Restaurants

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I Love Mondays

It’s rare that I have anything significant waiting in my queue on a Monday morning since my clients are getting their week figured out. So when I’ve been burning the proverbial midnight oil, as I have in the last couple of weeks juggling a full work load and all the construction projects, I like that I can count on a quiet Monday to reboot my energy reserves.

I needed groceries, so I decided to spend a couple of hours in town today. I can’t wait to be in a location where such a plan could include visiting a museum, going to the movies, and other such activities. There’s really not much to do in Assiniboia, SK. I was tempted to get a manicure, though. 🙂

My first stop today was NAPA Auto Parts. I’ve been needing a new gas cap for my truck for weeks and resigned myself to the fact that those things are bloody expensive!!! The cheapest I found online was $25, plus shipping. I decided to try our local business first to see how much they’d charge for the part, if they had one. My timing was impeccable in that a gas cap to fit a 2000 Ford Ranger had come in this morning. However, it was still packed in one of 15 large boxes and I was asked if I could come back in a couple of hours. Yup. The cost was $25. At least I saved the shipping!

Next stop was Peavey Mart for a light source for the shed. I wanted one of those light bulb holders with a hook and long cord and Peavey Mart had the best price in town. Then, I had to find a light bulb to go with it. I haven’t had to buy regular light bulbs in at least six years. Wow are they expensive!

Then, it was off to The Bargain! Shop for paper towels. I’ve been here way too long to know who has the cheapest prices on such things. 🙂

From there, I parked ‘downtown’ and went to the bank to get a money order to pay for the latest gravel order since I was out of cheques. Boy have those things gotten expensive! I used to get money orders (and cheques) free with my account. Service fees keep going up, service keeps going down…

The Salvation Army is across the street from the bank, so I went over to look for pajamas and warm tops. I barely got to wear any of my summer clothes and now I’m already looking for cold weather gear. 🙁 🙁 🙁 There wasn’t much in the store today, but I did find what I wanted AND it was all 20% off!

By this point, it was lunchtime, so I headed to Trifon’s Pizza. Their pizza is very good and they have a deal for a tiny one with a salad that is just a perfect lunch portion. I like that they serve hazelnut coffee!

Groceries were next. I didn’t buy much since I’m leaving for Quebec next week for a week, and then I’ll be leaving for eight months shortly after that, so I need to get through my stores.

My final stop before returning to NAPA was the post office to mail the money order. At NAPA, the gas cap was waiting at the till for me and it was indeed the correct one. I actually contacted Ford to find out how much one of their gas caps would be and I forget the exact figure, but it was upwards of $40!

Now, I’m home and enjoying a quiet afternoon picking away at a few small jobs due tonight. I was going to do laundry, but we didn’t get any sun today and it’s spitting. We’re entering a cold snap, so it’s a good week for typing. The weekend will be nice to wrap up my Haven projects.

Now, exciting news to cap off a boring post: my friend Jody is en route and will be spending the night at Haven! Talk about a great way to end a perfect Monday!

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Summer Supply Run

I have been long overdue for a supply run because I am finding it increasingly difficult to stock my pantry in Assiniboia. Moreover, I found something on Kijiji that I really wanted, so a trip to Regina ASAP was in order to pick it up. Therefore, I burned the midnight oil all week to get today off.

Lately, I’ve been getting to sleep around midnight and getting up at six. So you can imagine my shock this morning when I woke up and the clock said it was 9:30!!! I was expected in Regina between one and two and wanted to have lunch in Moose Jaw, so I was out of bed as though someone had lit firecrackers under the sheets!

To my dismay, it was pouring rain out and I had stuff to unload from the back of my truck, a chore I had put off all week since I was so busy typing and I’d have the whole of this morning off…

I still managed to get to Assiniboia by 10:15ish and stopped at the bakery for the first time to try their coffee. It turned out to be very expensive dishwater, so I’ll stick to the gas station for coffee emergencies from now on as theirs is tasty.

