The past couple days have been very warm here, much warmer than we were used to when we stayed up in Muskoka prior to leaving for the south west!
We have allowed Patra to get outside a bit the past couple days to enjoy the warm weather. While she was out she has cornered a couple different bugs, being the “great hunter” that she is!
Here is one…
I took the above picture, and then realized that Al from TRAVEL WITH THE BAYFIELD BUNCH)) had a very similar looking little caterpillar… so I borrowed his picture to compare!
Now it seems to me, judging from the picture below, that we are infested by the same caterpillar… black line down the back, and big black buggy looking eye at the front end! They are also pure white in colour!
Sandra left a comment on his blog, telling people not to touch them, as they can leave a rash… nice to look at, but don’t touch!
Does anyone know what kind of caterpillars these are… I cannot remember seeing them at all… maybe they are only in southern Ontario???
Not much going on here today, a bunch of cleaning and laundry went on this morning, and then went in and cut the lawn at Chris and Kristina’s house this afternoon for some exercise. By the way, “Happy Birthday” Chris!
Till tomorrow…
Many thanks to everyone who left comments about my light bulb dilemma. I took to heart the advise given by “Trailercamper”, who said it looked like the light had over heated, and might just be kind of really stuck in the socket. I decided to give it one more go, and firmly grabbed the base of the light with one hand, and firmly grab the light with the other, and twisted a bit, and pulled hard and low and behold… out it came! Turns out it is a standard type 12V bulb, the number on it is 921, and of course my good friends over at Canadian Tire stocked a whole bunch of them. I was actually able to get a GE Bulb, that offered 20% more light than the standard 921. It does! Judy wanted a bit more light inside the RV, and these new bulbs seem to fit the bill! I bought enough to change all our main use lights, as a lot of them were there from origin of the RV, and seemed dull… everything is nice and bright now. Thanks again everyone for your comments, and now wonder WD 40 sells so well, everyone uses it!
Today turned out to be a perfect day here, with lots of sun, and mid 25 deg. C. temps. Judy suggested we head out for a motorcycle ride, as it was so nice.
Had the bikes out and ready to go, all cleaned up…
Our destination today, was St. Mary’s and the Stratford area. We had never been up to St. Mary’s yet so off we went… it is only about a 40 minute drive from Woodstock.
About 1/2 the way up, we came across a small Town called Harrington. It had a nice pond and grist mill set up as a park area.
There was a small bridge/dam where we were, and it fed the river leading up to the Grist Mill, that was built in 1846!
It was a gorgeous day, nice and warm…
Here is part of the old mill…
I had to crop the heck out of this next picture of a swan on the little pond, there was 5 of them!
This picture below is of part of the Main Street in St. Mary’s… it is a real nice Town, very old with lots of century type buildings.
We stopped and had lunch at Tim Horton’s, and then toured around Town a bit, and found a nice trail by the waterfront, called the Grand Trunk Trail.
The trail runs along the old Grand Trunk Railroad. The town bought the old right of way, and built a trail along with the local Rotary Club.
This is the old railway bridge that went over the Thames River… they fund raised money, by selling each of the boards you see on the bridge! Each one has little plaque on it with the donors name!
Part of the Thames River…
More reflections in the water below…
This is looking towards the downtown area.
Yes, fall in upon us, we found lots of fall colours along the way…
We left St. Mary’s and headed east on Highway 7 to the beautiful Town of Stratford. We headed down to the waterfront area, where the famous Stratford Festival is. Stratford has always produced lots of Shakespeare old plays.. and they are very popular. People come from all over just to attend! It is also not cheap!
Lots of geese and ducks down on the waterfront here as well!
It was a short 30 minute drive back to Woodstock. Turned out to be a great afternoon… sure enjoyed the nice weather.
Our good friends David and Angela are now down in Lake Havasu City at their condo. Enjoy!
Till tomorrow…
Well, it seems like quite a few people may be needed to change a light! This past weekend we burned out a couple of our 12V lights inside our RV. As it turns out, I can’t even get the old light bulb out of the socket!
There are seven of these lights in our RV, you are looking a 1/2 of one fixture. Our RV has an inverter that converts household current supplied by the RV utility pole, into 12V power to run everything inside the RV. Air conditioners and Microwave are the only exceptions to this. So we end up using these light all the time, regardless of being “plugged in” or not!
