Well 2018 didn't go as planned...

This time last year we were buying a spot in a schwanky resort in California where we spent the winter, leaving April 6th to head home to Canada.

Rancho RV Resort

The plan was simple: We had rented an RV site in Alberta for the summer from readers we had met along the way. (Still feel terrible about that whole mess, we haven't heard from them since.) We would drive the (Yellow) Jeep out to Saskatoon to see family every few weeks or so before heading south again in November to the Resort.

Easy, Simple, Sorted.

NOT.

While driving to the rented resort in Alberta, the 4X in the Jeep fell out of Neutral somehow we still don't understand and we blew the engine out of her in southern Utah! Most obvious solution: my brother. So we change routes and head to Saskatoon with her in tow. After a month of repairing her every chance he got, we thought she was fixed but she had other plans....

Jeep engine rebuild

While all of this is going on my Dad AND his wife were in and out of hospital in Ontario adding to the stress level of the entire family (they are both doing relatively okay now).

Meanwhile not knowing when we would ever get to Alberta, we decided to cancel the resort we had booked. Turned out just as well because we had to buy a new Jeep (Black), Brad's Mum went away on a couple of holidays and we house sat for her for 2 months, putting the RV in storage.

Brad's Mum's garden

Our house in Hell sold and we were ecstatic to be rid of that problem... We flew out for a few days to remove our things. Unfortunately, after we returned the deal fell through because it turned out we never had clear title of it since we purchased it in 2010.... more to come on that next year, I presume.

The house we built ourselves

Once Brad's Mum returned home, sitting around in an RV in the middle of a Saskatchewan campground in 30+C (90F) temperatures for a couple of weeks while everyone we knew was working and dealing with their own stuff was incredibly boring and expensive, so we needed something to do...

Saskatchewan campground

Bing Bang Boom before you know it we were workamping in AB for a couple of months and now here we are in BC running a 50 site campground beginning January 1st. Wish us luck.

Bow Valley Campground, Alberta

Mowhinna Creek Campground, BC

Only 7 full hookup sites, so book early (after the New Year :D )

We did manage to sell our site at the Resort because I was concerned about the all the 'Canadian' Shite Trump was spewing all summer long. Made a tidy sum on it too. At least something went our way this year.

Wow what a whirlwind. This is our life. All prayers for a better year next year are welcome :D

On the up side of this year, we were able to spend time with family, old friends and new acquaintances, in no particular order...

Brent & Lisa, California

Bob & Barb, Utah

Brad's Mum

Linda & Larry, Ontario

My good son, with his wife and my 3 Grandkids

My grandkids with my other good son 

(yes, I have only 2 sons and yes they are both the good son)

Some of the Bow Valley Crew

Brenda & Phil, Alberta

Kenny and Marla, California

Tom & Bea, British Columbia

Susan & Reuben, British Columbia

Mark, British Columbia

California friends

Ray & Deb, British Columbia

Karen & Dave, California

Big thanks to you all for helping us get through this difficult year!

Homeowner's Dinner and Jeep update

Last night the resort held a Homeowner's Dinner, catered by the resort's restaurant The 15th Hole. Brad was unable to go as he wasn't feeling very well and because David is away, I asked Karen if she would like to use his ticket since they hadn't picked up any tickets. Prime Rib dinner isn't something you just ignore after all.

Because it was raining alllllll day yesterday, Karen picked me up in her golf cart since hers has a rain cover and ours doesn't. We had a bit of difficulty finding somewhere to park, it was a little crowded over there, but finally found a spot and walked in the rain to get inside. The place was packed and it looked like we'd have trouble finding a table but we were called over to a table at the front which had 2 seats open. Met some friendly new people, so grateful for those seats.

The Main Club House was decorated very nicely and with some 260+ people there last night, quite a gathering. The dinner was served buffet style and it was really delicious.

The guy cutting the Prime Rib gave me a slice that was a whole lot too rare for me ( I prefer my meat dead, not walking), so Karen took that slice and he cut me another off the end. Baked potatoe, roasted veggies, bun and a solid dose of Horseradish later we were sitting at our table enjoying a fantastic meal with our new acquaintances.

The band began playing some old school tunes (an advantage to hanging with an older crowd) which I love. There was a fantastic cake for dessert and a table with bowls of a variation of candies that we just couldn't resist. As I was going over to ask the waitress to bring me a slice of cake for Brad - if there were any pieces left over once everyone had one, I saw Karen snag an extra one for him. No questions needed to ask I guess.

After dinner we high-tailed it out of there... large crowds are not my thing so I was grateful when I noted by Karen's body language that she was over the gathering too.

I checked in on Brad to make sure he was okay and then went across the creek to Karen's and we played 3 games of cribbage... she beat me every time. Clearly she was cheating, right?! LOL

So about the Jeep.... after receiving several comments and realizing that we will have 30-45 days to get the edits done once we get it to Canada, it seems like we've decided to keep her. Sure it will be a bit of a nuisance but we think she's worth it. I still have it listed but will likely take it down today, we seem to have settled on taking her home.

Somehow I had it in my head that they literally wouldn't allow us to take her in to Canada and we'd have to leave it at the border. In hindsight this is clearly ridiculous... one of those blonde moments my gray matter seems so fond of I guess.

We had several inquiries about the Jeep but nothing too serious and she is still with us, so....pretty sure we're gonna keep her and take our chances.

Now look what we've done

The other night we had Vickie, Bruce, Dave and Karen over to the firepit. We had been told we couldn't use it but the other night the owner was here and he said we could... don't have to tell me twice. It was fantastic to have that fire going to keep us warm outside while we visited with friends.

