sitting area which faced away from all the other units in the campground. The only glitch was that the power was flaky. There were frequently people at the main breaker box resetting the power. We decided two nights was enough for us. Ann and Daniel and George came out for supper. We had a good visit with them.

Saturday was a dull cloudy day with promise of showers. We where not concerned as we spent the morning doing some shopping and then headed to Mill Woods to visit with George and Fern, our neighbours from when our kids were in elementary school. Joan took the opportunity to use Fern's vacuum to clean out the truck. We have a great vacuum in the trailer, but it is a built in system, so makes it impossible to use it in the truck. Late afternoon we headed out to Sherwood Park to enjoy dinner with John's Aunt Joan and Uncle Alfred. Their grandson Cory was there as well. We had a nice visit and came home with 2 bottles of wine complements of the in-house vintner.

Sunday was a moving day. We moved to Glowing Embers RV park, just a few miles north of Devon at the junction with 16A west of Edmonton. This campground finally has everything we want, wi-fi, a good satellite signal and the best washrooms and laundry we have seen on our trip. Luckily we got the satellite set up in time to watch most of the NASCAR race.

Monday morning John joined Buncha for a game of golf at the J.R. golf course. The fellow checking us in warned John that the greens were quicker than on most courses. It was a very affordable course, at 22.00 for 18 holes, and fairly challenging. The first 9 holes all have water hazards to avoid, so John lost a few balls in the water. Fortunately, Buncha has a nice ball retriever, so we were able to make up for the lost balls. John found that golfing on a live course is more challenging than the Wii golf, particularly judging the putting weight and line. While John golfed Joan did laundry and booked another 3 nights at the campground. They had space but we had to change sites. Okay by us, when necessary, particularly when we have found a campground as good as this one. We will spend the rest of the week finding bits to repair a couple of problems in the trailer and doing some research on what we need to do to winterize our trailer to live in it for the winter, such as get skirts for the trailer to keep the heat from escaping too fast.

No pictures to post this week.

Week ending Aug 2

Tuesday morning we left the KOA in Thunder Bay by 7:15 and headed west. Our destination unknown. We stopped at Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park to view the falls.

The most noteworthy event of today was that we stopped for diesel at Upsala, a full service Shell station and paid 1.499 per litre for diesel. The most we have paid per litre this entire trip. Later in the day at Kenora we paid 1.219 per litre at a Husky full service. We pay what we have to. Sometimes you just don't have a choice, the truck and trailer are just too heavy to push to the next station with cheaper diesel. After we stopped for diesel Joan moved john's glasses to the console between the seats in the front of the truck and they disappeared. We looked for the next 300 or so km trying to find them, with no luck. After we parked for the night, John emptied the truck and lo and behold his glasses were under the passenger seat. Along the road today we saw 2 very pretty deer, we have seem surprisingly few animals this trip, but it has been very warm so I guess they are in the trees, keeping cool.

Tuesday night we pulled into West Hawk Lake campground at Whiteshell Provincial Park in Manitoba. What a place to camp. We were able to get a site for 2 nights large enough, but they are booked from then on. We only had electricity, so will be conserving water. The good news is that it is very economical. The Manitoba Provincial parks must really be encouraging people to use them, as they are not charging entrance fees and the camp fees are unbelievably low.

Wednesday morning we picked up some maps to add to the information we had received the evening before and headed out to Bannock Point Pertroforms.

We were lucky enough to speak to a native person who told us a bit about them and where to find the majority of them that we had missed. Petroforms are rock formations at least 1500 years old and are sacred places to the Natives. After a lunch break beside Dorothy Lake we did the McGillivray Falls hike. The trail leads to McGillivray Lake and is part of the Trans Canada Trail.  While we where on the trail and John was doing the trail finding his comment was "where in blue blazes are we?" Pretty obvious don't you think?

Thursday was a travel day. We stopped in Portage La Prairie at the travel information to find out if Spruce Wood Provincial Park had any full service campsites available for the next couple of days. Their RV sites were flooded early this year and have not yet recovered. They had some sites with 15 amp power, no water or sewer. They were not sure that the sites they had available would be large enough for us. As a result we passed on that park. We ended up at Shady Oaks for the night. It is beside the highway, has water and electric and a heated pool. After getting set up and determining that the wi-fi they advertised (and that you pay the third party for on-line) doesn't work, we went for a swim and called it a day. After dinner we were sitting playing games on our computers and Joan looked up to see the tail end of Eagle (by Jayco) 5th wheel less than a meter from the window. The people had backed in on an angle and had missed our slider by a good 2 feet. This is the coziest campground experience we've had. A short while after our neighbours got settled, there was a knock on our door. People from a trailer in a site on the other side, with another trailer between us wanted to let us know they would be leaving early the next morning, because their truck and trailer where long enough that they were blocking us in. Their plan was to be on the road by 8:00 A.M. That is about the time we usually leave, so the fact they are blocking us in isn't a big deal.

Friday we arrived at the KOA in Indian Head. Karen and Dominique came out from Regina for dinner and a visit. After they left, a brutal thunderstorm went through. It was really shaking the travel. Our power went off about 1:00 A.M. When we got up just after 7:00 A.M. we still had no power. When speaking to other people in the campground, their power was out as well. We hadn't bothered with our awning, as a result it is still in tact. Many others are in shreds. Our satellite dish was blown over, but undamaged. Other had their satellite dishes broken, so they had to replace them. There were several large trees down in the campground, but luckily no trailers were damaged. The most interesting event was a large bale from the hay field behind the campground ended up in the sitting area a group was using the evening before. Can you imagine their surprise when they opened their door in the morning to be nose to nose with a giant hay bale?

We spent Saturday in Regina at Karen's, doing our laundry while helping her do yard work. We made two flower beds out of bricks as well as tore apart her old fence and gate, so that it is ready for disposal. After a rib dinner we came back to the campground, set up the satellite dish so we could watch the Sask vs Calgary football game.

Sunday morning we moved from the Indian Head KOA to Kings Acre Campground just inside the Regina City limits. It is an okay campground and more convenient for us to visit with Karen. Karen and Dominique came out to the trailer for lunch and dinner. We didn't do much because it was a very hot day. Our truck said it was 35 degrees C with not a breath of air. Eventually we went over to the local WalMart, just because it is air-conditioned and we needed cooling down. After wandering around (and picking up a few items) we stopped at McDonald's for a milkshake, then came back to the trailer, eventually barbequed chicken and called it a day. At 9:00 it was still 85 degrees in the trailer so we sat outside waiting for the trailer to cool off. When we got up at 8:00 this morning it was 64 degrees in the trailer. What a difference 12 hours make. I wish we could have bottled some of that cool temperature.

Monday morning we picked Karen and Dominique up and went out to Regina Beach for a picnic lunch. The water is still really high and the beach area is still flooded.  

After lunch we wandered down the beach for a bit, and then came back to Regina and went to the Sandra Schmirler pool for a swim. We dropped Karen and Dominique at home after dinner at Chili's.