Today we made the transition from a one-bedroom condo back to our tent. It actually isn’t as difficult as you might think.
With all the tenting we’ve done on this trip the tent and inflatable mattress have become quite familiar and comfortable.
Geoff is now an expert at setting the tent up quickly and getting the mattress in place in the back of the Jeep.
We are here now until we leave for Europe in just a little over a week’s time.
We’re staying in another naturist resort. Yes, we’re very comfortable with that and, hey, it means a lot less laundry!
However, this resort was established in the late 60s and at that time it was out in the middle of nowhere. Now it’s actually surrounded by subdivisions with lots of houses.
Trying to Find the Cheapest Gas
We always try to make sure we get the best deal on gas whenever we need to fill up but this time we left it a little late and spent a little too much time trying to find the best price.
We pushed it so far this time that we almost ran out of gas! And, the gas station we did stop at had pretty high prices compared to what we had seen in the Orlando area and on the drive down to Fort Lauderdale. So, we just put $30 worth and headed back to the campground.
We aren’t planning to do much in the way of driving during this stay anyway. I expect we’ll head out for groceries in a few days and then the car will go into storage while we’re in Europe.
Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
June 30 ~Day #51
Budget to date
Spent today
Total to date
Daily average
Total
$5100
$62.24
$6068
$118.98
Miles by Road
Nautical Miles
Miles by Air
Miles by Train
Total Statute Miles
6924+00
3826
000
69
11427.4
Current Location: Green Haven Sun Club, Balgonie, Saskatchewan
Today’s Total Expenses: $62.24
Accommodation: $24.00
Food: $38.24
Mosquitos Everywhere
We knew we were in trouble when we set up the tent last night and a hungry hoard of mosquitos descended on us.
Lots & Lots of Rain Followed by Sunny Weather
That’s what happened here in Saskatchewan. There was so much rain that a portion of the Trans Canada Highway collapsed near Saskatchewan’s boarded with Alberta.
So now there is a lot of standing water and hot, sunny weather – a perfect environment for mosquitos to breed.
No Rest At All
If either of us got any sleep at all last night, I’m sure it wasn’t much.
I guess we expected to be bitten while we were setting up the tent, although the sheer number of mosquitos was totally unexpected.
What we weren’t prepared for was the second onslaught as we tried to settle down for the night.
Lurking in every corner of our tent and Jeep (don’t forget that we actually sleep in the Jeep) were hundreds, if not thousands, of bloodthirsty mosquitos.
We both got up several times through the night to try and kill as many as we could. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Many of them had already bitten us, so when we squished them they spurted blood – OUR BLOOD! There are now blood stains on the tent walls and even on the ceiling of the Jeep. I have no idea how I’m going to clean that up.
But it didn’t matter how many we killed, they just kept coming – wave after wave.
We even tried to bait them. We would each take turns just laying there and letting mosquitos land on us while the other one killed as many as possible.
Nothing worked. Nothing stopped them from biting us, buzzing in our ears or even trying to fly up our noses!
In despair, the only thing we could do was to cover ourselves completely with our sheets and blankets and try to get some fitful sleep while being dive-bombed all night. If an errant piece of flesh poked out, rest assured, a mosquito was on it.
Without a doubt, last night was the worst night we’ve had on this trip. I’d happily put up with freezing water pouring on me again or frosty nights. They’re a piece of cake compared with last night.
Taking Action
From what I saw, I do believe that Geoff suffered more bites than I did. And, that’s unusual. Any biting insects just seem to love me.
The main difference between us, though, is how our bodies react to the such bites.
Geoff says his bites are no longer itchy. I sure wish I could say the same. Mine are horribly itchy, red and welted. I really do try not to scratch. I know it will only make things worse. But, sometimes it is nearly impossible not to give in.
We both decided that we can’t possibly go through another night like that. We may even have to leave this campground.
In an effort to try to control the situation and salvage the days we had planned to spend here, we headed into Regina in search of an anti-itch cream, some insect repellant to prevent more bites and an insect spray, like RAID, to kill the ones still hiding in our tent and car.
Our first stop was Costco, who was totally sold out of both repellant and insecticide spray.
Looks like were weren’t the only ones to be experiencing this problem.
Next stop was Wal-Mart who was ALMOST sold out but we did manage to get a can of RAID and a bottle of Muskol lotion but their shelves were pretty bare.
Wish Us Luck
We have now liberally sprayed both the Jeep and the tent and plan to do so again a couple of hours before bedtime.