We've been here for about 5 weeks now and while the temperatures have been fantastic from 7am - 5pm, once that sun goes down it feels damn cold even though it's still around 17C but being in 30C temperatures all day heats your body core making 17C feel cold. So that firepit was a fantastic addition to our experience here.

So some of you will be aware that this whole RV thing was my idea and Brad was kind enough to indulge my wanderlust. He mumbles and grumbles, mostly because it's just what he does, but he likes it here too. This resort is fantastic. With 5 swimming pools, 5 whirlpools, 2 tennis courts, 6 pickleball courts, a fishing lake, 4 laundry rooms, exercise room, horseshoes and even a fishing lake. It is a luxury resort with a 14 hole golf course with the 15th hole being the name of the new restaurant opening any day. The palm trees and rolling greens of the golf course make this resort so stunning I can't even explain it, best to check out the website which has a short video showing everything.

This resort is different in that it is a condo corporation. The lots are for sale, we're told there are not many with this option and I am inclined to believe that. Apparently back in the day (20 years ago) it was a Thousand Trails that ran into financial trouble.

Anyway, we just bought a site here. Many of you will be disappointed I'm sure, but that's alright by me. The point of our RVing was to get away from Canadian winters... now we have a place to go every year and can branch out from here if we desire.

To be clear, this is not a timeshare. Noone was preaching the wonders of it to us, in fact the office didn't know we were considering it until we showed up to make an offer. There is a seperate website which has listings of what is for sale and what is for rent, should anyone be interested. You can also get a feel of what a build out could consist of on that website.

The resort has a management office which also has a rental pool so when we are not here the office can rent our site out. We have not decided whether we will or not as there are obvious income issues with this concept. We could create a U.S. corporation and do it that way with proceeds being put into lot development or some such but we have yet to figure out whether we want the hassle.

This alteration to our style means we will likely change our rig, we purchased this little one for boondocking and state park purposes, now we can go a little bigger.

We still plan to 'RV' slowly back and forth to Canada stopping here and there, ,so there are a lot of considerations that we have yet to decide on.

Given the rental rates at other places, we feel that this is a good fit for us and the offer we made was very low, so low in fact that there was a reasonable chance it would not be accepted, but the current owner has personal complications which require him to sell it fast. The site has limited improvements on it and we don't like them anyway, so they will have to go and we will be designing a new build-out and do most of the work ourselves since we are able. The purchase also includes a golf cart which is the transportation of choice around the 600 site resort. Our current landlord has just purchased new furniture for this rental site and while talking to Brad we purchased the current furniture (livingroom set) for $100 so at least we have comfortable seating for the remainder of this season.

I do not have any pictures as yet of our new site but will make a point to get some. The site is one of the larger sites in the resort, easily double the size of the rental site we are on currently. It's exciting to have this new endeavor.

Neither of us ever expected to be purchasing anything in the U.S. and while we gave a lot of consideration to it when we first arrived several weeks ago, we decided not to 'jump in' without giving this long and serious thought. We also wanted to make sure it was a sound purchase by gathering intel from others who have purchased here.

The other day we decided that since we both really like it here and it is so much less hassle than trying to find new places to go all the time, this was a great opportunity. There are many improvements in the works around this area in California which we hope will only help our bottom line in the end but the offer we made did not take any of that into account, obviously.

We are only about 2 hours from LA, less than an hour from Palm Springs, an hour to the beach in Oceanside, San Diego about 1.5 hrs and of course Mexico just the other side of San Diego. From LA you can get anywhere... a cruise, or flights. Plus the bonus that flights from Palm Springs go straight to our family city, as so many people there go to Palm Springs for a winter getaway.

We hope you will continue to follow along as our new endeavor blossoms and we get our site built the way we want it.

Finally found us a spot

Its been a busy couple of days around here so sorry I haven't written anything.

We've been trying to find a spot to stay on for the winter. I drove the entire park and wrote down all the private sites for rent since the office has run out of spots, at least within our price range. I called all of them and everything is booked.

A friend of ours (Vicky & Bruce's really) had a site reserved but to cut a long story short he has cancelled so we will get his spot which happens to be directly across the road from V&B. It is an empty site so we will have no warm fuzzies in the yard which sucks but with friends across the street who have said we could use theirs (we're there a lot anyway) hopefully it will work out okay.

We have been out of the park a couple of times but I don't have many pictures. I went to Temecula with V&B the other day to do some shopping and get their Jeep washed after our adventure on the mountain, it is now shiny and new - tires and all.

While we were doing that Brad also went in to Temecula on an errand and returned with a bunch of groceries and we have managed to actually eat at home the last couple of days. Guess we'll see how long that lasts. I'd like to try to keep our restaurant visit to once a week but not sure we can do it honestly, it helps that we are about half an hour from the main community here so maybe we can keep it up.

Our propane in the rig is very very low and they come around on Thursdays so we have been showering in one of the many facilities here in the park and Vicky let us borrow a kettle so we've been managing well. Cooking supper has been somewhat of an issue and as I don't really have any appropriate containers for either the microwave or the convection, I've had the Instant Pot out a few times and it definitely works great.

Only a high of 16C today so this morning I put a coat on to take Robbie out only to discover I didn't need one, it's still very warm (it was 12C at the time). Full cloud cover and its supposed to rain, looks like it is now as I write this actually. A solid drizzle.

Well that's that, today I'm hoping to go see a man about a Golf Cart.