Week ending Oct 27, 2016 Magrath

Friday, we packed up the trailer and headed for Magrath.  We stopped in Claresholme at Meadow Creek Market and Grill, where we enjoyed a flame grilled sausage and caesar chicken wrap for lunch.   The Market part of the location is primarily meat (steak, pork loin, brisket), sausage and fish. In addition, they also have a variety of products from Europe.  We picked up a brisket.    When we arrived at Magrath, we got set up in a 'patio' site, because those are ones that have a clear view of our satellite over the many (leafless) poplar trees in the park. 

Saturday morning we washed the bugs off the front of the trailer, hopefully for the last time for a while, and did laundry.  The laundry is half the price per load here as at Cochrane, so we had only done a few loads of critical stuff for the last while.  After we were finished up with the chores, we walked the loop along the Galt Canal and Pothole Creek. As we started out from the campground, we saw a herd of about 15 deer.  They were spooked by something, with some of them running off in one direction, and a larger group running in another.  Three of them stopped to look back at what was bothering them, but we couldn't see what made them run.  At J.A. Spencer Irrigation Park, we read a bunch of historic signs about the Magrath area, which was created when Mormons came to the area to provide labour to the Alberta Irrigation Company to build the Galt Irrigation Canal, the first one built in southern Alberta, which opened on Nov 14, 1899.   

Floating Dredge

Granpa Jack's Sleigh

On Monday, we took the truck in for a couple of tires and oil and fuel filter change.  We had called Kal Tire in Lethbridge late last week, and despite taking bookings for Nov 4, they said they would fit us in since we would be crossing the border before then.  We dropped the truck off about 7:30, then headed to Humpty's for breakfast. Then we walked back and forth across downtown Lethbridge doing various banking stuff.  We checked back with KT about 10:30, and work was well under way.  We went to the food court with our tablets.  About 11:30, we got a text saying the truck was ready to pick up.  Great service. 

Monday evening, our plug-in to the 30 amp service outlet melted.  We called a mobile RV service in Lethbridge advertised in the laundry room.  He arranged to come out the next morning.  We ran an extension cord to power one of our space heaters, which kept us warm enough, with lots of sleeping bags and comforters,  overnight.  He arrived late the next morning, and was able to replace the plug-in and give us lots of advice.  He recommended that we either upgrade to 50 amp service in our trailer, or replace our heaters 1500 watt heaters with 1200 watt heaters. In the meantime, we need to turn off our hot water heater until a while before we need to use it.   We had to write a cheque to pay for the service.


Tuesday, we went up to the seniors center to a flu clinic.  It was fairly busy, being the first clinic of the year, so we waited for about an hour and a half before we got our shots.  The supervisor was phoning Lethbridge to see if they could get a fourth nurse.

Wednesday, we got an e-mail from our insurance broker, that we needed to change insurance companies.  John had noticed when shredding previous years  policies that our estimated mileage was 16000 instead of around 30000 km per year.   That turned out to be extra $8 per year charge.  However, our broker reviewed our trailer coverage, and noticed that it no longer included public liability coverage in the USA for non-driving related incidents.  Apparently, too many of their clients were getting sued for these type of events.  Fortunately, we hadn't damaged anybody in the meantime.   They found another company that provides coverage, for about another $800/year.  In the morning, so Joan could defrost the freezer, she put our frozen stuff the freezer where the hunters staying in the park keep their ducks.  In the afternoon, we walked uptown for some onions, and granola bars.  We went back via the Irrigation Park, since we hadn't bothered to take a camera with us on Monday.   We enjoyed the following sign, especially when we spotted a muskrat in the pond.
 

Preparing for the freeze

Muskrat

Spillway from Galt Canal into Pothole Creek

Diamond Willow

On Thursday, we got the emails with the new policy, and the cancellation of the current policy.  The folks running the RV park were able to print these off for us, so we could sign them, take pictures, and email them back to the broker.  We confirmed that they had received them okay.   However, they told us the new coverage couldn't be paid by credit card, so we had to go up to the post office to mail them a cheque, the second one in a few days.  That's more cheques than we have written in the last few years. 

