Week ending May 30, 2014

Joan’s Dr. appointments were finished until fall.  Finally her surgeon is happy enough with her progress that he no longer feels the need to see her. Hurray one less Dr. to visit.

We are back on our travels.   On May 23rd we left Cochrane.  On our way to the campground in Olds we stopped at a truck/rv wash and washed the truck and trailer.  When we got parked at O.R. Hedges park in Olds we found we backed on to centre field of one of the local baseball diamonds. The campground manager had informed us that there was a baseball tournament taking place this weekend. Do we need to set up our lawn chairs and sit with baseball gloves in our hands to protect our windows?  Saturday morning the first game started about 8:30. While we ate breakfast we watched the game. It appeared that our windows were in no danger. The tournament was kids about 13 years old. There was no fly balls even close to the fence, actually there were very few fly balls.

Sunday we watched a bit of the ball tournament and then headed out to the Fallen Timber Meadery. It is located west of Cremona, in the foothills. There are lots a deer around, but no other animals that we saw. The meadery was the idea of the sons of a bee keeper who was producing excess honey.  Now their main product is various types of mead.   We tasted a couple of 'mead wines' as well as a beer product they are making out of honey.  Our preference is a drier wine and, believe it or not,  not all honey based wine is sweet. We choose a bottle that was a mix of honey and crab-apples. This operation is truly a family affair, since the crab-apples used to produce the mead we purchased was grown in Calgary, on a tree in their Aunt's back yard. Now we know how mead is made, but it is a complicated procedure that requires a lot of expensive equipment, so we will continue to purchase ours at the liquor stores. 

Our route back to Olds took us through  Sundre so we could stop at the visitor information to pick up an Alberta Farmers Market guide as well as a new Campground guide.   After a stop for a picnic lunch, and a  drink in Sundre we went back to Olds and the trailer.  We watched part of a couple of baseballs games and then watched the Nascar Race.  

Monday was John’s dad’s 86th birthday. We took lunch out to them as well as cupcakes, the easy birthday cake. After leaving Bowden we drove into Cochrane to pick up mail and get prescriptions filled.   Now we should be set for the rest of the summer. 

Tuesday we were back in Calgary. We left the trailer at 10 minutes before 6  A.M. to pick up John’s Dad.  He had cataract surgery scheduled for 10 to 8 at the Southern Alberta Eye Centre. We delivered him a few minutes before the appointed hour. While he was having his eye taken care of John and I walked around the area.  He was ready to leave about 9:30.  A quick shopping stop at  Lee Valley and we where back on the highway.  Shortly after 11:00 we arrived in Bowden, picked up our truck and headed back to the trailer.  Time to finish our spring cleaning in preparation for our summer golf tour of Alberta. 

Wednesday after  lunch with John’s parents, we went to the library to make plans for the next week or so.  We do miss having campground wi-fi.  We checked some campgrounds around Stettler, Forestburg and Coronation and decided we would just leave on Thursday morning and stop at the first decent looking campground. 

As has become typical for our moving days in the summer, we woke to rain. It had rained all night and our campsite was a shallow lake. We finally got everything packed up and by 10:30 we were ready to leave. Thanks to our truck heater we warmed up and dried out by noon. About 1:00 P.M. we arrived in Stettler. We checked the Lions Campground and determined it suited us fine. Full service, wi-fi, clean bathrooms and importantly, clear sight line to the south for our satellite dish. As we were not sure what we wanted to do here we paid for 3 nights. You have 2 choices for payment, self service pay system by the bathrooms or go to the recreation centre and pay. We chose to use the self pay. Little did we know that in order to get wi-fi service at the site we needed to be parked no more than 2 sites from the bathroom building. Of course those sites were occupied. Joan spoke to one of the other campers in the park only to discover that there was a ball tournament in Stettler this weekend. We can see the ball diamonds from out trailer, but it isn't as close as the diamonds in Olds. We are not intentionally following the little league weekend tournaments; it's just a lucky feature of our trip this spring.

Friday morning we walked over to visitor information. What a bonanza. We found out that there are 2 golf courses within 30 km that are free. Now that more than meets my  criteria of $10.00 or less a round. We then decided we should stay for a full week. In order to take advantage of the weekly rate offered by the campground we walked over to the recreation building to see if they would change our stay to the week. No problem. The campgrounds at this time of year are thrilled with people like us who need sites during the week.   On our way back from the visitor info, we walked through a park next to the campground and watched some goslings being taken out for a swim on the pond, and saw hundreds of baby fish which were only noticeable from a bridge over the pond.