Another Dreary Day!

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

Another rainy day so we went to Brandon to do some things.  Nothing exciting but necessary.  I had to grab a snack half way through.  Sometimes a ham and cheese sandwich is what a body needs.  This one was good. 

And it was still raining when we got home.  We are getting kinda sick of the rain.  Oh well, we will live.   Good Nite!!

Exploring a Food Vendor Opportunity

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

Monday was another rainy dreary day here.  While our friends in Ontario are roasting in tropical heat, we are in a rainforest situation. It is not cold but it certainly is not hot.  My job for the day was to go to town and pick up some supplies for the shack.  Business is still slow this time of year, but we have been lucky enough to have a steady flow of customers.  We get quite a bit of take outs as well.

Then Sheri called and asked me to join her checking out a possible opportunity for her to run a food booth at the local fair in Hamiota.  The shack and the equipment need some TLC but the local Lions Club will have it all cleaned for her if she does it.  She will do the numbers and decide.  It is a one day, 4 hour push and its over but you sell lots of burgers and hot dogs.  

Nice little building that sits empty most of the time.

a couple stoves and a fridge

2 grills & 2 fryers

I almost got taken in with this ad that I found on Facebook.  It would be a handy gadget!!.  Good Nite!!!

Fathers Day Supper

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

We had a little bit of wind from the storm last night.  A tree branch fell on the wood truck and smashed the windshield.  Now another windshield to replace.  

Also a few trees down around the park.  Some of the campers moved it out of the way to be dealt with tomorrow.

I got Fathers Day wishes from all my kids today which is always nice.  Sheri is having a fathers day roast beast supper at Cj's so Sue and I went to Hamiota to partake with her.  It was nice to spend some time with her and the supper was great.  Dani and Landon's girlfriend were our servers and they did a great job.  I hate that I always forget to take a picture of the actual supper.  Oh well you have to take my word for it.  Thanks guys!!!

Well that made for a great day again.  I got to watch a little bit of sunset tonight through my broken windshield while taking Archie for a run.  Good Nite!

David and Jane Come to Visit

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

My favourite job around here is to drive around the park selling firewood.  I enjoy meeting all the people and chatting with people about where they come from and what they do.  Sometimes it takes me a long time to make one round in the park.

And look who I found today.  Last winter in Mexico we had David and Jane spend some time in the some RV park as us.  We got to know them while they were there and then we went our separate ways.  They have been in BC and now are travelling to Ontario.  They decided to stop off in our park and spend the evening with us.  Our nomadic lifestyle allows us to have friends from all over the country and we love meeting up with them every once in a while.  Great to see you guys!!

Well it is Saturday night again and time for "Music in the Park".   Tonight we have Murray and his son Jesse, along with a friend of theirs, Rodney who was on percussion.  They gave us a nice evening of music once again.  We had a nice little crowd of about 65 people who enjoyed it all.

What a great day we had today.  This was what we got later in the evening.  Some wild weather to the south of us.  Sue got a couple good pictures.  Good Nite!!

Candy for Breakfast? Of Course

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

We were up in good time again today because the grandkids had stayed over and we had to get Grace off to school.  Then when I got back home, Max was up and I had to get him something to eat.  He followed me to the shack and found something to eat on his own.  Bet his mom wouldn't approve, but he was happy. Those gummies that we put on top of our kids cones are sooooo yummy!!

I noticed that there was some action in the birds nest above the door.  They are all sitting on each other and fluttering their wings.

Then the front one just kinda fell off the nest and flew and landed on the fence.  I think they are ready to fly the coop.

Next thing we saw was the bunny rabbit that Archie barks at every morning.  He wasn't wasting any time getting to the bush.

My first project of the day was to help the girls with changing fryer oil.  They got the drain pipe all clogged up so called me in to fix it.  It was a little messy when it finally let go and thank goodness for Zorball which mopped up the mess.  

After lunch I had Winston come in to do some things.  He usually cuts all the grass outside the golf course with the riding mower.  Then I put him to work cleaning the greens on the golf course.  It is a tedious job and he did it for an hour or so.  Max stuck with him the whole time.

Sheri texted me that she wants my wheelbarrow at her house to move some gravel, so I loaded it up on the Jeep and took it into town.  Not exactly how you might think I would load it up, but it worked.

The girls got busy doing some cooking and ice cream and we had a nice steady day of food.  We are finally getting some summer weather and people are beginning to camp.  I think the weekend will be busy.

