Ahhhh, Back on Canadian Soil

Kilometers per hour, how many liters does the tank hold again and Loonies instead of dollar bills; we have to reacquaint ourselves with the nuances of being Canadian. Coming home, we paid on average, $3.90/gallon for diesel but our price was $1.20/liter on Sunday so how much is that anyway? Well, the fuel prices are getting closer, the US must have caught on how to tax their residents without telling them! The 1.20/liter works out to be $4.54/gallon(US). So, if your interested, the fuel costs coming home was just under $650USD. And we were wondering why the campgrounds in Ontario are filling with seasonal units….

Our entry across the border was relatively easy compared to some of the past. We choose a guard booth that was not busy and unfortunately, it was a trainee so she dotted all the i’s and crossed her t’s. But soon, we were on our way, heading to visit with our cousin at their campground near Goderich. The drive up was easy with little traffic. We pull into the campground and the owner gave us a big wave as he recognized us from last year. We got our usual site where we know we can get both satellites, we walked over to Larry & Judy’s for a quick visit before dinner. With lots of chatter and cajoling, we stayed longer than anticipated but had fun. But, where’s the heat? We slept in 70F degrees Friday night in Effingham, Il and now we have to dig out the blankets again.

Our first trip to the grocery store was a bit of a culture shock; a little more than we have been used to. We took a tour around Goderich to view the rebuilding that has gone on after the tornado last summer. Lots of new homes, commercial property but it is hard to replace the large old trees that were prominent throughout the town and defined the town square. After a couple of nice days and evenings with Judy, Larry and their neighbor Art, we’re back on the road heading to Terri & Mark’s driveway for Mother’s Day weekend.

The weather was great when we left but about half way heavy  rains and winds. We arrive early afternoon and get ourselves set up – in the rain.

Thursday, we tripped out to see my brother Larry. We were gonna park there for a few days but no time left so we make it a day trip. He is doing good and we were able to sit on his back deck and enjoy the beautiful sunshine (hard to believe after what we drove through yesterday) while we chat and catch up on all his doin’s! While we were there, we helped him dismantle his temporary  garage for his boat that he doesn’t have any more. After, we went out for dinner and said farewell and headed to Corrie’s.

They are doing great and the kids have grown taller. Mack is over 6 feet now and Nathanial is growing like a weed. We had fun watching them play table hockey and kibitz.

Terri has a surprise plans with Barb to celebrate Mother’s Day on Saturday. I hang out washing truck & trailer while they take off for lunch and the theatre. On Sunday, they both get  breakfast in bed and a leisurely day of gardening! Later we had a walk around ‘the block’ and found this huge group of Trilliums in the woods not far from Terri’s. Can you imagine seeing this in the heart of Toronto? There was some confusion about where we were and Dawn – one of our daughters – sent a bouquet of flowers to the campground. I called and they informed us that they were in a bucket with water waiting for us on  Monday when we get there.

Due to distance and illness, we do not get to see our other daughters before we are on the road again to our summer site at Olympia Village. We stayed here last fall and picked a new site for this summer. At the time, it was just a layout – no water, sewer or electricity so we’re a little anxious.

The office is empty and we call the posted number. The manager answers and says - “Oh, we were just talking about you, were your ears burning”? That does not give me a warm feeling. He arrives and informs us that our site is not ready – we’ve been communicating with them for 3 weeks about our arrival date and if they had told us they needed more time, we could have stayed at Terri’s a little longer! Anyway, my blood pressure is rising so they have to put us on another site for a ‘few days’ until ours is ready. The owner is under the gun as they have taken reservations for the long weekend here and the sites are not quite ready! Oh well, it’s only 5 months.

After we set up on a spare site, we take a closer look at our site and it does not seem like it did when we were here in November last year. Less tress and shrubs, less room and why did he put the power meters there? So like I said, it’s only 5 months and may be incentive to look again for something next year. We’ll see what this year brings us since we wanted to be closer to our family.

Well, until next time and maybe we’ll be on our site…..