We need food! Today it’s Costco & the local grocery store “La Comer” The walk there is about 15 minutes
First breakfast; a ceasar salad for me and some type if chicken roll for Allan. The salad is huge with massive chunks of chicken. Couldn’t eat it all, also couldn’t get the container top back on, believe me we tried, so had to toss the balance.
Our haul: Time to Uber back
Stuff put away it’s happy hour on the roof
At La Comer we bought store freshly made taco shells as well as a tray with taco stuffing-chicken, peppers, onions. WOW so delicious!! Chef Allan outdid himself 🙂
Tomorrow after calling Westjet, to try yet again to get our refund for the Lethbridge to Calgary & Calgary to PV legs of our trip, (It’s so crazy trying to get through the them, we discovered they have a “Request a Call Back from WestJet” form) the plan is to go to the Malecón Boardwalk. Looking forward to that!
Our very first AirBnb! Trying to settle in but.. our coffee stopped making coffee at half a pot. We thought the pot was toast. The microwave cuts in and out, plug in my computer = not charging!
It’s the electric plugs!
Juan to the rescue…
It’s taking awhile to repair, Allan heads off to bring back street tacos for breakfast. For months I’ve been hearing “dinner when we arrive will be street tacos and cerveza.” Didn’t work out on arrival night, did the next day. Delicious and only a 2 minute walk from the condo.
Plugs done, now to tackle the ac
Our fancy water dispenser, refill 40 pesos ($3.14 Cdn)
The repairs completed we head up to the terrace. The view from the roof top
Then off for a little walk in the area.
Wanna make a call?
Note to self! Drivers have the right of way!! Don’t Cross Streets Without Looking: The streets in Puerto Vallarta tend to be very busy, and like anywhere in the world, you need to be cautious crossing them. Pedestrians don’t always have the right of way, and accidents happen. Look both ways before you cross the road, every time. This is even true in crosswalks; cross at your own risk.
The nearby beach, we will walk it another day
Enjoying my first margarita in 26 C temp
Meanwhile somewhere in Canada, hot tub time
The turtles are happy in this merky water
Back at the condo, we for the first time, notice the coffin across the court. What the heck?!?We end the day on the roof top, when we were about to leave the fire works begin
Begins: Friday the 12th @ 330am cab pick up for the drive to Calgary’s airport for the 1035a Westjet flight departure.
Ends: Monday the 15th @ 849pm when we settled in our PV condo for our first drink
In between: I documented Friday’s delays and cancellation in my previous post so onwards we go.
Westjet’s famous text, after “your flight has besen delayed” or “your flight has been cancelled” is “you will receive an email within the hour with further instructions”. That didn’t happen so we called again and again before them accepting the call to be placed on hold. The initial recording was something like the cue is too long, please call again later. We thought we hit pay dirt when they put us on hold. This call started about 6pm, we were on hold for 7ish hours before they pick up. The flight to get to PV takes less time!
We are in heaven. Online there were no seats available but the agent got us 2. Scheduled to depart on the 13th at 1035a. We arrive @ YYC 3h early as required, actually earlier; they change the gate 3 times. Then the departure time changed to 1205p; then 1305p, then WHAM cancelled! Next flight tomorrow at 745a. Do we believe it, HELL NO! We’ve received so many of these and have basically lived our lives at the airport. 4 days in the airport feels like forever.
We’ve had enough of Westjet and book our first ever Flair flight. With our luck Westjet will fly tomorrow and Flair won’t!
Westjet didn’t fly
01/14: Just another night in Calgary! We are so depleted we opt to stay at the Delta attached to the airport. This way we can dillydally a bit more in the morning. Besides who really believes we’re going anywhere? Our view from the room
01/15: 407am While happily sleeping a text comes in from Flair saying “We are sorry to inform you that your flight has been delayed due to late arrival of the crew on the previous flight. New departure time 11.40” Next text the same with a new departure of 12.25, next up 1330
Well golly gee we are LOADING! Not all that excited cause yesterday we spent about 3 hours on the runway in a Westjet.