Kind of a harmless looking little thing, isn’t it! The light does not seem to want to pull straight out of the socket, and the plastic base it is stuck in does not want to come out of it’s socket either.
Today started out cloudy, but you could tell it was going to be warm. Judy went into Woodstock to spend the morning with Kristina and Gwenny, so I thought I would jump on my motorcycle, and head over to Forest City RV in London and figure out this light problem… well seems they were stumped as well! Go figure. They did not have the bulb in stock, even thought they had a big inventory of different lights! Rick recommended I re-try pulling out the light again… any thoughts on this anyone???? I am open for suggestion!
I took the back roads over to London on the motorcycle, and really enjoyed the ride. I stopped and took the picture above with my smart phone… kind of neat… the farmer had started taking corn off the field, and somehow managed to combine right around the tree located in the middle of the field… yup fall is here!
My Daughter Kristina has a sense of humour… a day or so ago she sent me this comic strip by email. I take a lot of abuse over my fleet of airplanes… and large inventory of Krazy Glue!
Apparently the two individuals in this strip had built a model airplane in the strip before this one.
It will soon be time to get serious again about flying, as we head down south to our winter home! I can feel the nice winter sun already!
Till tomorrow…
Today was a nice easy relaxing day for us… we did some usual cleaning activities, Judy doing the inside work, while I did some outside cleaning, including the Jeep.
We headed into Woodstock to do a bit of shopping, as tomorrow is a big day for Gwenny, it will be her Baptism at the Church. Judy did up quite a bit of good looking food, as there will be a pot luck lunch following the service.
Kristina sent me this phone picture of Gwenny, who was all dressed up today, but looking a little on the nervous side… as she will get to meet a bunch of new friends and Family Members tomorrow.
This afternoon, we ended up visiting Gwenny, and decided to stay and enjoy a pizza dinner and watch the Leaf Game on TV tonight… still pre-season… (which is a good thing they way they are playing)…
Till tomorrow…
Cool and wet, I guess that is the way to start off fall… I don’t know…
Judy went into Town again, to help out Kristina with some stuff around the house, and they decided to take a trip to St. Thomas to keep the economy going down there for a bit… it sure needs it these past few days with the way the Financial Markets have been.
I had a big job to do… defrost our fridge. When you live full time in the RV, you have to do this, as they do not defrost themselves… I had not done this job since last spring, and it was beginning to look like the middle of winter inside our freezer, with little room left for food. It took about 4 hours to get it all melted down and then I had to clean it all up… all is good now!
When Judy was getting Gwenny ready to go to St. Thomas today she snapped a quick picture of her all done up in her outfit!
The rest of today I just took life easy, on the computer, doing some reading, and watched a movie… every time I looked out it was raining…
Till tomorrow…
Yes, hard to believe, summer if officially over for another year! Tomorrow is the first day of fall, and the colours are starting to change here in Southern Ontario.
Not much on the go today… Judy went into Woodstock to help Kristina organize a bunch of stuff around the home, and I did some RV work and stuff like that!
This afternoon I headed into Town to see what they were up to and was told I needed to “Babysit” Gwenny while they worked on sorting a whole bunch of cloths for her.
NO PROBLEM!
I don’t understand what is so hard about babysitting… Gwenny and I were on the same wave length as we put in a hard afternoon!
When Gwenny and I woke up, we got out a brand new toy that Mom bought for her… she loves it, as it plays lots of kid’s type music, and lots of flashing light on it!
Rain is coming tomorrow which is not real great, but that is the way it goes…
Till tomorrow…
Turned into a cooler, wet kind of dreary type day… lots of rain this afternoon.
Rick from Rick & Paulette's RV Travels posted a good blog yesterday I believe, with follow up today, on RV and 5th Wheels tire problems… blow outs in particular. This has always been a bit of a bug-a-boo with RVer’s in general. Since Judy and I have started to travel in our RV, on travel days, I always test tire pressure on each tire before we roll, including the Jeep or Motorcycle Trailer, depending on what we are towing. RV tires run at 95lbs. of cold tire pressure. If you have a low tire pressure in one of these, you run the risk of overheating the tires badly. During the day, while travelling, I always check the tires to ensure they still look inflated, and feel them to get a feeling if they have overheated or not.
