Family in Alberta

Now that we are back on our summer routine, I am only going to publish a blog once a week.  It seems like most of what happens in the summer is not that exciting and often repetitive.  The time with our kids and grand kids is certainly exciting but I tend to forget to take the pictures.

Since we have arrived at our daughters in Lacombe Alberta, our son Derek and Nicole and our grand kids Abby, Silas and Emma have arrived here too for a week visit.  This is the first time we have seen Emma because we were already down south when she was born.  What a sweety!!!

Let's Go Fly a Kite!!

The weather is warming up more and more each day and it is nice in the afternoon even without a jacket.  Sue and I headed out to Bentley in the afternoon to pick up Donovan from school.  While there we visited the "The Kite Guys".   This is a neat store with all things kites.  They have been in the kite business for about 30 years and said that they really love it.  They are kite fanatics themselves so that makes what they do even more interesting.

Out and About

We didn't accomplish much today, but we didn't intend to either.   We are here to spend time with family and that is what we are doing.  Gord and Sheri had to run a bunch of errands today so we climbed in with them for the ride.  We went to a butcher shop in Bentley and then on to Walmart in Sylvan Lake.  Its funny that I always check to see if they are RV friendly. lol

Horsing Around

We are starting to get involved in some of the things the kids do here.  With four kids around they are busy most of the time.  We headed out to Bentley to meet the kids for lunch at the Monkey Top Saloon restaurant.  What a neat little place and they do the Dick Damron theme.  Dick is a singer of some notoriety and lives in Bentley in the summer and winters in Mazatlan.  You can check him out yourself here.

Christmas in April

Sheri had a doctors appointment in Wetaskiwin today.  Wetaskiwin is about 45 minutes north of Lacombe and the weather forcast for today was terrible, so like a good father would do, I offered to drive her there.   The trip there was great and she got in and out on time.  By the time we got to Walmart to do some shopping it was starting to storm.  One of the things we really feel when we get back to Canada is the price of meat.  Sue and I stocked our freezer with 8 steaks about 2 weeks ago in the USA for about 30 bucks.  Check the price of these 2  Rib eye steaks.  It is almost cheaper to eat at the Keg!!!

Back in Canada

This will be the final leg of our US adventure for this year.  We will be crossing the border into Alberta today for a nice long visit with our daughter Sheri and her SO Gord and all the kids.  Donovan, Dani, Rio, and Joey.  It will be a long day today as it is over 600 kilometers to drive today.

Costco Taste Testing

It was COLD last night or at least cold for us.  When I last looked it was -2C at about midnight.  We always manage to sleep well when it is cold for some reason.  I turn the furnace on for about an hour when we jump into bed and then turn it off for the night.  Then because the thermostat is right above my head in bed, I just reach up about 7:30 and turn it on again for a half hour until we get up.  We had a quick happy hour at our house and decided to head for Great Falls Montana today.  We headed down main street to I-15.

Knock Knock

We got up this morning and as we were getting our coffee ready we heard some talking outside.  Guess who showed up?  Yup the BLM guy and his boss coming to check the campground and clean up the pit toilets.  I think maybe they were a little excited to start out with, but when I explained why we just stopped here they seemed to understand.  The guy had a key for the gate so we were able to drive up to the parking lot and turn around.   Saved us a lot of backing up.  Thanks guys and sorry we got your blood pressure up!!!  As it turned out, this spot is for horses and ATV's anyway and they don't promote RV parking anyway.

Go North Young Man, Go North

The weather for Salt Lake City and area is not good for the next few days so we decided to head farther north.  There is going to be wind all over the country today and tomorrow so we can't escape that, but our motor homes are heavy enough that these winds will not be a safety factor.  The gusts to make for some weaves and wobbles, but we are at that stage in our trip where we will be following I-15 which is a good wide 4 lane road.

