Another Relaxing Day!

Photo is of the Rideau River.

Today started off sunny with cloudy periods and when I went out for my walk I felt a few sprinkles of rain even with the sun shining.

Not a whole lot got accomplished again today. I sat outside and read even though we had some light rain. With the awning up I didn't get rained on! Other than getting showers this morning was pretty uneventful.

We had some rain off and on and hear some thunder so generally an 'unsettled' day weatherwise.

I tried to find out how to share my own photo puzzles on jigzone with 'my buddies' and even though I mark them as shared, people still can't find them. Maybe the only way they can see them is on the Buddy Solve Page after I've done one. The only other alternative is to send out the actual link to each photo.

A nap, reading, internet surfing and not much else today!

Spending Time at Home

When I woke up it was cloudy and windy but no rain although it did rain some overnight. So my walk was under mostly cloudy skies. As the day progressed the sun came out but it was still windy. I was determined not to do much today so spent a lot of the day sitting outside in my chair reading. I had picked up some brochures on Social Security and Medicare yesterday so read them to familiarize myself with the U.S. systems.

We also realized yesterday that Gordon's Permanent Resident Card is set to expire in March 2009 which will be before we come back to Canada in the spring so he downloaded the form that he needs to complete. The Permanent Resident Cards have a five year expiry and he needs this to come back into the country or he will have to go to a Canadian Embassy and get some sort of travel document to come back into the country. Presently it's taking 81 days to process a new or replacement card so we're cutting the time rather close if we want to leave at the end of October. Just something else to foil our plans this year!

No photos today so here are more flower photos that I took at the Ornamental Gardens the other day. Other than the lilies, I'm not sure what the flowers are. Kelly, a member of the Bayfield Bunch that we met near Ajo, AZ this winter identified the flower that I posted on Wednesday as Blanket Flower so maybe she can help me out on these too!










Gordon decided to go out this afternoon to find something to photograph but I elected to stay home and veg. Yesterday was enough for me for at least one day. I had planned to go out and get some fruit today but it can wait!

Happy birthday today to my Aunt Ruth and to my sister-in-law, Carol!

Visiting my Aunt, Applying for Social Security, Lots of Rain

I was up early this morning and got things together so we could leave for Ogdensburg, NY fairly early. Gordon had made an appointment last week to go down to file for his Social Security. We pulled out at 9:30 a.m. and arrived there about 10:30 or so. We had a lot of very heavy rain on the way south. It took us a while to find the Social Security office. Miss Pinky didn't do a very good job of getting us there sending us to a building that wasn' t the right one. We finally stopped at Fedex, figuring they should know where everything in the area is and we were right! Once we found the place we drove around Ogdensburg. It's not a nice looking town but it is in a beautiful location right on the St. Lawrence River.

Here's a photo of the bridge that took us from Canada to the USA today from a park in town.

This lighthouse was west of the downtown area.

This photo is looking across the St. Lawrence River to Prescott, Ontario

While we were filling in time we stopped at Walmart (no, I didn't buy anything) and they had parking for the Amish buggies. We saw a lot of them today!


We weren't very hungry so stopped at McDonald's and Gordon had a coffee and I had a lunch wrap then it was off to the Social Security office where we got the paperwork done and found out the details. Sure are glad we got that out of the way. It was much easier going down there than trying to do it by phone.

Since we had a Verizon signal, we updated the roaming on our phones and Gordon called his family to take advantage of the in-calling feature.

It was raining when we started back across the bridge to Canada. You could hardly see!

This is a photo of the water coming off the roof at the Canadian Customs building. It looked like a waterfall!


Once we were through Customs, I called my aunt who lives in Brockville, Ontario which is only about 15 minutes from the bridge. Tomorrow is her 86th birthday and we hadn't seen her since our return to Canada due to Gordon's illness so it was a good time to stop for a visit. When we arrived, her son, Bob was there. I hadn't seen Bob in some years so we were able to do some catching up with him too.

Here's a photo of myself with my aunt. It's always so good to see her!

When we left it was again pouring rain and as we were heading east on Hwy 401 you couldn't see very well at all. It was like rain from a hurricane and coming down so fast the wipers could hardly deal with it. There was a m0torcycle ahead of us with two people on it. I felt really sorry for them. They eventually pulled off under an overpass. It didn't let up very much till we started going north on Hwy 416 towards Ottawa. Then the rain was manageable.

This is the motorcycle ahead of us and a car pulled over on the shoulder.

Here's another photo of the rain.

We arrived home about 5:30 p.m. We don't have any appointments booked for a while now so it will be nice to relax!

Ornamental Gardens, Appointments, Errands

Today was another cloudy, cool, humid day. We had appointments in the afternoon but this morning we took a trip to the Ornamental Gardens. They're very close to where we're parked so it's very convenient to go there and every time you go the flowers are different. The gardens are so beautiful, I was almost in tears! Go figure! I took lots and lots of photos. Some will get uploaded to Jigzone.com so I can use my own photos as jigsaw puzzles.

This little rabbit was enjoying munching on the green apples.


And then away he went!


Here are some of the flower gardens.



One of the lily gardens

Zinnia garden

These kids were trying to catch the goldfish in the pond.