1321:We have take off!!
We made it and cleared customs in record time!
7:43p: Arrived at the condo in the pitch dark. Where the heck is the front door? Fortunately, existing residents arrived almost the same time and showed us the ropes 🙂
We take our bags in and head to the nearby Oxxo (Oxxo is a Mexican chain of convenience stores and gas stations, with over 21,000 store) to get “cerveza y vino tinto”
Back at the condo with our goodies, should have paid closer attention on how to open the dang door.
A quick look back: October 01, 2023 was an exciting day. It was the day we solidified our Winter getaway in Puerta Vallarta!
Why not the Southern States in Bailey? Cause there is an 180 day rule. Longer our medical kicks out and the IRS comes a calling. We’re hoping to do races this summer so need our available days for that.
Back to now: We leave on January 12 with Westjet. Countdown began when we got home from Kyle & Megan’s.
Whoa! Let’s learn how to pack again! Didn’t have to while in Bailey we had it all.
Got it done, yes me early, yes Allan last minute. All set to fly out on the 12th, we’ll be flying out of Lethbridge as we did to get to Victoria, to Calgary then yahoo off to PV.
Late on the 11tth Thursday, we get an email from Westjet… sorry but your flight on Friday the 12th to Calgary has been cancelled due to mechanical issues.
They didn’t site weather conditions even thoughThey changed our Lethbridge (mechical issues) to Calgary flight to the 17th at 7:20pm, flying out to PV on the 18th at 8am. What do we do for those 12 hours but more importantly the 17th is 5 days into our BnB we want to be there not just pay for it.
We’re smart cookies however, let’s beat this nonsense and cab it to Calgary bypassing the Lethbridge leg which appears to be the issue. Allan was on the phone, mostly on hold, for 2h40m but got us changed to leave from Calgary. Cab pick up at 4am Jan 13th Saturday to ensure we are in Calgary for the 1035a take off. (Cab $385 tip included).
We arrive at 610a plenty of time for breakfast and to get some steps. There’s our flight WS2246
Breakfast at Chili’s, includes Rickards Red & a Ceasar yum
There’s a plane close to our gate but no, not ours.
Then the fun begins… gate change to D81, within 15 minutes gate change to D78, then take off time changes to 1105. Not really concerned because the same thing happened to yesterday’s flight that did take off. What did concern Allan more than me was that the flight now says it’s CLOSED. Asked the attendant and she said it meant the previous flight left. Makes no sense. This is Allan trying to figure it out
Here they are de-icing other planes Seems like a good thing
Next change take off delayed to 1205
Followed by further delayed take off to 105
Followed by at 1233
The Flair Airline flight to PV did take off. What gives Westjet??? When the rep giving the “cancelled” speech was asked how Flair was able to take off her reply was “I’m not going to address that” The gate next to us was supposed to be flying to Mazatlan. They got cancelled at the same time. Imagine how happy that area was.
Here we are collecting our bags.. to go where….
To add insult to injury the recording saying what carousel to pick up our luggage says… Those arriving from Puerta Vallarta your baggage is on carousel one. Welcome to Calgary!
Room are hard to get as there are many flight cancellations, Allan finds us one at the Comfort Inn.
Glad we have someone watching our house We finally got to be on hold with Westjet again, initally calls just said they have too many callers so try again. Guess that means we should be privileged for being over an hour to try to get another flight.
Wonder what tomorrow will bring but suspect it will be at least another night in Calgary!
Slide out to make it easier to empty Bailey for storage because…
This is the first year we’ve had to winterize. Bailey has either been stored down south or we were in her. I’m a little sad but anxious to experience what Winter will bring.
Even our bunny is sad for us
We brought Bailey home…
to have a pee!
Just emptying her fresh water tank
At Back Country RV to be winterized. We left Bob at the storage place to hold our spot as it’s first come, first service and we didn’t want to lose our “snug” spot.