Months ending Oct 20, 2016 - wrapping up our summer in Alberta

We are coming to the end of our summer in Alberta.

Sorry this post is a week later than promised in our last post.  I didn't notice that I had put only one week in Banff instead of two weeks.

On August 15, we headed to Irricana from Vulcan.  On the way, we stopped at Walmart in Strathmore to pick some much needed mosquito repellent, only to find that they had sold out.  After we set up in Irricana, we headed to the local store where we found the repellent we needed.  When we mentioned we had trouble finding it in Strathmore, she was surprised that we had come to Irricana to get it.  We clarified that we had come to the campground in town.   We enjoyed the sights walking around town.

Ode to Pioneers

Yard Ornament

We spent some time in Cochrane, walking the trails in town, until we went to Olds for a week.   After visiting with Mom and Dad there, we headed to Banff for two weeks, which we had booked in January as soon as we could make reservations this year.  

We hiked to the top of Tunnel Mountain with Elizabeth, did some hiking with George, and wandered through downtown Banff with Selena.

Bow Valley from Tunnel Mountain

For Trev's birthday, he and the family brought their kayaks to Lake Louise where we met them.  While Trev and Taylor paddled to the far end of the lake,  we walked the trail with Sue and Jamie to meet them.   Jamie paddled back to the dock with Taylor.

Taylor and Trev

Taylor and Jamie

When we got back to Trev's car he discovered he had lost his keys, the only ones he has for the car.   After a long search, and checking with the boat rental and the Chateau registration desk to see if anyone had found the keys, and finding out we couldn't leave the car in the parking lot, but could move it to the Chateau parkade, we called a tow truck to move it there.   By the time we were done, it had been a long time since the kids had eaten, so instead of going to the Magpie and Stump, we went to Wendy's in Canmore, where there was no waiting to eat.  Anthony, who hadn't come out with the family, came to meet us at Wendy's to take the family back to Calgary.    Trev decided he wasn't going to celebrate his birthday with us, as this is the third time in the last ten or so years, that something has happened when we got together for his birthday.    Fortunately, his keys had been turned in to the Chateau when a guest was checking out the next morning.   Since he didn't have to replace his key fob, it saved him a lot of effort and expense. 

We were disappointed that we didn't see many animals in Banff.   We only saw a couple of elk one evening as we were driving back the trailer.    We did get a shot of this little fellow enjoying his pine cone treat.

When we left Banff, we took the trailer to Hobo's in Calgary to check our propane connections for leaks,  make some adjustments to our main slideout, and fix a problem with the hot water heater.   It hadn't been working on electric mode for a few weeks, but worked okay on propane mode.  We figured that the element probably needed replacing.   When we had finished our shopping for the day and returned to the shop, the technician apologized for having to charge us for an hour to fix the hot water problem.   He couldn't figure out why there was no power at the water heater until he finally found the switch beside the vanity that either provides power to the hot water heater, or to the clothes dryer in the bedroom closet.   We had forgotten about this switch since we have never had a washer and dryer in the trailer.  We must have accidentally bumped the switch.  Duh!  To prevent this from happening again, Joan has taped the switch down so it will stay on hot water, and tagged it with a sticky note, so we won't forget about it again.

We returned to Cochrane for a month.   We enjoyed Thanksgiving at Trev's along with Sue's grandmother, parents, sister's family and uncle.    We had a nice visit with Don and Jackie in Calgary after we got our teeth cleaned and checked.   

Friday morning we are heading for Magrath, where we hope to have warmer weather.  Today, they are turning off the water in the RV park here in Cochrane.   It has been cold enough overnight here that we disconnected and drained our water hose a couple of weeks ago, and have only used it to fill our water tank whenever it has gotten low.   A few mornings, we saw people out with their hair dryers trying to get their water running, so are glad we decided to use the tank instead of the hose.