The Mericans Came for a Visit!!!!

Once a year I have to drive the 2 and a half hours to Winnipeg to have my ICD (defibrillator) checked.  They mainly check it to see where the battery levels are at and if it has been triggered in the last year.  People who have these implant, normally have them because they need to have some heart pacing done as well so that is a little more time consuming at the check up, but for me all that is shut off cause my heart purrs along just fine.  Only problem with me is that my heart could stop from say exertion or a scare or those kinds of things so that would be the only time it would kick in and start my heart again.  So the trip to Winnipeg and back for my 10 minute check up takes about 8 hours.  It was a boring drive this time because I was by myself.  It took forever to get to the half way tree.

This tree is half way between Brandon and Winnipeg and is actually known as "the half way tree".

Another old landmark along the way is Union Central Station in Winnipeg.  This was and still is the Headquarters for CN Rail and the passenger station for Via Rail which runs the Trans Continental train across Canada.

And around the corner is my destination, St Boniface Hospital.  This is the hospital where I came to when I had my heart attack, and is the main Cardiac Hospital in Manitoba.

Although the whole process is a lot of travel for a short appointment, they did tell me today that I will not need a new battery for a few years yet.  That is good news cause the surgery to replace it results in a sore chest for quite a while.  Not sore sore, but rather uncomfortable, especially in bed.

Here is one of our customers at the lake.  He has two dogs called Scooter and Maggie.  Scooter is an 

Aussie  and Collie like Charlie, and every day he comes down and orders 3 hamburger patties and gets us to cook them about half way and then he feeds them to his dogs and Charlie.  He refused not to be charged for all 3, even if Charlie is the recipient of one of them.

Last weekend, I developed a Man Cold and was feeling sorry for myself.  Then the sinus thing turned into plugged ears and then ear pain!!  So Sunday morning I was off to the Walk in Clinic to have it looked at and meds if needed.   I arrived just as they opened at Noon and was the 6th patient in line for 2 doctors.  I thought oh no, this will take a while but it didn't.  Those 5 other people had prescriptions in their hands quicker than you could say "Jack Sprat" and were out the door!!  I didn't even get to sit down and they called my name.

Walk ins are just places to get prescriptions but that is a good thing.  It takes the pressure off the Emergency Room.  Doc had a look in my ear and confirmed that I had an ear infection and prescribed some antibiotics.   He gave me a prescription which I took next door to the Pharmacy that the same Doctor owns and got some pills.

Total time from when I walked into the clinic, saw the Dr. and filled my prescription, and was back in the jeep heading down the road was 19 minutes.  You can't beat that!!!

On the way home I stopped to look at the Saskatoon bushes.  We are set to have the best Saskatoon crop that I can remember.  Can hardly wait!!!  These berries are green still but will turn into a beautiful purplish blue berry.

Funny little story to tell.  Grace was hanging around the window in the shack being her funny self when she let out a yucky squeal.  We looked around and she was spitting on the floor and trying to get rid of what ever it was!!   Well as you can see by the bottle in her hand, she had tried out the Tabasco sauce and it was burning her tongue.  You gotta love when kids try things like that for the first time.

So look who showed up at the park on Monday??   Our first "Merican" friend.  Yep, its our friend Kyra, the Boondocking Queen.  Kyra is from Washington State and we have spent lots of time in the southwest with her over the last 4 years.  We didn't see her at all this past winter because we were in the east.  Kyra is single handedly responsible for our love of boondocking, and for the most part was our push for hitting the road fulltime.  We always love being around her.  We have talked about our little piece of paradise here in Rivers enough that she decided she would come and check it out.  We hope we can show her a good time as she spends some time with us.

One of the things we always complain about in the US is their hot dogs.  They are for the most part not that great tasting, so we invited her over for a wiener roast the first night and introduced her to our Canadian hot dogs.  I think we just use tastier left over body parts in them.  She said she liked them!!

We have another new employee at the shack.  Susan is trying to get to the point where she can take a little time off in the week and leave the shack in good hands, so she is training up Dianna to be her second cook.  We have known her for a few years and Susan and her are quite good friends as well.  We still have Trista to help with the ice cream and a lot of the chores but Dianna will be in charge if we go away for a day.  Dianna is catching on fast and her smile will take her a long way with our customers.   Welcome to Dianna!!!

A little more work at the shack has been done with the addition of our office desk.  We still need a chair!!

Tuesday saw the arrival of some more "Mericans"!!!  Ed and Lessie from Oklahoma arrived in the late after noon and got settled in.  We spent some time with them in Florida and Texas this past winter and always enjoy their company.  Grace and I headed down to welcome them in their site.

Not long after Ed and Lessie arrived, our friends Jim and Marilyn showed up for the night in their camper van.  Thats them up in Site 2 behind us!!  Charlie knew exactly where they were even though we could hardly see them through the leaves.

Wasn't long and everyone was down at the shack for supper.  Pat and Harold joined us for the evening and will be spending lots of time with all of us as well.  They only live a couple miles from us in Rivers.  Great times visiting and sharing stories of our travels.

Then over to the Ponderosa for a bonfire to end the evening.  We soooo love having our friends around.

Next morning we were invited to Pat and Harolds for Breakfast.  Good breakfast and some great chit chat again.  Everyone wanted a look at their house before they sell it.  Pat always accuses me of taking pictures of her with either her mouth open or her hands waving.  Guess which one of the following two pictures I took??  LOL

Pat and Harold have a beautiful home but they also want to spend more time on the road so are trying to sell the place.  I'm sure they will find someone who will fall in love with it soon.  Here are a couple pictures of it.

Our Grandson Silas had his graduation in Reston a couple days ago, which we didn't make it too.  He is quite a character and seems to enjoy everything he does to the fullest.  Congratulation Silas!!  He is coming to spend some time with us this weekend.  This is one of the reasons we are hiring some people, so we won't miss out on these special occasions so often.

Today was the last day of preschool for Silas.  Have a great summer!!1

Today was Graces graduation from preschool here in Rivers.  She too did a good job.  Congratulations.

And our Kaitlyn who is prompt for everything she does, was the first person there to snag a front row seat.  There is no sitting in the back if you are with Kaitlyn!!!

The past couple nights we put everyone to work for their supper.  Ed tried his hand at being the short order cook and flipped some burgers and Kyra was tasked with cutting her own home cut French fries.  They both did wonderful.  Lessie was an ice cream scooper natural but I didn't get a picture.

Charlie just took it all in stride.  No big deal.

And a picture of Pat.  I don't know why she says I get here with her mouth open and arms out.  I'm just going to have to keep posting pictures of her until I get it right!!!!  The picture was supposed to show them all with more delicious CJ's food.

Well its been a good week and we did get some time to put our feet up and relax.  

And the view out our window this week was full of friends.  Thats the way I like it!!