May 16th- May 22nd

“Mercury Forecast I will just say a mixed bag. Warmth, sun, rain, wind, hail, and snow,”

Yep it is May and it May have all four seasons in one month. And we did.

May Long weekend is something i have liked for years. Keith & Jenny and us would go even before we had kids. We had a tent and Keith slept in first a tent then in the back of his truck. We have experienced all seasons and have had a blast every year,

This year we had 41 people sign up to come and even with the unpredictable weather we had 38 people show up plus 4 more for a day visit during our games.

I used to focus this weekend on golf but slowly it has evolved. I should correct that maybe not focused on golf at first but heavy drinking, partying and enjoying the outdoors. Then focused on golf later. Then more of a focus on family fun. The last couple of years we have had our own Olympics which has been fun. The only issue is trying to get a spot for everyone as the May Long is a high demand. It was frustrating and extremely hard to book anywhere until I discovered Alberta Parks allows a 180 day window to book a group site. So we had two years at Glennifer which was great but I found Jarvis which is equal and has power which in spring is nice if not needed. This is our second year and most likely again next. The only negative is having to put a $900 deposit down and then collecting that and the additional fees which total approximately $1650.

It was funny this year as everyone paid up very fast. Only one slow couple. I tried to send a anonymous email to Alan & MaryAnn pretending to be a collection agency with a demand letter but didn’t want to download another app. I am not sure of the timing but later discover they sent it by text. I hate text for anything so rarely even check texts and in a lot of cases trash unknown texts. Everyone else sent it via email which is the easiest and most efficient method. Having said that text with it’s one to one encryption is considered a touch safer way as it is more difficult to hack being transmitted this way. Lucky in this case as it came up with a odd number as the sender I didn’t trash it. First e transfer text I have seen. So everyone made my life easy paying up early.

We left fairly early yet when we arrived Corey & Victoria and Keith & Jenny already had their units all set up and settled in. It is a huge lot with the power poles spaced all around the permitter. Nice and warm and sunny on arrival. It was a steady flow of people of arriving and finding their spot. We had Corey and Keith splitting power and had no issues.

Jessica’s trailer has it’s quirks. It had the black and red wires reversed for the battery and has a odd hot water bypass setup. I helped them get all set up and we had a few struggles. First getting the system to pressurize. Back and forth with the bypass levers and then I discover they had the tank valve open so as soon as you turn on the pump it just pushed water to the ground. They will need to be careful in the future as you have to be SURE their is water in the HWT before turning on the gas or electric. Then the furnace wouldn’t work. It took a while to get this figured out. I originally thought a broken thermostat but then discovered their batteries had no power. You have to have 12v for the ignitor to work. Alfred thought they may have a hidden a battery disconnect as they said they had charged the batteries. Sure enough in the front storage bin they had one. It is only used if you leave your batteries on the tongue all winter. They must have turned it off at sometime. With the 12V and gas without a air gap both the hot water heater and furnace all is working. A little work but all figured out. Lesson here is everything should be checked before leaving. Is there water in the hot water heater, are the batteries charged and working, furnace lightning and working and most importantly fridge is working. I will change that, is the fridge working and is your trailer level. A few hours of running out of level wrecks a RV absorption fridge.

Everyone this year brought a lot of wood. But we were unlucky as in the evenings it rained or drizzled so we did not get a chance to burn a lot.

We changed out games day from Saturday to Sunday as the weather was supposed to be better. So people played cards, went into town or just visited most of the time.

Sunday morning was our pot luck BRUNCH. Over the years we have had some amazing potlucks with a Italian theme, or Greek, or Mexican, or Chinese etc but I thought we would try this as it is one of our favorite potlucks in Arizona. Ok I will say it. I was not impressed this year with our Brunch. The selection and options offered were under whelming. I will go back to a supper themed pot luck for the future. While I am sure everyone was full it was just not up to par. I think our Italian themed one was best.

Then off the games. We had plenty of games and just about everyone participated. We were missing Jason our round robin guru so Keith stepped up and with help from Justin and ChatGPT they were very organized in getting everyone doing the games in good order. The games were a lot of fun but my team was robbed.

The games are made for kids and adults and everyone had a blast.

No participation medals this year which is what I like. First Second Third and losers is natures way. I have to give special props to the winning team.

