Colin and Contessa dropped by for a visit on Monday night! I was waiting for Contessa’s post about the visit before publishing my own.

I was still in Mexico when we started to plan this stopover and it’s a little surreal for it to have happened! They have been on a grand tour of western Canada for a couple of weeks and I was their next stop after Winnipeg, a couple hours detour versus taking the Transcanada straight through to Calgary.

Now that I have my own place, it’s really important for me to start paying back all the hospitality I have received over the years and I’m pleased that they accepted my invitation.

I thought that they could just park on the street in front of the property so they wouldn’t have to unhook, but Colin is particular about no trees touching the RV at all and there were a few low lying wispy branches that he was concerned about, so he decided to unhook and back into my driveway. They both felt more comfortable letting the slides out that way, even though I knew they would have been fine with the slides open on the street since we don’t get traffic worth mentioning overnight. All FYI for future guests of RV Park Chez Rae!

Two RVs and two toads fit comfortably on my driveway!

Lots of room to move around even with the slides out.

I had run them two extension cords for 20A service and they hooked up to it. I spent the 2012 summer hooked up to 20A with these exact two cords and had done all the testing to check for voltage drop when running heavy appliances like the AC and there was no voltage drop worth mentioning. So the cords are well rated for this application. Colin had the necessary adapters to drop from 50A to 15A.

This might look scary, but it’s perfectly electrically sound. 🙂

I let them get set up and take care of their dogs and then we sat outside with wine so we could catch up. It was the most beautiful day we’ve had since I got here and HOT. They’d just come from endless grey and wet, so this was a real blessing.

Once everyone was relaxed and a little lubricated, we got hungry, so I went in to cook. I don’t know how many times I’ve landed somewhere exhausted and been treated to a meal, so making dinner for us was really important to me. They eat very similarly to how I do, so coming up with a menu was super easy. I wanted something for which I could do all the prep ahead of time and then cook in under 20 minutes. So on the menu was zucchini ‘pasta’, a fresh tomato sauce, sautéd garlic shrimp, grated real Parmesan cheese, and a corn tortilla each. Contessa contributed a wonderful Caesar salad and wine! Dinner came together fast and was well received. 🙂

After dinner, I did the washing up while Contessa sat at my desk and wrote a blog post (since the internet signal doesn’t go beyond my office). She was several days behind, hence why this post is so late as I promised I wouldn’t blog about their visit until she did. 🙂

This is a first, someone else sitting at my desk!

I lounged on the bed in the study with my own wine and my Chaco Canyon book while she wrote, just enjoying the end to a very full and lovely day.

We all went to bed fairly early and slept well. Like me, they appreciated the quiet and freshness of the air here.

Morning was very quick. Colin moved the motorhome onto the street and hooked up. They signed some paperwork that I had printed the night before and then I witnessed it before scanning it and emailing it. They left around 8:00. Seeing them drive off, I had a realisation and yelled out to Contessa’s waving arm, “See you in Mexico!” Don’t we have amazing lives?! 🙂