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.
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| Floating Dredge |
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| 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.
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| Preparing for the freeze |
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| Muskrat |
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| Spillway from Galt Canal into Pothole Creek |
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| 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.
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