I have applied my anti-itch cream, which is helping a bit. We have both slathered ourselves with the Muskol lotion, yes, we even put some in our hair as the little buggers (pun intended) even bite us on the scalp. And, we will do that again before bedtime as well.
Stay or Go?
If we are able to get the situation under control and get a good night’s sleep then we will probably stay a few more days. If not, then we will have no choice but to move on to somewhere with less of a mosquito problem.
Canada Day
Finding an alternate place to stay may be a problem in itself as tomorrow is Canada Day.
Mosquito Post
I’ll bet you weren’t expecting a post all about mosquitos, were you.
I’ll let Geoff tell you tomorrow about how things go tonight.
We got in pretty late last night so everybody slept in a little.
After breakfast I decided we had better take the opportunity to clean out the car a little before we set out on the next leg of our journey. So I pulled everything out of the car and piled it in the driveway. Then it was off to Canadian Tire for an oil change.
Canadian Tire is a uniquely Canadian institution. They sell an eclectic mix of products for a mostly male clientele but with enough household items to keep the wives busy while us men can do some real shopping for the important stuff.
For you Americans think of it like a combination of Autozone, Outdoor World, Best Buy and Home Depot. Canadian Tire stores of various sizes are in pretty much in every decent sized community in Canada.
Since they also have a service department I checked the Jeep in for a much needed oil change. They do a thorough job of checking for potential problems while the car is on the hoist and the mechanic found a rusty universal axle joint on the front drive axle. We still have six thousand miles to drive so it was not something I could ignore. $250 + $35 for the oil change and we are good to go.
We have not included the $250 in our expense report total as we are trying to
I’m a little bummed that the Hollywood Chrysler Jeep in Florida that changed the oil and checked out the car before we started didn’t find the problem. They charged $150 to tell us about $3000 worth of work we didn’t need but didn’t find the rusty joint.
Sushi
It’s never a good idea to impose yourself on family without contributing something to the household budget in some way or taking our hosts out to supper. TA and S love sushi so we decided to take them out for supper to thank them for their hospitality.
We have never had sushi so this was an opportunity to try something new. This was an all you could eat Japanese food restaurant and they had other stuff besides sushi in case we didn’t like it.
I know sushi is very popular and there are people that really like it – hey Japanese kids are brought up on it. But I can’t help thinking that for a lot of people it is like the story of the emperor’s new clothes. Just because it’s trendy they say they like it but secretly they are hoping for the next trend to take over.
For what it’s worth we think sushi is awful and would likely starve to death if that is all there was to eat.
What do you think? Are you willing to admit you don’t like it?
Geoff mentioned the rain we got in the middle of the night in his post yesterday and as we are each posting every other day, then officially that ran into my day so he left further explanation up to me.
We both heard the rain start last evening and the rain we had driven through the day before gave us some cause for concern about how heavy the rain might be. Keep in mind that this was only the third time we had pitched our new tent and it was about to be baptized for the first time.
The rain started gently at first and I guess we just drifted back to sleep. Then the lightning and thunder started and that registered somewhere in my semiconscious and very sleepy mind.
And then the rain came – really – I swear the sky simply opened up and dropped what it had directly on our tent. The wind kicked in too, just to add to the excitement. But, everything seemed to be holding together okay so I just pulled the blanket over me and attempted to get back to sleep.
Well, at about 2am I was rudely awakened by a gush of ice cold water directly on my feet. Now that is NOT the way to be woken up at any time let alone 2am! I sat bolt upright and tried to determine what the problem was. Geoff was now wide awake, too, and I think that may have had something to do with my screeching about being soaking wet.
What had happened, apparently, was that the water channel on the hatch of the Jeep had gotten clogged with leaves and it couldn’t run off as it was made to. Kind of like guttering getting clogged the same way. But, it just didn’t drip. Oh, no. It waited until it couldn’t hold any more water and then poured everything it had on my feet!
So, there we both were cleaning handfuls of leaves out of the channel, throwing towels on the floor of the tent to soak up the spill. We put all the stuff we have on the trip with us on the floor of the tent each time we set up camp so that we can then sleep in the back of the car. So, all that stuff was in danger of getting drenched, too.
Fortunately, once we got the leaves cleared out the water channel began working properly and no more water got onto me, the mattress or into the tent.
We both crawled back into bed and tried to get back to sleep, curling our legs up so they didn’t touch the wet blanket and sheets. I know I laid awake for quite a while listening to the storm and for any signs that it might be abating. It did start to move off, the lightning and thunder got further away and I think I was able to get a couple more hours sleep before we got up for the day.
