Year 3 Week 5

July 16 to 22, 2006

Lorette to Richer, Manitoba

Year 3 week 5

 

Sunday ; Today was sunny and very hot.

This morning we went to visit the Carlson's. We brought all the gifts we bought for Lorri, Doug, Madeleine and Amelia during the last year of our travels. Sort of like our version of Christmas in July for the Carlson's. We went for lunch to their favourite restaurant, Sushi Train, at "The Forks". We couldn't linger over lunch, because we wanted to go see a real estate "Open House" in Richer.

We drove out to Richer to see a small cottage on a half acre lot in the small village of Richer. It was a nice piece of property, and the little house was suitable for our needs. But I'm not yet ready to make a commitment to buy a place to declare as "home" for the summers.

We had dinner with Sharon and Bud, their daughter Andrea, and her boyfriend Kevin. Andrea is living with a friend in Winnipeg for the summer, and will move back "home" in the fall when university resumes. After supper friends of Sharon and Bud came for a visit. We all sat in the gazebo, and their friends, Linda and Dennis, who are "animal people" gave attention to Bo and Teddy.

 

Monday ; Today was a lovely day, sunny and warm.

Bo was sick for most of last night, keeping us awake until dawn. Poor little Bo Bo dog ! We didn't get much sleep.

This morning we had breakfast with Sharon & Bud on their back deck, lingering and chatting. We drove into Lorette, bought some groceries, adjusted the air pressure in the truck tires, and hauled a few bags of garbage and recyclables to the Lorette dump just outside town. When we returned to the Danelak's, we began to prepare for departure.

I ran into difficulty. One of the trailer's front jacks / landing legs would not retract. I couldn't get the trailer lowered onto the truck and hitched. It took me awhile to find the problem and solve it. A coupling bolt in the landing gear drive shaft had sheared off. I was lucky enough to find a bolt that was close enough to the correct size to fix the problem temporarily, until I buy the exact correct bolt and locking nut. We had lunch, then departed the Danelak's driveway in mid-afternoon.

We drove about a half an hour east on TCH 1 to Richer, to Wild Oaks Campground. I suspected from visiting here a few days ago that it would be difficult to get our large rig into one of their sites. It was ! We finally squeezed the trailer in, but there wasn't room in the site for the truck also. I parked the truck half sticking out into the roadway.

I was a bit ill late in the afternoon, and into the evening, from this bout of colitis that has been flared up for about 3 weeks now. I did some routine minor maintenance, then printed the investment data updates and income tax forms < sigh > that I downloaded yesterday.

After a great supper of barbecued steak, fresh peas, fresh beans, and fresh potatoes, we took Bo for an obedience session, then went for a long walk around the campground. We were joined on the long walk by a seasonal camper, and his dreadlocked Hungarian Puli dog. Pulis are quite a rare breed. Bo and Zayla quickly became good friends, and enjoyed romping together on our long walk. Bo went for a late evening dip in the campground's small lake.

 

Tuesday ; Today was partially cloudy and warm.

Joanne spent the day on cleaning and waxing the trailer. I spent the day in bed, ill, mostly sleeping, occasionally reading a bit. I dislike losing an entire day to illness. When we led normal working lives I couldn't afford to indulge myself in a day of lying in bed feeling ill. While this unemployed, homeless lifestyle allows that, I'm not sure that's a good thing. Late in the afternoon we went to cool off in the campground's pool before having supper.

Joanne spent our time in the pool trying to convince me that we should buy the cottage that we looked at last Sunday. So we drove over there to take another look around, verifying that the driveway and yard were large enough to allow us to get in with the truck and trailer. We drove around the village, checking things out.

After supper I worked on updating investment files, and working on income tax returns ( sigh ). I finally, 3 months late, finished the working draft of both our personal income tax returns.

 

Wednesday ; Today was sunny and warm.