The drive to Moose Jaw was uneventful until a few klicks from the city where there was construction and we had to detour. This brought me to the wrong end of town to have sushi, but the right end to push on to Regina. I knew that I wasn’t going anywhere near the Regina sushi restaurant, that it’s very expensive, and that there’s no parking, so I decided to stick to my plan and have my sushi lunch in Moose Jaw even if it meant a couple extra crossings of town.

On the way to the restaurant, I stopped in at the Town & Country Mall, where I had my nose pierced in April. I had been told to come back around this date to have the piercing tightened, so I thought I could make an appointment for after lunch or even after Regina. But my piercer was free, so she took me right away. Was I glad to get that done! My nose healed super fast and the loose piercing has been driving me batty!

Lunch at DK Sushi was yummy, as always. The all you can eat is still good value for me, but just barely, as I get less and less each time I go. I added up what I got today and came in at about $20 if I bought à la carte, versus $17 with the all you can eat, plus you get really good chocolate ice cream with that option. 🙂 I asked for a half portion since I wasn’t able to finish a whole one last time (too rich and sweet for my new taste buds).

From lunch, I immediately headed out to Regina since my ETA was now about 1:45. Thankfully, the seller was very conveniently located near the highway and just a few blocks from Cabela’s, which was having a sale I didn’t want to miss.

The items I was picking up were a Japanese-style washer/spin dryer combo and a compact 120V dryer. I’ll do posts about those once I get them out of my truck. I couldn’t talk the seller down from $300 for the set, but I knew that was a crazy good deal, so I paid up. They are the perfect compromise between my current laundry setup (Wonder Wash and a spin dryer that really needs to be returned to its rightful owner) and full size units that would need water hookups and a 220V outlet.

These my appliances (seller photos):

Next stop was Walmart, which was conveniently located next to both a Bulk Barn and Cabela’s. I stocked up on dry goods and then went to the Bulk Barn stock up on nuts. I’m afraid to admit how much I spent on nuts because I went a little well, nuts. 😀

Cabela’s was having a sale on Keen footwear, so I picked up a good pair of sandals with covered toes for the summer (if we ever get one…). I bought a model that is good for light hiking as well as wet activities. It’s been a very, very long time since I shelled out the bucks for high quality sandals and I hope these last me! I also picked up an outback-style hat for the wagon train because I was told that I can’t show up this year without a proper horse wrangler hat and cowboy boots. I’m all set! 🙂 It was raining again by the time I got out of the store, so I wore my new hat, which offered good protection against the rain.

Next on my list was Canadian Tire or Home Depot. Neither was convenient in Regina, so I headed back to Moose Jaw to its Canadian Tire. There, I got a really good deal on an electric lawn mower.

I was going to buy a reel (manual) mower, but this electric mower was much cheaper. I didn’t want a gas mower because I didn’t want to have to deal with maintaining another engine.

To my surprise, a very nice stock clerk took the mower to the till for me, waited for me to pay, pushed it to my truck, and helped me figure out how to load it in when the appliances weren’t leaving much room. I was impressed since it’s normally impossible to get service at Canadian Tire!

I also picked up weed whacker, but failed at getting a ladder and tree limb lopper, so I’ll get those in Assiniboia next week.

My following stop was M&M Meatshop to stock up on chicken breasts. I wish I had had room in the truck to pick up a small deep freeze since the chicken breasts were on sale. I took a chance on four packages fitting in the freezer, what with everything else I had in there already. Spoiler: I ran out of room and decided to pull out the ground chicken to make chicken burgers tomorrow. 🙂

Then, it was time to get groceries. I was pretty beat when I got to the checkout, but I had bought enough to get 10 cents off a litre, so I decided to get fuel before heading home. To my delight, there’s a ‘we serve’ pump at the Safeway gas bar, so I didn’t have to do it myself and my fuel was ‘just’ $1.19.

BTW, fuel was $1.39 in Regina and $1.29 in Moose Jaw and Assiniboia/Willow Bunch today. I’m always surprised that I’m not paying a ‘rural location surcharge’ for my gas out here!