Our bus ride downtown to explore for the day waiting for Bailey to be done.
. Wish the weather was nicer.
The day passed quicker than we thought it would, we had a nice brunch, walked around a bit freezing then it was time to bus back to get Bailey. Here she is stored for the season.
It’s a little mushy 🙁
Even the weather showed it’s displeasure in storing Bailey. It went from no fog to this by the time we got home. It should look like the photo on the right,
Oct 13th: 2nd batch of firewood delivery day! Good for another 3 months-ish
First matter of business is protecting Allan’s cow seeds! They made little progress this summer but Irma did warn it could take years. Hopefully putting them in an incubator for the winter will speed things up.
These shrubs are encroaching on our hot tub so they had to go. We’ll hopefully find plants next year that just grow up and not over. Any ideas??
Tonight’s show… not sure what to expect is Vampire Circus. Not sure what to expect because I didn’t check out their website first, wanting to be surprised.
To quote Allan “Watching The Vampire Circus. Not your regular circus, not your regular vampires. A very different show for sure.”
The drive to Waterton is 1h39m from home; first stop pick up Bailey at Centerline (where Bailey’s stored) it’s then a 1h26m drive. We’re “sin” Bob (now parked in Bailey’s spot) thinking most places we could walk to. We’re about 5m from Centerline when I ask “did I lock Bob?” Can’t remember, it’s going to be an axious 3 days. Allan says “lets turn around”. Back we go, the lock range is good enough that I push the lock button driving by. Now my OCD can rest.
Off we go for real this time…
We get 20ish minutes down the road when our “Ring” notifies us of our doorbell ringing. We are not expecting anything from Amazon. Check the camera and find…
This is the 2 sets of Bailey replacement blinds. They were over 1k US ($1025. to be precise each are double sun & whiteout blind). MCD, the blind folks, did NOT let us know they shipped, there wasn’t any duty & taxes to alert us either. This taught us we should have grabbed, Matt the neighbours contact number.
Do we go back, it’s a lot of money sitting in the box besides the fact, we need the blinds. They would not be of use to anyone else but doubt they’d return them when they figured it out.
Back we go!
Mission successful! A little beat up but hopefully no damage
OMG we made it!!
All set up! Isn’t Bailey beautiful?! Scenery is spectacular as well 🙂
The good:
The bad
August 30, 2017, after an intense lightning and thunder storm, fire management staff in Waterton Lakes National Park detected a wildfire on Kenow Mountain, about 10 kilometres from the park boundary in British Columbia. Exceptionally hot weather, strong winds and extremely dry conditions fuelled the extreme behaviour of the Kenow Wildfire over the next week. An evacuation alert for Waterton Lakes was issued on September 5, followed by an evacuation order on September 8.
In the end, the wildfire burned approximately 35,000 hectares, including 19,303 hectares in Waterton Lakes National Park. Over 80% of the hiking trail network was affected. In addition, the Visitor Centre, Crandell Mountain Campground, many buildings at Canyon Youth Camp, Alpine Stables, staff housing and associated infrastructure such as water and electrical systems were destroyed.
The mountain now. Notice all the still standing burnt trees…
Prince of Wales Hotel survived, then and the view now from Bailey
Our first night visitors, there were a total of 6 who could care less who was around
Day 2: A little chilly, high only made it to 12, windy, capping off with some rain. Still love being here.
I did take more photos while walking today but they mostly look like day 1s. LOL
Let’s try to install the blinds!! Always a fun time doing this type of stuff. After a few failed attempts.
Tada!! Allan ROCKS!!!
OK gotta do a redo of our tonight visitors. The same 6 no doubt 🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌
Ok so we’re a little facinated with deer. Allan sneaking up on them to take these photos.
Keep your eye on the little guy with the big ears, seems to be facinated with Allan in all the photos
It’s way rainy and windy so Allan made smash burgers on the indoor grill. Delicious my new favourite way to eat burgers 🍔
Day 3: Made it out this morning for a wander, before the rain began, again!