We drove to Winnipeg this morning for a day of running errands and visiting. First stop was Wal-Mart in St. Vital Centre, then Mark's Work Warehouse across the street. We went to A&W for lunch. Joanne had been craving a Teenburger for awhile, and made me promise her that I would take her to A&W .

After lunch we went to the Carlson's for a brief visit with Lorri and the nieces. We brought 2 shopping bags full of Mardi Gras beads for Madeleine and Amelia. They seemed to be a big hit. We went to PET VALU in Southdale, then Canadian Tire in the next mall.

We got back to the trailer in Richer about 6:00 P.M.. We rested a bit, then barbecued supper. Joanne copied her income tax from the working draft to the copy to be submitted. I worked on improving the custom extension cord Bud fabricated for us to use while in their driveway. At 9:30 we went for our nightly soak in the campground's hot tub. AHHHHH !

 

Thursday ; Today was sunny and very warm.

This morning Joanne continued working on cleaning and waxing the trailer. I finished the modifications I was making to the custom extension cord Bud made for us, to allow us to use the trailer's air conditioner while we're parked in their driveway. Then I fabricated a custom valve handle extension assembly for the kitchen grey water tank, and installed it.

After lunch we went to check out a couple of campgrounds near Steinbach, then we went into Steinbach for some groceries. We'll probably spend the month of August at one of the two campgrounds we saw today. There was a Farmer's Market in the parking lot of Clearspring Mall in Steinbach, so we bought some fresh produce before going into Sobey's to buy the rest of our groceries. Following Sharon's recommendation, we dropped into PET VALU in Steinbach, just to see the store's 2 resident cats, Cash and Profit. We only saw 1 cat, and it was grotesquely obese. Looks like either too much Cash, or too much Profit. HA HA HA HA HA !

After supper, I copied a Zydeco CD for Bud, then worked on arranging my Year 2 photos into a video CD slide show. I spent 2 hours "ascending the learning curve", and didn't make much progress.

 

Friday ; Today was mostly sunny and very warm. It rained for a few minutes in the afternoon.

Joanne continued working on cleaning and waxing the trailer. I began to work on the huge job of repairing the damage caused by the exploding trailer tire a month or so ago. First I had to straighten out, then reshape a metal brace. Then I had to straighten out, and reshape a metal end plate. Both those pieces were so badly damaged and deformed, it was difficult for me to figure out exactly what shape they were supposed to be. I also removed all the rusty, seized bolts and screws that were in the damaged fibreglass side skirt, the damaged fibreglass bottom skirt, and the trailer frame.I cleaned the fibreglass bottom skirt thoroughly to prepare it for repair. I was going to begin the actual fibreglass repair, with resin and fibreglass cloth, but it began to rain, and by the time the rain finished, I decided not to start the messy job of using fibreglass resin today.

I finished up our personal income taxes. I need to make a few photocopies of documents, buy some stamps, and send the income tax returns on their way. Tomorrow ! After supper I spent most of the evening creating 2 copies of video slide show CD's of our "Year 2" photos.

 

Saturday; Today was sunny and hot.

I spent the morning working on repairing one of the fibreglass panels damaged by the exploding trailer tire. I applied fibreglass cloth and resin to the underside of the bottom panel. It went quite well. This is the third time I have attempted fibreglass repair, and each time my results get much better.

This afternoon we drove to Winnipeg. I picked up the difficult to find, long awaited kitchen drawer slide hardware at Transcona Trailer Sales, ordered from Glendale Manufacturing. It looks like the correct hardware ... finally ! We drove to Canadian Tire in Southdale for some supplies I needed. We drove over to the Carlson's for a brief visit, but nobody was home.

We drove to the Danelak's in Lorette. Joanne did some laundry, while I did some online work, sending and retrieving e-mail, retrieving my MasterCard statements, and filing the corporate quarterly GST return. I made copies of some new Blues albums of Bud's. Joanne and I went outside with Bud to learn how to erect their tent which we are borrowing for our camping trip.

 

DSK