It was close to seven by the time I headed home and I was getting the hunger shakes, so I decided to stop for a meal instead of just snacking on the way home. There was a Boston Pizza right at my last turn before leaving the city and I love their pulled pork sandwich, so it was an easy decision. I had it with a salad rather than fries and I only ate half the bun, so the meal felt quite reasonable and didn’t put me to sleep on the drive home!

It was still raining when I came in, so I just unloaded the food. I now need to get to bed because I have a big typing weekend ahead of me. I wasn’t supposed to have much work so I could clean the yard, but it’s going to rain both days so I might as well type.

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Small Town Life

I’ve been in Saskatchewan a year now! No, my power’s not here yet. All appendages crossed for Monday…

Last night (Friday), I went to Assiniboia for dinner and a movie. I went to the buffet for dinner and the server brought my drink order (water with lemon) even before I’d said hi. I don’t go there that often (maybe once every six to eight weeks, and usually with friends), so I’m impressed that she remembered!

I am so grateful to have a cinema in town, even if it’s just one screen and we see movies a few weeks behind everyone else. I was just taking my seat when I heard my name called. It was a young girl I met on the wagon train last year. I asked her to bring me a horse this year. 🙂

Today, I went to Willow Bunch for groceries and to drop off more donations at the thrift store. I walked into the door of the thrift store and immediately saw something I wanted, book called Creating the Prairie Xeriscape. One of my goals for Haven is for it to be very low maintenance in terms of yard work so that no one needs to take care of it if I’m not here during the growing season. This book will be a good start to my education. It’s a very nice book, with heavy full colour pages, in brand new condition, for $1, store price $35!

Upon advice from the thrift store cashier, I then headed to the senior centre, which was holding its annual trade show where folks who sell things like Pampered Chef and Watkins can put their names out there. I was hoping there would be a Tupperware rep since one of my collapsible bowls has a crack in it, for which I am not impressed.

As I worked my way around the room, one of the Willow Bunch Museum managers saw me and called me over. I’m still doing some volunteer translating for them (in fact have a project due Monday) and she got me caught up on what’s new. I get free access to the museum, so I look forward to heading there once it opens again.

I eventually found a Tupperware a rep and she told me to bring the bowl into Assiniboia the next time I’m there so she can warranty it. She had some ‘cash and carry’ items and I’ve been wanting some of the little bowls with lids like I got with the last order. She had some, marked $10. I asked for a confirmation on the price and she said that $10 was for four! Needless to say, I grabbed them!  They are the same turquoise as one of the three I got in Lethbridge, but a slightly different shape.

As I was leaving, she asked me how my Ranger and motorhome are doing. Yup, she works at the place where I had my vehicles saftied last August and remembered. Small town life!

I finished up my errands at the grocery store. It’s a tiny thing, so it’s hit (decent looking avocado) or miss (they were out of bananas) as to what I’ll find, but the prices are the same as in Assiniboia and they have the same sales (yay for $3 off my favourite type of coffee!). I was advised that I can call and ask to have things brought down from Assiniboia, like my preferred type of yoghurt. Now that I don’t need propane as often, I’ll be cutting down on my Assiniboia trips and going more to Willow Bunch, like I did last summer, so it’s nice to know that I can get even more groceries at the small store.

BTW, Assiniboia is 20-25 minutes away, while Willow Bunch is 10-15 minutes away depending on the condition of the gravel road, hence why I prefer to go to the smaller community since it saves on gas.

I like it out here. It’s not perfect but if all my wanderings taught me anything, it’s that this is as good as it could get for me in Canada. I definitely wouldn’t be improving Haven if the thought of having a future here made me uncomfortable! I look forward to next winter’s adventure even more knowing that I’ll be okay, even happy,  that the spring will bring me back to Saskatchewan.

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Parked For a Difficult Winter

Today, I moved to my winter parking spot.

My first choice would have been to have power put in and build a simple greenhouse-type structure around Miranda. Unfortunately, no one local was willing to return my calls and electricians in Moose Jaw were too pricey because of the mileage involved.