Since Allan’s toe injury we’ve been trying to not walk on uneven surfaces and not over do daily steps
Cameron Falls is very, well, fall-y…
We then walked to and around town. The marine is very quiet this time of year. The different colour water in the lake is cool. Returning more deer!
Bums, bums! We later saw 5 of the 6 but didn’t have our cells to take photos, wonder where the 6th one was hanging out.
Go home day: It’s been windy & rainy most of the time we’ve been here. Crazy wind overnight, Bailey be a rocking (Allan be a sleeping). The deer came to say good bye (Allan took these from the driver’s side window)…
This little guy still seems facinated with Allan, he’s talking to him through the windowGood bye mountains, till next time
Sadly, this was our last trip of the season. Most of the campgrounds around close October 02nd. We had hoped to find somewhere open until after Thanksgiving but so far not luck, if we do find a spot we’ll head out – if not its time to winterize Bailey
For those wondering why we aren’t heading South in Bailey it’s because we need our 182 permitted stay in the US days during the summer when we hope to follow IndyCar racing. That is the reason we bought Bailey to follow the races. Our first race would have been St. Pete’s, we were there in March 2019 which is when the world closed down.
Us, like the rest of the world had to switch gears. Our change was to sell our properties in Ontario and move to BC exploring our country. Being self contained made it easy, we also used InstaCart a great deal. I can’t imagine being in one place during Covid, we did make the best of it for us! Not sure why this is making me emotional but time to sign off…… till next adventure just keep smiling, laughing and be kind!
But first a cool photo Allan took while we were on a walk in the neighbourhoodThe eagles have landed, 3 of them!
Our day begins with our first Lethbridge Transit ride
Here we are!!Whoop Up Days is Lethbridge’s equalvent to Toronto’s CNE or Vancouver’s PNE. The highlight of Whoop Up is the rodeo. That’s tonight but first, over priced (this wasn’t that bad) Mexican food truck food and a bevvy The midway, busy now but it’s going to get a lot crazier! When the rodeo was over you could barely walk there were so many folks.
Let the rodeo begin!
Ladies Barrel Racing
Whoops the barrels should be left standing
The winner +
Next bareback. No idea how these guys do this
The highlight of the rodeo: Warriors Relay Races. It’s crazy how they ride bareback, do a lap, then run to jump onto another horse. One of the riders missed his horse, it ran 2 laps without a rider. Never saw anything like this before but hope to again
Not amazing coverage but still fun to watch. Click “watch” to watch 🙂
After the rodeo, Allan had his very first corn dog! I had mustard on mine, as you should, Allan thought his with ketchup was better. Never!! kind of like pineapple on pizza. Corn dog ketchup = 😝
Sitting outside having our morning coffee, Allan says “It’s a thing!”. I thought he was referring to a bug on the window behind me, nope! “It’s a hot air balloon!!” WHAT!!
First sighting at 8:23am, It looked like they were having difficulties when in fact they were preparing to land.
And land they did with a pretty big thump and the people basket leaned over. We only saw 2 in the basket, when it landed about 10 people who were huddled down for the landing stood up. Within secords the pick up vehicle was on the sceneTouch down 8:25: The basket then up righted itself and people started to disembark
Start to deflate 8:28: Next they deflate the balloon. We chuckled when we heard the pilot say “We don’t expect you to help deflate but it will be quicker and we’ll be on our way faster”
8:57 Deflated 9:09 Loaded up 9:11 Gone! How did they know to land in this field?? Mystery is what it is!!
I googled Kiss the Sky and learned that we too could get a ride, starting at $395. Entire process takes about 4 hours with only 1 in the sky. What time does that mean they started on this ride??
We’re going for mini get-away to Moose Jaw. We were there during the pandemic, September 2020, of course everything was closed. Now’s our chance to visit Al Capone’s tunnels. The drive is 5-3/4h which will do wonders for Bailey’s batteries. Trip starts off @Vanee Truck Wash for a Bailey
We did a pretty good job!
