Friday morning, we headed for the border. We had talked to some people who told us it was worth paying the duty on wine brought in from the US. They took our receipt and calculated the value in $C at their current US Exchange rate. Then applied duty of .63/l, provincial markup of about 50%, then GST on top of that. 20L of wine cost us a total of $123. The same amount bought here would cost at least $200, so worth the extra half hour it took (on a reasonably quiet day at the border). Just as we got on highway 4 heading north, heading to Vulcan, we got a tremendous cross-wind, one of the strongest we have been in. We decided to pull into Milk River, rather than driving further. We were glad the wind didn't pick up further north where there are few campgrounds open at this time of year. We managed to get into a site with our tail into the wind, somewhat protected by the washroom building, but the wind still shook the trailer a lot.
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| Windy day |
Saturday morning, it was still a bit windy, but much better. We stopped at Tim Hortons in Lethbridge for breakfast, one of the things we miss in the south. We arrived in Cochrane to pick up a box full of mail, plus a batch put in a spare box for us. Lots of income tax stuff, Escapees literature, insurance documents from the trailer change last year, and the renewal for the truck this year. We also got a note that our UPS Franchisee had to drop the business. UPS is looking for a new franchisee since February, and is handling the mail sorting in the meantime. After picking up some cash at the ATM, we headed to Bow Riversedge, and got settled in for a couple of weeks. Once we got setup, we walked up to buy a basic tablet for John, and Turbotax 2016 to get started on this year's taxes.
Sunday morning was overcast, and just above freezing. After breakfast we did a little walk along the river. Part of the walkway has been blocked since early January due to ice backup on the river.
One fellow says it has been 15 yrs since it happened last. Murphy's Law was in effect. We didn't bother with the camera. We saw three eagles and a muskrat. The eagles were co-operative, with the male just sitting in the same spot while John went back and got the camera. The muskrat, of course, was nowhere in sight once we had the camera.
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| Male |
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| Female |
Monday thru Thursday, we did some shopping, some small walks, netfiled George's and our taxes for the year, and got ready for Trev's family to come out for dinner on Friday. We also gave UPS a call to make sure they would contact us if they wind up having to close the store in Cochrane. Yesterday, we noticed the county guys putting the snow fences in the yard, and checked to see if that meant that there would be no more snow this spring. They laughed. Sure enough, we got a big snowfall on Thursday morning, so it must be their fault. There was even enough heavy snow on the satellite dish that we couldn't pick up the HD channels until we cleaned it off.
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