The campground we’re in is very close to the San Antonio river and with all the rain they’d had, it was predicted to overflow it banks. The usual camping area was down in a valley closer to the river but the owners of the campground suggested that we camp on higher ground and directed us to a good area for that. It was a good thing, too, because the San Antonio River did indeed overflow it banks and we watched throughout the day as the water continued to rise and put the entire camping area where we could have been totally underwater. We watched two picnic tables in that area disappear totally under the water, so that gives you some idea of just how deep it got. Had we camped there we most certainly would have floated away!
We had planned for Saturday to be a “do nothing” day. Just sit around the pool and recuperate from the amount of driving we had done so far. And that was a really good thing because we wouldn’t have wanted to pack the tent away wet.
Saturday actually turned out to be a beautiful day. While we were sitting around the pool an impromptu game of water volleyball broke out and they needed more team members, so Geoff and I joined in and, although we weren’t very good at it no one seemed to mind and we had a great time. We tried not to spend too much time in the sun, but obviously we weren’t that successful, as we both ended up with pretty bad sunburns. We hadn’t brought any sunscreen with us but we’ll pick some up tomorrow because we need to grab a free groceries when we get back on the road.
Because we had decided on some down time it was also a pretty inexpensive day. Just the cost of camping as we already had all the food we needed with us.
Speaking of food, just because we are trying to keep expenses down doesn’t mean that we aren’t eating well or that we’re eating junk food. For breakfast we had homefries and fried eggs. For lunch we had some leftover chicken, salad and some flatbread. Geoff already told you about the lovely dinner we had last night for his birthday. Tonight we had sausages, red beans and rice and sauteed yellow squash and zucchini and the rest of the strawberries for dessert. We’re starting to get quite adept at making nice meals with the resources we have.
It’s back on the road for us tomorrow morning heading towards Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.
I’m glad we pushed through to the west side of Houston last night so we didn’t have to deal with the morning rush hour traffic.
The Free Continental Breakfast at the Day’s Inn was the typical uninspired selection of bagels, cream cheese, sugary cereals, muffins and white toast. I always wonder why these places don’t spend another $1 a guest and make their free breakfast something spectacular.
Every so often you run across a place that does it right. A make it yourself waffle machine, boiled eggs, wheat toast, fresh (not packaged) donuts and big Costco style muffins. Once in a great while you are offered omelets or porridge.
Anyway we had our bagel and cream cheese plus the coffee I need to pry open my eyes in the morning. Vicky is one of those annoying “morning people” that wakes up wide awake and then chatters about the day ahead for the first hour or so. Even after 22 years of marriage she still doesn’t understand that until I’ve had my first coffee I just don’t hear her.
Anyhow today is my birthday so I was serenaded by several chorusses from the Beatles – When I’m 64. Which of course is why we are doing this mega trip. Do it now because if you don’t it’s a crap shoot that you will be able to next year. Not that I plan to give up any time soon but I get a little shiver any time I hear of someone my age checking out early.
The original plan had been to make it to San Antonio yesterday but that was just more driving than we wanted to do and then we would have to put the tent up in the dark which we haven’t done yet. We only had a couple of hundred miles to go so it was going to be an easy day – or so we thought.
About 50 miles outside of San Antonio we came over a small hill and faced an ominous black cloud on the horizon. Within the space of ten miles the temperature dropped from 80ºF to 60ºF and the sky opened up to dump every last drop of rain directly on us. Sure glad we had Madge (our Magellan GPS) to guide us to our destination otherwise we may not have found it.
San Antonio is one of the few places in the US we have not yet visited so the plan is to stay a couple of days before we move on. We are staying in a 25 acre camp right beside the San Antonio river. Two pools, hot tub, club house and high on Vicky’s must have list – a laundromat.
It was still raining when we arrived so we delayed putting up the tent and spent an hour in the hot tub. The sky soon cleared and we got the tent up then learned from a fellow camper that the tree above us was full of caterpillars that were searching for places to build their cocoons. We soon confirmed this by looking at the picnic table and the ones that had already claimed their spot on our tent. So with the help of another couple we picked up the tent and moved it to another spot.
Vicky made and extra special supper of filet steak, cheese and broccoli rice, and vegetable melange. She followed this with fresh whole strawberries. Pretty spectacular for being prepared on a single burner camp stove.
The sky was pretty clear when we crawled into the back of the Jeep and drifted off to sleep but the weather gods had not done with us yet. At about 2 o’clock in the morning………
But this is Vick’s blog day so you will have to wait for tomorrow’s exciting episode.