Shelly sent me an updated calendar of music for the summer.  We are slowly filling in the slots and this Saturday should be a good one.  If you want to check out the music go to Cj's Snack Shack on Facebook and listen to some of the musicians.  We will post again tomorrow.  That's it for tonight though.  Good Nite!!

Take me out to the Ball Game

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

Today is Thursday and that stupid supply truck comes at 6:30.  If there is one thing I would like to change about Cj's it would be having to get our supplies at 6:30 in the morning.  Oh well he showed up right on time.  Tim is a good guy and if there is anything that makes us get up in the morning it would be his smiling face.  He is always chipper and happy and never has a bad word to say.    

We spent some time today making the place look pretty.  We have a special needs home in town and one of the things they do is spend time in the community giving everyone a hand.  We are lucky and have a couple of nice girls and their workers who come every week and they like working with flowers.  So today they transplanted some flowers.  It will look real nice around here very soon.

While the girls were doing flowers I had to load the truck with wood totes.  We are going to a ball game in Virden tonight so I have to have wood available for the girls to sell.  

So later in the afternoon we headed for Virden for Silas's ball game.  On the way we stopped at Nikki's trailer in Aspen Grove to make a modification to a bunk ladder that is too long.  I cut 7 inches off it and it looks like it fits right now.  I also levelled the trailer a little better than it was.  Then we headed on in to Virden.

So I have to admit that I never took one picture at the ball game so I stole some from Nikki's FB page.  This one is my favourite when he went to see a Goldeyes ball came in Winnipeg.  

The next pictures pretty well depict what we saw at his ball game.  He already has a pretty good grasp on how the game is played.  He hit the ball every time at bat and did some good fielding as well.  He loves playing ball so it will be fun to watch his progress.  We were all tired after a long day.  Good Nite!!

A Look inside a Tornado

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

Today we had big storms in our area.  After lunch we had a big black one come at us.  It went by Hamiota first where Sheri was working at Cj's on the Links.  She headed over to the hockey rink to take cover.  I was not as wise and Max and I headed up the hill to see what was going on.  Yup its bad and then we spotted a big rotation.  It was moving parallel to our position so we parked to watch.  Within 30 seconds it switched direction and came right over us.  I don't think it actually touched down, but I got to look up into the center of it as it swirled at dizzying speed.  It took the tarp on the truck and lifted it straight up in the air and back down and then ripped the 6 foot 1x4 off and the last I saw it, it was heading up in the air.  The wind was violent for about 45 seconds and it pushed the truck down the road about 100 feet.  Poor Max looked at me and said "Grampa, I'm scared!"  Yup I bet he was and even I thought to myself that my nosiness may have got us to a place I didn't want to be.  As quick as it started, it was over.

It was moving left to right

Then it turned and came over my head.  No funnel but major rotation.

Lots of debris on the road just in front of the truck.  It did thin out the dead trees. lol

It did touch down for sure a couple miles from us and destroyed a shed.  Why would anyone go to the basement when you can see stuff like this up close???  In the evening there was another crazy cloud formation but we didn't hear of anything happening from it except rain.

And then it treated us to the biggest double rainbow ever.  Quite a day.  Good Nite!!

Cleaning a Golf Course

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

One of the chores we need to do is clean the golf course.  Dirt and grime get on the greens and they get quite dirty.  This is not the sort of thing you can just wash off with a hose, but rather you have to get at it with a pressure washer just doing about 1 inch strips.  It takes quite a while to do a golf hole, but it sure makes the green look better.  

Next job will be some painting to make everything bright and shiny.  We have been working with Kenia to get her a visa so she can come to Canada to visit.  The Canadian government has changed the rules so now Mexicans have to apply for a visa and prove on it that they will return to Mexico after their travels.  The visa runs in conjunction with their passports, so because of the cost of the visa, Kenia is also getting a new passport because hers runs out in a year and a half.  So she will get a 10 year passport and a 10 year visa so she will be set for a while.  The process takes a couple months and costs about 13000 peso's for both documents.  That is about $1000 Cnd.  I guess they want to make sure the Mexicans are serious about returning home after their travels.  So we are not sure if Kenia will make it here this year at all.  And she is also working on getting the same thing for Oscar.  The good news is that her business is quite successful, even in the summer months in Mexico.  She is starting to realize that she will have to expand into something bigger and better as she becomes more successful.  Good for her.  We are proud of her accomplishments and we hope she gets a short holiday with us this year.  Thats it for today.  Good Nite!