Finishing the list…

9. Walkabout

We had a nice walk around the campsite, pretty much stopping at all the playgrounds for Andrew. I can’t remember anything that stood out on our walk… so here are the pics.

I’ll take dat one!I never had a coffee from here, but they had some pretty fancy stuff on the menu… 25 cents a ride… Nice comfy seats while you wait your turn… The beach access…

10. Driveabout

I was still pretty grumpy about our living arrangements, so I decided a driving tour of the area was in order. we really enjoy exploring (as you know) and today was no different. We headed a few kms east to Rochon Sands and the connecting Prov. Park. Traci and I stayed here a million years ago, so we had an idea what it was like, and as we remembered it, it was still very nice. The only reason we don’t camp here is it is dry camping. We promised Andrew another playground and we found one here.

The playground had a bouncy bridge to get to the big slide and he didn’t want anything to do with it at first. After a while of up and down the small slide, I was able to talk him into coming across holding my hand. After a few trips like that, he went over part way on his own and then all of a sudden he looks at me and says “NO DADDY!” i’m like: What? he says “NO Daddy, you stay there!”. I went out one step onto the bridge with him and he freaks out. “DADDY! Andrew do it HISSELF!”… ok then… he just grew up a little more right in front of our eyes.

We carried on from Rochon, to the Village of White Sand. This place was really nice. Very well kept. The only one problem is access in on gravel roads. I guess I’ve been living in the city a long time, because, as Andrew would say, ‘I no like it’.

After out tour in White Sand we went around the east end of the lake (Buffalo Lake) to the Buffalo Lake Recreational Area, to have a look at the campground there. Nope. Never gonna camp there. 5 cattle grates, and a very rough road in, and then once you get there, it’s all unsecured and kinda unruly.

We travelled from there into the Town of Stettler. If you ever win the lottery in Alberta, this is where you have to go to claim your prize. Just so you know. Stettler is famous for railways and oil. It has a very cool train ride from this town to Big Valley. Apparently you get robbed along the way by bandits and generally have an authentic old school train experience. We will go there one day. Andrew spotted the big Steamer and he immediately wanted to ride ‘Thomas’. We toured town a bit, got a coffee from Tim Hortons and then started to head back to camp… then…

11. Andrew walmart

Andrew spots Walmart. “ Let’s go to big mollmart” he says. No sweetie, we don’t need to go there. “Let’s go to big mollmart!!!”. What do you need from Walmart? we ask. He sits for a moment, then in all sincerity he says “I need daipers.”

Fair enough, we went to big Mollmart!

12. Creepy handshaker

I debated putting this one up because it shows how dense I can be some days.

I made friends with the family next door to us (on the services side of the camper) and spent some time across the tailate getting to know them. Their 12 year old daughter was really smitten with the pugs.

The next day she was just sitting in their site so I asked her is she wanted to take the pugs for a walk. She did. It was getting dusky out and the sun was going down, and when she got back I was heading down to the beach to take some pictures of the sunset. She asked if she could come with me and I said sure.

Yeah. I have no idea what I was thinking. I didn’t even think about it until we got back.

I walked back into the site, realizing by then that it is not normal for grown men to go down to the beach with someone elses 12year old to take pictures of the sunset. Like seriously, am I that stupid?

It was fine, she was just a chatty 12 year old. I started to wonder what her parents must have thought though. I started to wonder why on earth they let her go with me, in this day and age. Anyway, I felt bad enough that I lost some sleep over it. In the morning I went over to the Dad and said “I need to apologize to you, I can be a Naive Dunce some days” He looks at me, I continue “You must have been pretty weirded out yesterday, and I just wanted to apologize for not checking with you, and/or saying no to your Daughter” He says “Well we sort of looked at her when she ‘told’ us she was going to take pictures at the beach, and we decided we were ok with it, as an afterthought we were a bit weirded out… but it’s ok.” ok… Our conversation turned to what this world has come to for us to having this conversation, and we parted ways. They were packing up and going home, so that was that.

12. sunset

Oh here is the results of the weird sunset photo session…

13. Other campground shots…

These funny pedal carts were all over the place…We took our ride on Sunday Evening! Andrew loved it! Mommy and Daddy were a sweaty mess after all the pedalling. Climb up wit me Daddy! This was the Full moon on Sat Night… Of course, here is the awesome site we moved too… Notice Traci sound asleep in the LaFuma on the right side… Andrew got to pet a Hursh… and one of the 3 little piggies… I think that one went to market… mmmmm pork. Turned out our weekend was awesome… even though I can be grumpy, and/or stupid some times…

An 8 year old kid…

… made me feel better about myself… truly.

back story. Traci and Andrew were at the playground the other day and this group of older kids (8yo’s) were very nice and included our little almost 3 year old in their play. At one point one of the kids says to Traci “Man, i love this little kid!” and was very sincere about it.

Front Story. Yesterday we were at the beach building sandcastles and because the sand was so perfect for sandcastles we were being very creative. We had 2 bucket shaped sand domes sitting one on top of the other and were attempting a third. It didn’t quite work out and it fell over and Andrew had a ball stomping the ruins to smithereens.

Out of nowhere an 8 year old kid is walking toward us, and as he goes by he says, “great job on that 3 layer sandcastle, you guys almost had that!”, and he kept walking… I sort of smiled and said “thanks!” I looked at Traci and asked her if she heard that. Smiling she said she did. She said it was the same kid from the playground yesterday.

I had an 8 year old kid, in 11 words, making me feel good about  myself, and just good in general.

It was a Far cry from this…

So.much.better.