Then, I thought of asking the owner of the empty house next door if he could have power turned on for me to park in his yard. He said yes, but when we got to negotiating the deal, I found I didn’t trust him not to kick me out in the dead of winter with 50′ of snow on the ground.

So I ended up taking up Laura on her offer to park in her yard where I’d have access to two circuits, for 30A total. It would have been nice to have a full electrical panel to myself, but 30A will get me far.

I’m parked between two garages, so sheltered from the window on Miranda’s long sides. I will be skirting with styrofoam and eventually snow, as well as running a light bulb under the rig near the holding tanks, with more styrofoam around them to trap the heat. I’ll also have a bulb going in the fresh water tank compartment and be putting plastic on the windows. I may also use thick plastic across the front and the back between the two garages to further block out the wind, if necessary. Since I don’t have cats anymore ( 🙁 ) putting down rugs inside for further insulation will also be possible.

(I forgot to grab a picture of the VIEW outside my office! I’ll have to remember to grab one to share!)

The plan at this point is to see how long I can be comfortable and productive at home. I estimate I will have $150 worth of power, plus propane, which isn’t too bad and makes it worth being home as long as I’m not frozen. But if the costs skyrocket and I’m just not able to stay comfortable, I can take one of Laura’s spare rooms. I’ll watch the weather and gauge week to week what I need to do. This could be a very mild winter, like I had in Lethbridge, or a bad one. Either way, I’ve got options to ride it out comfortably, but it won’t be much fun (except for all the playing in the snow, whee!).

Laura isn’t home during the day, so I have the option of working out of her house, although that will make internet tricky. I have access to laundry and my own bathroom for showers during the day, too. Another perk is the garage as I will be able to stash Moya in it, making it easier to take her out the odd time I want to go to town.

The downside is that Laura and I underestimated how much overhang the garage has. Miranda JUST fits in the space, with my house door only opening partway (enough to be safe in case of a fire!). This is motivation to get the passenger seat out of the cab. Once that’s done, I can enter easily through the cab (that door opens fully), shut the door, and then open the door into the living room, keeping all the cold wind from blowing in.

This morning, I headed over here to test the power outlets to make sure I could plug in. Well, they were getting 120V, but the hot and neutral were reversed! Reversed polarity doesn’t damage electrical components, but can electrifya rig, with deadly consequences when the RV gets wet. Moreover, my new converter would not run in a reverse polarity situation.

Luckily, Laura was home today, so I had her give me access to the breaker box so I could shut power to the circuits and fix the problem. It was simply a matter of switching the location of the black and white wires. The outlets then tested perfectly and my converter is very happy with the setup.

I hadn’t woken up planning to move today, but the cold north wind made me want to get hooked up and running an electric heater! So one would think getting going would have taken ages. Well, it took exactly five minutes to get the inside packed. Outside was a bit more work, but only because I decided to dump and also fill up my fresh water tank before unhooking. I was parked at Laura’s within a half hour.

I thought it would be an easy in, but the alley wasn’t straight and there was a sapling blocking me. I got too close to the overhang and wasn’t straight, so I decided to get Laura to spot me so I could straighten out. Even with her, I managed to catch the overhang and scrape a little, but it was nothing too serious that a little buffing won’t erase. Laura cut the sapling down, which made my job easier. Unfortunately, there were a lot of low-hanging branches, so one of my vent cap pipes got yanked off and will need to be found and replaced.

Thankfully, the spot is perfect level, so that was one less job to do! Once I was parked, I hooked up power and propane, then did a couple of loads with the truck of stuff sitting in my yard to be stored in the garage for the winter. I still have things there to deal with, including my hose. Water will be tricky this winter and I’ll likely just haul what I need to wash dishes.

The overhead branches were scratching the roof, so I went up there with pruners and cut them all back. That done, I had to get my internet set up again and I managed to get a decent signal by installing my antenna to the very top of my ladder. It may end up on the garage roof, but so far so good on the internet front.