New Friends

We had another awesome happy hour this morning and soon set out on our appointed chores.  My chore was to clean the solar panels.  When I got up on the roof of the Ponderosa, I had to take a picture of the empty happy hour circle. 

Sneaking Northward

We had a fast happy hour got on the road early as we continued on with our northward trek.  We hope to stay at our next stop for a couple of days and take in some sunshine.  We know all too soon we will feel the cold north wind a blowing. 

Snow in the Mountains

We are moving again today a little farther north.  After a really good sleep last night we headed north on Highway 93.  There will be a lot of long stretches of nothing as we travel through the Great Basin.  It is named that because it is a valley that is fairly flat and probably 20 miles wide with mountains on either side.

Goodbye to More Friends

We had a quick morning happy hour and got Kyra's leak fixed so she could head out.  A quick goodbye to her and then we had to get our units ready to roll.  P&H and Sue and I will be heading north and Ed and Lessie are going to spend some time at the Family camp in Nellis AFB here in Vegas to enjoy their AC and get water and dump before heading eastward.  More sad faces today, but we look forward to meeting up with them this fall somewhere.

Goodbye Old Friend - Hello Old Friend

Another nice warm day in the desert.  The little lizards are starting to run around a lot which means that we must be vigilant for snakes.  We haven't heard of any here at Government Wash yet but that doesn't mean there are none.

Pat and Harold return from Manitoba

Another hot day at Lake Mead today.  We are soaking up the sun before our northward trek continues.  We all sat out under the awning for our morning happy hour.  Even Lexi was chilling.

Men's World Curling in Las Vegas

And the headline reads:

And wouldn't you know it, this was the game we went to see in Las Vegas today.  All morning long Sue and I have been preparing Ed and Lessie and Kyra for the big game tonight.  None of them have ever been to a curling game before so they wanted to know some of the basics.  I got out the coloured markers and some paper and went over the basics with them.

Be Happy with What You Have.

After our trips to Las Vegas over the last few days I have been thinking about what makes this city tick.  We sit out here beside Lake Mead and at nights we watch plane after plane fly over our heads on final to land at McCarren Airport.  We joke that they come in heavy with cash and fly out light.  Almost everyone on those planes has the same dream floating through their heads.  To be a big winner and head home rich.  I'm sure there is the odd lucky one, but I know I have flown on a lot of flights out of Vegas and for the most part their are long hung over faces trying to sleep it off before they have to go back to the grind when they get home.  For a few short days a person has the opportunity to be whoever they want to be, and tell whatever story they want to tell, but when that plane leaves the runway, it is all left behind.  What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas!!!   As one gets older, the things that are important in life change.  Material things start to take a back seat to experiences.  We notice the little things more.  I think we should all step back every once in a while and ask ourselves what is REALLY important.  Maybe we are just trying too hard to fix things that are not even broken.

Walking the Strip

We are about 11 days into our stay here so I decided that maybe today I should top up our water to get us through to Sunday.  Besides that, I was dying to try out the new water bladder again.  Off I went to the washroom at the old boat launch area.  The bathrooms are usable but not sparkly clean, but I have been told the water is fine.  It certainly looks good.  There is no tap to hook up to so I had to improvise a hose to fit over the faucet in the sink.  It worked great.

Scrambled Eggs

We headed into Vegas today to check out some restaurant supply places.  As you can imagine there are a lot of these because of the huge number of restaurants in the city.  There are some that are as big as a Costco and only handle used equipment.  I guess they buy up all the stuff that the restaurants change out, most of which is still in good shape.  It is piled on shelves right to the roof.

We were looking for a few things for CJ's back home.  We need a stainless steel prep table and have priced them out at about 500 bucks at home.  We picked one up here for 240 bucks so even with exchange it is a good deal.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone.

It was another gorgeous day at Lake Mead and we had a great morning happy hour as usual.  This morning was kind of a planning session for the pot luck that Sue had organized for supper tonight.  Quite a few of the neighbours will be participating and we are looking forward to the social evening.