Sadly it didn’t last for long. This is likely the most bugs we stopped from bugging others. Windshield is covered, looks better in the photo than what it is. Moose Jaw, are you ready for us??
Peanut Hills is 😊😊😊
Allan doing a good job!
Peanut Hills Campground Site 32; notice what’s behind the park? This plant was not operational when we were here last. We were surprised to see the train arrive.
Allan built us a delicious Korean BBQ taco dinner 😋There he goes wrapping
Fire time with our after dinner wine. Love that Allan delivers!! Good night west sunset! Aug 16th: Good morning east sunrise!
Tour the tunnels day, we set off tickets in hand. We selected the “Chicago Connection” tour… “You’re bootleggers in 1929. You come to Moose Jaw to buy booze from the Capone organization. You’ve got to learn the ropes and stay out of the way of the local police chief. You start out at Miss Fanny’s club and end up in a tunnel, somewhere underground. And the only one who knows the way out is Gus, one of Capone’s goons”
We met at the Tunnels location but the tour begins at the Hive Café across the street. They walked us over. It was very entertaining! Educational? Not sure but certain fun. The tunnels take you from the Hive side of Main St to the Tunnel building. It was much fun with the tour guides being in character. Downside! We were not offered a bootlegged shot!
Are the tunnels fact or fiction? Google search supports both theories. I like this one “The Moose Jaw tunnels are known to have been used by one of the most notorious criminals of the time, Al Capone. These tunnels in Moose Jaw are an important part of Canadian past.” If they are an important part… must be true!
More proof… “With the Soo line railway going directly from Moose Jaw to Chicago, there was quite the trade in bootlegged liquor to be managed by the gangsters. The breadth of bootlegging activity happening in Moose Jaw earned the city the moniker of “Little Chicago,” which was not a label that all the citizens were proud of”
I’m certain Al, AKA Scarface did not stay here 🙂
We had recommendations to eat at Nits Thai Restaurant, we were anxious to try but it smelt so bad I just couldn’t eat there.
We ended up at CJ’s Cornerstone Bar & Grill. Bonus they had RR on tap
MJ fuel price $1.636; Lethbridge $1.429It was fairly windy today. gusts up to 70km, fortunately the wind died down enough to have a fire.A great end to the day 🙂
Aug 17th: Visit Mac the Moose Day…
It’s a 19 minute walk, off we go. Kyle introduced us to these tasty adult freezies. Sure are refreshing while we walk it’s already 32c or 89f Spot them??
“Mac the Moose is a steel and concrete sculpture of a moose in Moose Jaw. It is claimed to be the world’s largest moose at 10.36 metres (34.0 ft) tall and a weight of approximately 10 long tons (10,000 kg)”
Busted!!
The Snowbirds, officially known as 431 Air Demonstration Squadron are the military aerobatics flight demonstration team of the Royal Canadian Air Force. The team is based at 15 Wing Moose Jaw near Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
So cute
He’s so bullish!
Back at camp my fire god jumps into action!
Aug 18th: Heading back home today. It been an interesting few days; Bailey is still my happy place. Love tthe travel and sites.
It is a good day to leave as there is both a heat warning and poor air quality in effect. May have the same in Lethbridge.
This is pretty much what the entire SK drive looks like.
Back in AB, air quality isn’t any better. The BC & NWT fires are far reaching.
Bailey is sad to be back in storage, hopefully our next outing is coming soon!
We too are happy to be here 🙂
There are pelicans galore! 
Stuff put away it’s happy hour on the roof
It’s the electric plugs!
Plugs done, now to tackle the ac
The turtles are happy in this merky water
Westjet didn’t fly
W
Seems like a good thing
to have a pee! 
Wish the weather was nicer.
+
Peanut Hills is 😊😊😊
Good night west sunset! 
A great end to the day 🙂
He’s so bullish!
