More photos from Darlington

The Kruger Family

This is the family we met at Darlington. Bobby and Thea Kruger and their two boys, Gus and Alex.

Coincidence and camping at Darlington

Unbelievable coincidence. There are over 300 sites at Darlington and late Friday a large trailer pulled in right next to us, with a Daddy, a Mommy and 2 teenage boys. The daddy comes over to ask if there is a water hookup, in a broad South African accent. When he heard us speak, he said "Is julle Afrikaans?" No, we are English South Africans. It turns out they are from Durban (Bluff and Montclair). I said we are from Yellowwood Park. Oh, do you know Vicky and Terry Cowan? they said. Yes, I said, they had 2 boys and one was in my son's class at pre-primary and junior school. It turned out that the mommy (Thea) was the niece  of Vicky and had been in Canada for 8 years. We had a good weekend spending time around the fire in the evenings, even though it was mighty cold. Fun weekend. If we had been on any other site in the campground, we would not have met Bobby and Thea Kruger and their two boys, Gus and Alex. We also discovered that we had the same family doctor!

All in all the weekend was a great success. We enjoyed the new motor home and all its mod cons. The slide out makes a huge difference with the space inside. The bedroom is very compact with the easiest way of getting in to the bed, crawling up from the bottom, but with the foam topper, it is very comfortable. We found a few more small problems with the MH and hopefully Owasco will fix them.

The weather was quite cold and we had forgotten the electric heater, so we had to use the gas furnace, but we were still toasty and warm. Can't wait for the next weekend away and we may just go down to New York next weekend to do some shopping at Camping World! Have wheels, will travel.

Leaving Dodge

This weekend we are going away on our first trip in the motor home. We spent the last week putting all our camping gear into the vehicle. Now we just have to add our clothes and food and we can go. The plan is leave as early as possible on Friday, so I have to get out of work PDQ.

Pictures of our trip will be posted next week....stay tuned

More pictures of the Motor Home

Here is a picture from the front passenger side. It really looks a lot bigger in the real world. The RV is built on a Ford F450 V10 chassis, so there is a lot of power. Uses a lot of gas as well and we will be using the 2x2x2 rule once we start travelling. This rule is travel no more than 200 miles a day. Get to your destination by 2 pm and always stay at least 2 days. We will probably be staying a lot longer at each stop and the longer you stay, the cheaper the daily rate. You can usually get a site for 7 nights for the price of 6.

The cockpit has very comfortable Flex-Steel seats. We have a portable GPS which will be stuck onto the dash.


Looking forward toward the cab. King size bed above the cab. Lots of storage under the dinette seats. Storage also under the sofa bed.


Looking back toward the bedroom. Small galley on the right, with double sink, gas cook top and oven, Microwave and cupboards. On the left is the double door fridge and a slide-out pantry just on the other side of the fridge.

The galley with some of the storage cupboards. There is a big corner cupboard between the sink and the cook top. Space to lose lots of stuff.


The queen sized bed has storage under it, as well as the freshwater tank. Cupboards on either side of the bed are a night table with a drawer and a shirt closet.

The dinette makes up into a bed and has lots of storage under the seats. All the windows have day-night shades, so no more stupid venetian blinds to deal with.

We have bought our Motor Home!!

On April 18th 2009 we finally bought our first Motor Home. It is a used (2006) Triple E C30G XL. It was a rental and is in excellent condition as it has been serviced and maintained by the Triple E dealership in Oshawa. They also gave us a very good trade in on our Rockwood 2502 travel trailer.

We are now in the throes of deciding what we are going to pack in the MH and what is going to be tossed. We have carried stuff around for years so the time has come to be more selective and only use those things that have been used during the last year.

We are planning on retiring in the next year to 18 months. Depending on what happens with the stock market and our investments. The hospital where I work is in the middle of a large project, so I have to commit to stay there until the project is done., which will be in about the spring or summer of 2010. After that I will be in a better position to see if we are able to hit the road.

Michael has a part time job in Bowmanville. He is scanning for a friend and gets called in when he is needed.

We are thrilled with the motor home as we feel that it will meet our needs very adequately.

Our other big news is that Suzanne and Sandy are pregnant again and the baby is due in November. Hopefully with the motor home we will be able to take some family trips and spend some quality time together. I can't wait until the grand children are old enough to come away with us.