A perfect peach rose and a bud

Soft pink and frothy looking

This looked like the tree sunflower we saw at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson this winter.

I have no idea what this flower is but I love it. It's so rich looking!

I did go for my usual walk/run this morning. That is a staple in my life now unless it's really raining or we're traveling that day.

I made a chiropractor's appointment for this afternoon. My lower back has been bad this week and he seems to have improved it greatly. We also dropped some stuff off at the Salvation Army Thrift Store, picked up some groceries and Gordon checked his blood pressure at the pharmacy. That's one thing about the antifungal drugs. They are increasing his blood pressure! After that he got his monthly bloodwork done.

We had about 50 minutes till his appointment with his dermatologist so we walked down to the pathway that runs along the river which is just at the bottom of the block where the doctor's office is located and went for a walk. On our way we saw this German Shepherd who has disc degeneration so that her rear legs don't work anymore so the owner got her fixed up and now she's a shepherd on wheels! She really seems to like her wheels.

We had a nice walk along the pathway and the rain held off. It had looked like rain all day but still hadn't started by the time of this posting.

Then back to the dermatologist's office. He's checked once yearly for skin cancer. This time he was fine but did have something on his face that required scraping and liquid nitrogen but it wasn't skin cancer.

On our way home we stopped and picked up some groceries so we're set for another couple of days.

A Quiet Day and Dinner Out

We've had rain forecast for the past two days but it hasn't rained. That's the good news but it's still humid and damp. It was sunny today when I woke up but it turned out to be another mostly cloudy humid day, again not particularly hot and there was a nice breeze while I was sitting outside reading and surfing. This is the first time I've used my computer out on our patio and it's not too bad. I can see the screen although it's a little dark even on the highest brightness setting.

After walking and breakfast, I started cleaning out kitchen cabinets. I asked my sister yesterday if she wanted my muffin tins and we were going to see them tonight, I got those out and that's what prompted me to do a little more cleaning. I got some plastic containers ready to go to the thrift shop. I haven't used most of them in a couple of years. I'll probably need them next week but they're going out anyway. The daunting task will be the pantry which I'm saving for a day when I'm really ambitious!

I've had a question about what our Titanium looks like in the front. If you look closely you see one step on each side of the bed. There are actually two steps though. You just can't see it in the photo. The bed is right in the nose and the steps get you up to it. The bottom step on each side opens up for storage. We use them for shoes. I mentioned yesterday that there were two other fifth wheels here in the park that have the same nose as the Titanium. I expect the interior is somewhat the same but haven't been able to find any really good photos on line yet to check it out.

By the way this was taken before we bought it. We've changed the bedspread and it's not nearly as neat now! I like the fact that we each have a night table with a drawer. That seems to be hard to find.

My sister and her husband picked us up at 6 p.m. and we went out for dinner at the Bella Vista Restaurant. When we went to the last gluten free sample day at Rainbow Foods I picked up a copy of the Canadian Celiac Newsletter (Ottawa) and they advertised this restaurant as having gluten free pizza and pasta so we decided to go and give it a try and Gordon was very happy with his pizza. He even had a couple of slices left to bring home.

My brother-in-law, John, said he had seen a small generator which would be perfect for us - it's 1000w and it was $119.95 plus tax of course so away we went to Canadian Tire and looked at it and wound up buying it. Now if the power goes out, I can at least have my electric blanket!

Visit, Photo Shoot, Laundry, Reading

Yesterday I was sitting outside when this fifth wheel came in. I thought, "Oh, another Titanium". But it wasn't. It's a Travelaire and there's another one here called a Kustom Koach or something like that that looks the same. I thought Titanium had the nose patented but maybe not!

Today was cloudy and cool but still humid. Our high was only about 23C (73F). Everything inside the RV feels damp. I don't like this weather much!

After my walk and breakfast we went over to my sister's to see them and pick up the mail. My sister is on vacation for two weeks and today is her first day so what was she doing? Housework! Guess it's got to get done. We talked with them for a bit then went to Commissioner's Park where the tulips were in May. The flower beds have now been replanted into other things so took some photos.





From there we stopped at a grocery store for a few things then came home. I had planned to do laundry but it was busy so waited a couple of hours reading the new Janet Evanovich book that I picked up at my sister's. I finally got the laundry in and got that little task completed and as of dinner time I'm almost finished with my book!

Work, work, work

Last night after I posted, Gordon and I went out for a drive. He wanted to see if there was a parking spot where he could get a photo of the Bank Street Bridge at Colonel By Drive at dusk. Apparently they have it lit up. We found a parking lot fairly close but it says it is for the library only but there is some street parking nearby if he's lucky! I did take a few photos when we were out but I'm lazy today so didn't get around to posting them.

Most of the day today was cloudy and humid but not really hot. After my usual morning rituals, I got some ambition and washed the rear of the RV. It was filthy. I can't reach the top of it very well but used the long-handled brush so some of it came off anyway. It looks better than it did. While I was on a roll I took most of the stuff out of the storage compartment and vacuumed it out and threw out some stuff. I have a couple of hardly used bicycle helmets that we're going to get rid of along with one of our folding bicycles.

After that was done it was time for a hot shower. Gordon suggested going out but I was too tired so my afternoon was spent on the couch with my book and a nap!