Saturday night we watched the Blue Jay game, and the Montreal game. Stewart and Carrie always bring their TV for us to watch ( usually the Oilers) but this year forgot it. Now here is dedication. They wanted a new one for their lake lot so went to Red Deer and bought a new 55 inch for us to watch to the games. That is amazing.

Even the two youngest thought camping was great.

Victoria took her new role ( my appointment) as a entertainment director for the group seriously. Victoria had the whole cook shake decorated and bought a trophy and medals for the games. The best was the torches for the kids to have a opening ceremony. This was awesome.

Typical when you get a lot of RV’s together inevitably there will issues. Break downs, dead batteries etc. This year we had one broken toilet, and one split tire causing issues.

It was a great group to get together. I liked the fact the entire Willard family was there. Mom would have liked that and would have enjoyed the event a few years ago herself. We also had the entire Huggett family there and the bulk of the Harry family there.

I hope everyone had a good time.

Alan & MaryAnn have gone with us numerous different spots after the long weekend. This year we choose Red Lodge Provincial Park. This is a great campground with very nice treed and separated lots. No senior discount, 15 am power with showers and dump station not working should be a reason to lower the pricing but did not happen.

Interesting river thru the campground called the Little Red River. It is a windy little river that is 220 kilometers long. It feeds into the Red River that is 2000 kms long. Pretty neat stuff. We had wonderful walks along the river, thru the trees and campground. Both Tia and Daisy loved it.

The 15 amp breaker caused us issues. We put bags over the post trying to keep water out but still the load couldn’t handle anything. We made it work but it dumb to require a turning off furnaces or fireplaces to keep from blowing the breaker.

The first night we headed to Boston Pizza to watch the Hab’s game. To see very few people supporting the only Canadian team was disappointing. More room for us. I ordered the Smoky Spaghetti and as usual it was great. Plus enough to take home for lunch the next day.

Next day a field trip into Innisfail to check out the Heritage Museum. I phoned and confirmed we could carry our dogs thru thru complex. Before going stopped at Petro’s Pizza & Steakhouse. I will say this. The portion size, the presentation and most importantly, the quality and taste was a 10 out of 10. I ordered off the seniors menu one of may favorites the Salisbury Steak and unbelievable. Everyone’s meal was huge and delicious. Alan’s Greek Pita was huge and looked great as did MaryAnn’s quesadilla.

The Museum for a small town was exceptional rivalling Heritage park or Fort Edmonton. They had 17 historical buildings full of antiques displayed extremely well. Cost was only $5 per person. Loved the tour and the displays.

One unfortunate incident was somehow a mouse got into Alan’s & Mary Ann’s motorhome. I am extremely impressed with their courage and willingness to handle it. No one likes mice but they took charge and over came any fear. We stopped when in Innisfail and picked up some snap traps and I had some bait traps we used. First night he/ she ate the poison. Second night the snap trap took him/her out. Once again extremely impressed in how they handled it.

Each night we played games. One game called Play Nine Alan was sick. It is the low score that wins and Alan after nine holes only had 9 points. Most of us were 50 to 75 points. Huge horseshoes.

The final night it was tied with each of us having the exact same number of wins. Then in crib it was MaryAnn and I against Alan & Jackie. MaryAnn and I killed them winning by a skunk which is two games as a win. Nice way to finish !

We didn’t have great weather but we had fun doing different things, going out to eat, eating excellent home made meals, walking, and visiting.

A easy drive home. We unloaded the excess food etc at the condo and I headed out to put the motorhome away. I am out by a 1/2 or so but dropped the levelers and headed back to town.

The Hab’s destroyed the Cane’s . Very nice to see and a great start.

This morning I headed to the lot to start spring cleanup. A little tentative not knowing how I could or would handle it. I started work at 10 am and worked until 4 pm. I did stop for one break and worked all day. I ended up with five huge bags full of leaves, trimmed all of the grasses, raked the grass and bushes to the leaves out and blew the entire lot to get rid of the sticky buds. I quite with one bag left to do and about a hour of leaves i left in the back portion of the lot.

I was extremely pleased with my condition. No actual surgery pain, no back pain and relatively good stamina. Very happy. Not sure of our plans but I hope to finish this weekend.

I had another talk with BMO on Friday and an email today. They are the biggest joke of a company I have run into. Once again complete denial of facts and throwing up their hands. I have to check into a banking ombudsman as I have nowhere else to go within BMO.