We are at the Kids in Alberta

WHERE ARE WE?           Bentley Alberta, CANADA eh!     

NEXT DESTINATION?    Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba in 10 days or so.

This morning we were up early and on the road because today is the day that we consider ourselves home.  Home is where you are with family and on familiar ground and although Manitoba is our summer destination, we still consider being in Alberta with Gord and Sheri and all the kids, HOME!  We had no problems at the border and again we were only there for about 3 minutes.  Most of the questions were the standard ones like how long we have been in the states and where is our home, but he did ask a weird question today that made me think for a minute.  He asked me "Have you ever had problems with immigration?"  Now if you were asked that, what would you think before you answered?  Well I paused for a second and then answered "Not that I am aware of!"  He immediately asked me "Are you sure?"  Well now I am wondering what I may have missed but I had to answer, "Yes I am sure".   He handed me our passports and with a little grin said "Have a nice day".  The questions they ask are for a reason, and are asked just to see your reaction.   I think they can tell from your reaction to those questions whether you are trying to cover up anything.  Anyhow we made it back into Canada and were glad to see the Alberta sign.

One of the things I do is keep a spreadsheet of how many days we have been in the USA on this trip and also how many days we have been in the USA this year.  They are two different things and you have to make sure that you do not exceed 182 days in either category.  The border people want to know how many days you have been on this trip and then when we get home we fill our a form 8840 that wants to know how many days we spent in the USA in the last year, which is 2018 this time.

If you look closely at the spreadsheet, you will see by the green columns that we were in the USA for 174 days this trip which was from Nov 1 to April 23.  We can now decide when we can go back down south this fall,  because we know that we have been in the USA for 113 days already so only can be in the USA for 69 more days in 2019!  That means that the earliest we can head back down is October 23.   When we get home in a couple weeks, we will fill out form 8840, which is a form that declares that Canada is our prime country of residence, and declare on that form that based on the blue columns, we were in the USA for 166 days in 2018.  We then send this form to the IRS in the USA.  This keeps everyone happy and hopefully they let us go back again.

As I said earlier, we are happy to be back in Canada and love to see the Canadian Flag blowing in the wind and the majestic Rocky Mountains at the end of the road.

Our route today will see us end up in Bentley Alberta, which is our daughter Sheri and her fiancé Gord's home.

On our route to Bentley we have to pass through Calgary Alberta.  Guess who we got to stop and see?  It is our friends John and Val who we spent a good deal of our winter with in Florida.  They are in Calgary visiting their daughter and will later be stopping in to visit us in Manitoba.  They have found a place that offers long term RV parking for free right in Calgary!!! 

We got to spend about and hour with them at Denny's having coffee and catching up on their travels since we parted ways in Magnolia Beach Texas.  It will be fun to see them again in Manitoba as they travel east to Ontario.

Another couple hours up the road and we saw the sign for Bentley.  The kids used to live in Lacombe so we had to be careful not to turn right instead of left to Bentley.

We pulled up in front of the house and blew the horn.  The grandkids didn't know we were coming early so they were really surprised to see us.  We were met by Gord, Sheri, Donovan, Dani, Rio and Joey, and of course Moose, the new dog.   Great to see them all.

Gord and his dad Rick had picked out a nice spot to park right along this quiet street with access to power.   We will probably need power because the temperatures are going to drop to -10C for a couple nights and only be in the mid single digits the rest of the time.  Looks like we will get to experience a little bit of Canadian winter yet!!

Thanks to Gords parents, Rick and Leanne for graciously allowing us to park in their yard.  We are so thankful that we can come to visit the kids and continue to live in the Ponderosa.  Sue said she may sleep in the spare room at Sheri and Gords anyway.  I think I will stay at home and probably the kids will take turns keeping Grampa company!!  Here is the view out our window tonight!!