On Rick’s blog, he received a comment from Chuck of goldenshoe RV trip , who noted that he had bought from Radio Shack a Temperature Sensing Device. I though hmmmmmm. Anyways, Rick decided to go down to Canadian Tire in B.C. and see what they had. He bought one for $39.95 and tried it out and found it worked great. So, it was off to Canadian Tire today for me here in Woodstock to see what they had. Turns out, the same Temperature Sensing Device at the same price as in B.C. Perfect.
Although it is branded a “Mastercraft” Product, don’t be fooled, it is made in China…
So check out below on how this gun works. It uses a laser light so you can see what surface you are pointing at. Simply point and pull the trigger. You see in the picture below, the laser light is set on the side of the cabinet, and the temperature reading is 71 Deg. F.
Now you point the laser light on the gun at the fresh cup of Tim Horton’s finest, and as you can see, the outside temperature of the cup is 138 Deg. F. I went around and tested all kinds of things this morning, and all readings appeared very accurate! With this devise, I will be able to check each tire, including the hard to get at, back inside two tires on our RV, and determine if anyone is overheating. Also, it will be an easy check to see if we have an overheating wheel bearing or not! Great little device. So, thanks to Rick and Chuck, maybe our travels will be safer this winter! Thanks Guys!
So you might wonder, where did he get that real nice cup of Tim Horton’s coffee??? Easy, I borrowed Gwenny’s Tim Horton card!
Well, actually it was a nice birthday gift from Gwenny’s Mom and Dad… sure enjoyed the coffee.
You might also note, the blog is back after a two day absence… I was up in Bracebridge to have a colonoscopy completed. Good news was my test was perfect, with no problems and don’t have to go back for 5 years! Yes, it is important to have the test done!
A big RVlifeonwheels welcome to Jeff Simmons, our most recent blog follower!
Till tomorrow…
We were smoking down the 401 towards Toronto by 10:00 this morning, which turned into a great day… lots of sun, and warm temperatures.
We stopped once we hit Orillia, and checked in to see Judy’s Brother Gary, and his Wife Shelly. They had a new member of the Family who we got to meet for the first time… Maggie.
Little Maggie is less than a year old, and is full of energy, that is for sure!
Below, Maggie got a little tired of all the adult talk going on, so went off to never never land… zzzzzz
Stopped in to talk to my Mom as well for a hour or so, and then headed up to Bracebridge where we hooked up with David and Angela and a great big file full of all our mail!
Till tomorrow…
Got down to about 7 or 8 degrees C. last night, and was certainly starting to feel like winter… although up in Gravenhurst area it got below 0! So we should not feel too bad down here in our banana belt!
It finally started to warm up around 10:30 this morning and got right up there around 24 deg. C. Not bad!
Check out Gwenny’s outfit for today… she got those nice blue boots from Mommy’s Friend/Boss who lives in Los Angeles area of California.
This morning Kristina invited us to join her and Gwenny over at their Church, as they were having a neighbour hood BBQ. Why not! Free food!
They had a great set up, with lots of tables that soon filled up with hungry people!
Who ever was in charge of the BBQ did an amazing job, as the hamburger I had was second to none! That is the Pastor of the Church below, “Bob” who is wearing the Ottawa Senator Jersey…(hisss…)
…and this is where that Ottawa Senator’s Jersey ended up after a few hundred $$$$ was raised for overseas mission work! Yup, Pastor Bob got wet!
A good part of the afternoon was spent shopping in downtown Woodstock… yes, Christmas is coming I am told…
We dropped Kristina and Gwenny off, and decided a bit of fresh air was needed so we hiked a nice little 1.5 Klick trial I found off the west end of Dundas Street in Woodstock. We were so energetic, we did it twice!
It had a nice little bridge to get over the creek.
Lots of greenery, that is for sure!
Nice gravel trail to follow along the creek…
The low lying areas had nice cement walkways to follow…
On the upper part of the trail, we found this huge foundation??? Not sure what it was… but it is very old…
Just turned out to be a great day for a hike, and it was soon time to head for the hills… when we got home this is what we were looking at… Patra was getting her afternoon sun at the RV… hence her name… “the dash cat”!
Tomorrow is supposed to be another great day… we have to head up to Bracebridge, as I have medical test scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of next week… you know the one… where this Dr. Guy has this real nice looking scope thingy… and he puts it where the “sun don’t shine”!
Till tomorrow…