It is SO GOOD to be back on shore power. I am sooooo sick of boondocking with solar. It is already getting cold, but I think I have lost my tolerance and will need to build it back up a little. I don’t keep it as warm in here as I’d like, instead adding extra layers, to toughen me up a little. I also have a lot less natural insulation than I have ever had ahead of a brutal winter. What a time to have lost 41lbs! 😀 I suspect that the electric blanket will get a lot of use. It draws so little when I’m on shore power that it is the cheapest way to stay warm while working at the computer or curled up with a book or movie.

It’s going to be an interesting winter, that’s for sure. It really helps to know that I have somewhere else to go if we end up in an ice age. For some reason, this winter is less intimidating than the one I faced in Lethbridge in that I won’t have to drive when the weather is bad and my truck is winter-ready, with good snow tires and a block heater. Also, I have winter gear in the basement, but am fairly certain I’ll need to go buy some boots. I have plenty of heavy corduroy skirts, leggings, and wool blend knee-high socks, fleece tops and a couple of good coats. So the wardrobe situation isn’t dire. I’m just hoping I still have a snowsuit as I know the best way to get through a cold snowy winter is to get outside and play in it!

Of course, having friends who will keep me busy is also going to make a big difference. Laura said something about doing the finishing touch on her basement renovations…

The most important thing is that I’m not angry or upset about being here this winter. Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. Sure, it’d be nice to be warm in Mexico, but I’m in nesting mode right now and quite relieved to know that I am parked till May. I can focus on other things, take on as much work as I can find, and make plans for my next trip. I will be fine and I do promise to check in once in a while to let you know how I’m doing.

I’ll close off with a little southern Saskatchewan travel tip: don’t miss the grill-your-own steaks at the Fife Lake Hotel! We’re going there tomorrow for Caroline’s birthday. Me eating steak? Well, since coming here I’ve learned to love bison and venison! And so, I continue to grow and learn and expand my horizons, even if I’m not on the move right now. I am still very much living my dream life.

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A Very Full Day

Miranda, Neelix, and I are parked at Integra Tire in Assiniboia since Miranda’s out of province safety inspection is first thing tomorrow morning.

The day was quite a rush. I awoke to find more transcription in my in box than I had told my client I was available for. I touched base with him and he told me to do what I could. Thankfully, the job wound up being very easy, but it still ate up my morning and the latter part of the afternoon.

I headed to C&C’s at 1:00 to continue helping with the roof trusses (we’re building them ourselves). I helped yesterday, too, and got fed dinner for a second night in a row! We had roast beef and I LIKED IT!!! I’m turning into a real prairie gal! Today, I only put in about two hours.

When I got in around 3:30, I dumped, filled the fresh water holding tank, and finished squaring away the exterior.

I came in and continued to transcribe until another client requested a Skype meeting that took a half hour. Skype works great at Haven, by the way.

I wrapped up the transcription after that, finishing at just shy of 6:00. I got the inside all packed and pulled out just passed 6:00.

It was sloooooooow going on the road out, being that the pavement is in horrible shape, but I made good time once I hit highway 2.

My on board propane tank was just about empty, so I stopped at the Co-Op to fill up. I’ll get gas tomorrow when I have a better idea of my budget.

Integra was just a block up the street and the lot was empty, so I parked on a big almost level slab. There’s an outlet right there, so I plugged in to give my batteries a good soak.

By the time that was all done, it was about 7:30 and I was beyond ravenous. I hiked the few blocks to Andy’s restaurant and they were still open. There weren’t that many food choices at that hour, but everything was still fresh and I was even asked if I wanted such and such a dish or not. I was fine with what was there. I can’t believe the buffet is just $9.75!

I am incredibly stressed about the inspection and glad I held firm to my plan of spending the night here. I just know I’ll sleep better being on site.

I have to get on the roof in the morning. When I got propane, I noticed that I dragged what looks half a tree with me! I need to get some of my branches trimmed back. 🙂