Oh yes… Traci said, no lets stay in our site, and then qualified it with, ‘Whatever you want to do’. 45 minutes later we were out of site 475 and into site 198. ooooohhhhhhh yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh. I feel soooo  much better. (did I say that already?) Can’t wait for a fire tonight, because last nights fire was only about 3 feet from the neighbours bathroom… The clerk at the office still made it hard to move. I asked what sites are open and she said none. I asked her “really? there are no sites available on Sunday night here?”, Let me look again, she states. Oh, here are some! Imagine…

From this…

To this…

All in the same campground, all for the same price…good for us! Oh yeah, tomorrow is our 13th wedding anniversary.

Darn…

I used the little update post from Yesterday, and just changed the title, thinking that it would post new and leave the old one there… nope. It is gone, can’t get it back… good thing it was just a  couple photos and not much more… Lesson learned. I used yesterdays just so I had my list at my disposal…

First few items on the list

1. Gravel road

I tend to take the road less travelled, and I know it drives Traci nuts most of the time. This time I lay total blame on my Palm Pre and Google Maps… It was only 8km, but still… sheesh.

And the boy was trying to sleep too. Poor guy.

2. Guy at gate

When we got the the campground we had to wait at the gate to get in. What I didn’t understand was, why are the people stopping 30 feet short of the little house and having the guy walk back and forth… very slowly. Anyhow, we got up there and he asks our name, I tell him and he goes “So it’s Neil and Debbie?”… “Oh sorry, that was last month wasn’t it?” hardeeharhar har….

3. Andrew Swimming

The boy loves him a good lake!

4. Scrunchy RV park

I was pre-grumpy coming here as I knew we were destined for the RV Park portion of the ‘resort’ I wasn’t surprised, it does kind of suck. I booked 3 months ago, but this place lets you book a year in advance, so all the nice serviced larger sites in the trees are taken up now for next year at this time. When the guy on our door side showed up, his wife directed him 2 feet onto our property, she kept telling him to move over further and further toward us. We were sitting in the camper watching all this and finally I had enough. I went outside and pretty much stared at them with the ol’ stinkeye until they got the hint and moved over. I really wish I didn’t have to be ‘that guy’ but there are fixed gravel pads to park on and he was fully 2 feet onto our already small plot of land. Oh well, one less social interaction to worry about this weekend. Turns out it was an ok thing as he got himself plastered drunk and staying in an idiotic stupor all weekend. (Traci actually heard the guy say “I moved the camper over because that guy looked at me cock-eyed”).. hehe, yay, my work is done here!  Here is our view of his trailer from our patio…

5. disgruntled I

It’s true, I’ve been a bit sour, but sometimes doesn’t being a bit sour just feel right? I’m still having fun, but I'm just not my jubilant cartwheeling self! (ed. note: today I am jubilant and have done 3 back-handsprings already this morning)

6. Jackass neighbour

see #4 above.

7. Propane dude

One our tanks were out, so I took it over to the store to get filled. When the guy finishes filling it up, I ask how much is it going to be? He states “A buck a pound, so $30.00”. We head over to the store so I can pay and by the time I get there I have done some math in my head. Yep. “So, $30.00 huh?, but you are only allowed to fill the tank to 80% of capacity, so I should only have to pay $24.00”. The dude just looks at me… “It’s a 30lb tank, so it’s $30.00”. “Um, but you only put 24lbs in…”. “Yeah, but this is what we charge for a 30lb tank, and it’s based on what we pay our supplier for delivery and stuff”. “ok, but now i’m paying $1.20lb, where in town I pay $.75lb, so you are saying you have to charge $.55lb more that in town, 15 minutes from here?”

The guy had taken my money by then and had decided not to talk to me anymore. Did I tell you I was sort of grumpy still? I was making friends ALL OVER the place here at Old McDonalds Resort…

8. Storm

It was pretty awesome, really heavy rain, high winds. We use quite the system to keep our awning in place once set up, so I sat outside under the awning during the storm. It calmed me down…

Still to come…

9. Walkabout

10. Driveabout

11. Andrew walmart

12. Creepy handshaker

12. sunset

13. Other campground shots…

Camper crash…

not mine, but a nasty one nonetheless. Loyal followers  Sue and Doug ask “what happened to the camper?”

Well, he messed with a vehicle he shouldn’t have.

He turned in front of this sightseeing coach. This just demonstrates how little there is between the outside in many of our very thin RV’s. I saw a travel trailer get t-boned on the highway once. All that was left looked like a pile of matchsticks.

here are some nice cars, just to take your mind off the wreck…

 

And here is a baby goat.

Wordless Wednesday…

My boy…

… has a new best buddy. His first good bud in fact. The next door neighbour family has a 4 year old that really likes Andrew and the feeling is mutual. The other day Kieran comes over into our yard, walks up to Andrew and asks “Do you want to play Hide and Seek? … Yesth, replies Andrew. The funniest game of Hide and Seek ensues. They hide in the exact same spot each time, but are no less excited when they find each other.

Today Kieran comes over into our yard and Andrew and him have a hug before they start playing. They were so happy to see each other. They ran through the sprinklers, played on the slide and just had an great time. It melts my heart to see Andrew so well adjusted to be able to play that well with other kids. Andrew is all about sharing and cooperative play. He has as much fun sharing his stuff, as he does playing with it.

Laughing and running and just having a good time. It is also awesome that Andrew talks well enough to get along with the 4 year old. Man I love my little guy.

Fathers Day…

… was amazing. Thank you to Mommy and Andrew for giving me an great day filled with picnics, hikes and terrific scenery. But this photo sums up my Fathers Day, and every other day with Andrew…

it was a 30’ drop straight down, and I told Andrew to crawl on his belly to the edge. Instead he crawled up onto my back. Safe with Daddy.

Wordless Wednesday…