April 21, 2012 by Rae

A Taxing Question

Back in Osoyoos, on an Omak Walmart run with Donna, I asked the cashier what the sales tax was in Washington state. The cashier had no idea what I was talking about.

Tonight, desperately needing a leg stretch despite the gale-force winds, I marched to the nearby c-store (c-store? I’m starting to sound American!) to get some drinking water and asked the cashier about North Dakota sales tax. She had no idea what it is.

I am confused by this. How can you work with money and not have any idea of the sales tax?!

As it turns out, ND sales tax is the same as AB sales tax, 5%.

April 21, 2012 by Rae

Dollar Tree Haul

I have to confess that I became addicted to Dollar Tree stores when I was in the US last year. I’m not one of those crazy people who buys random stuff just because it’s cheap, but they do have a lot of really good products that I actually need. In fact, I’m still going through my stash of waste bags that I bought expressly for emptying the litter box, buying enough so that I could scoop twice a day and have enough bags for a year. That investment was all of two or three dollars. 🙂

So when I saw a Dollar Tree by the Walmart in Minot, I ambled over after dinner to see if I could get the things on my list:

a) A new pair of nitrile-coated gardening gloves, which are awesome for hooking and unhooking the toad as they are warm, but water proof, and easy to slip on:

My last pair was pink and my current pair is green. Stock image because they are filthy. 🙂

b) A slightly bigger basket for the produce. I had bought a black one last year:

And think that this slightly bigger pink one fits in better with my decor (although it’s a bit too hot pink):

c) A tiny waste container for the dressing room into which I could put cotton swabs, band-aids, lysol wipes, etc. without having anything on the floor. This yellow bucket was perfect:

I also picked up a couple of food items, including honey graham crackers, that I haven’t been able to find anywhere else, and a bath sponge. The cashier said to me, “Did you find everything you were looking for? And maybe some extras?” I don’t think that he believed me that everything but the honey-mustard chips were on the list! And as for the chips, I’m addicted to mustard, okay?

April 20, 2012 by Rae

Time Change Bewilderment

I’d forgotten that Saskatchewan exists in its own space-time continuum, so I was a little confused by the time yesterday, much as I was my first day in Regina back in 2008. It turns out that I lost an hour yesterday, properly moving into the Central time zone. I couldn’t figure out why I was having such a hard time getting to sleep last night until I realised that my body thought it was 9PM, not 10PM! And what was I, the night owl, doing in bed at 10PM regardless of the time zone? Trying to keep warm. 🙂

After so many years in the Pacific time zone, I’m glad that I’m inching slowly towards Eastern time, having spent a year on Mountain time and what should amount to two weeks or so on Central time. Changing time zones quickly on a western journey is easy. It’s much harder the other way around!

April 20, 2012 by Rae

A Crabby Kind of Mood

Since I’m paying for my RV spot, I don’t feel obliged to spend money at the casino, but I decided to check it out anyway and discovered that they offer a buffet every night. I checked the list and went Mexican, meh. Chef’s, huh? Surf and Turf, pass. BBQ ribs and chicken, hmm. Snow crab and seafood, what day?! Today! So I headed over around 5:30 and paid the $20 for the buffet. This amount included soft drinks, too.

Except for the garlic shrimp and crab cakes, the deep fried seafood offerings (clam, oysters, calamari, shrimp) were pretty meh and tasted the same. The side dishes were pretty basic, but there was a really nice chicken Alfredo and the salad bar was splendid. The star of the show was the endless mountain of steamed crab legs. YUM. They were so good! I pretty much gave up on the other stuff and sucked and picked my way through as many crab legs as my belly could hold. It was a lot of work to get a meal out of those succulent morsels, but worth the effort.

I had a pretty decent slice of apple pie for dessert with a really good decaf coffee. It wasn’t the best buffet I’ve been to, but I feel it was worth the entrance price.

Next, I decided to try my hand at the penny slots, putting in $10 and cashing out at $20. So dinner cost me only $10!

April 20, 2012 by Rae

Heaven, I’m In Heaven

Today’s travels took me from Minot to Hankinson by way of Bismarck and Fargo. Google Maps had a more direct route, but my GPS kept arguing with me and I decided that an extra few kilometres weren’t a big deal. The roads were good and clear, but I had rain and grey sky all the way to Oriska.

I have to share a story about the last time I was in Fargo. It was like being in a Mr. Bean movie. I came into a mess of construction and got stuck in a roundabout with no idea which way to go. This was in the days before GPS and I didn’t have a detailed map of the city. I must have driven around that roundabout 50 times before a construction worker took pity on me, flagged me down, and told me which way to go! Today’s travels through the city were uneventful.

I am now parked at the Dakota Magic Casino and Resort, which has a full hookup RV park on the edge of its parking lot. I had expected power only to be on at this time of the year, but nope. I’m so excited that I’ll be able to take a long shower tonight. 🙂 I have tons of stuff to catch up on, so I’ve decided to stay for three, possibly four, nights. The rate is $31.50… for three nights. That’s right, FHU for just $10 a night!!! And my internet connection works here. What a nice respite this will be! Since I’ve gone through half a tank of propane in the last week, I hooked up Gary’s present since I’ll be here for a few days and save the on board propane for when I’m moving down the road.

I had planned to spend a couple of nights here and am only a couple of nights behind schedule since I left Lethbridge early, but I am going to have to start boogeying if I want to get to Virginia for May 1st. I have a couple of itineraries in mind and not being in too much of a hurry to cross the Mississippi, I am tempted to keep going due south to Kansas City and then straight east to Virginia. The slightly more direct option is to get back on I-94, skirt around Minneapolis, detour to Cedar Rapids to avoid Chicagoland, and then shoot eastwards. The first option is barely longer and more appealing since I have done most of the second option already. I am concerned about the the severity of the current tornado season in the mid-west, however. I welcome any thoughts on both options and, yes, I know that I need to get a weather radio. 🙂

Ooh, I almost forgot. I actually took pictures today!