In between a car show and our next outing, we did a few things such as booked a 9 and dine golf night with Jill’s dad and stepmom at elbow springs golf course and did a big PM task to replace the main bearings and rod bearings on Ruby! Completely opposite things but both equally as important for sure! When we stay at Jill’s dads sometimes in the winter months, we look out onto the living room window to the golf course full of snow, so it was time that we were able to enjoy the course in the summer months!

Todd had been planning this big PM task on Ruby for quite a while. Our lifelong friend Max is a heavy-duty red seal mechanic; Todd has known him since he was a baby and says it was an honor to work with him under the bus! They were doing all the hard work outside, in the pouring rain and almost winter cold conditions while the ladies were drinking mimosa’s and playing games on the inside! Sorry boys…..Here are a few pics of that: Golf and such (rumble.com)

Todd’s oldest son Devon, lives up in Cold Lake with his partner Keo, and we sorta semi spontaneously decided to head up there for a long weekend, before Devon’s work commitments took over his life for the summer. The following weekend we had tickets to our favourite music fest which was halfway between home and Cold Lake. So we opted to drive Ruby up, towing our Trixie the Tracker behind. We landed at the Ryley, AB RV campground and paid for Ruby to stay for a week; we called it Ruby’s daycare….then took Trixie and Gramma another 3 hours up to Cold Lake for 3 days! Had a great time with the fam, touring all the great things to do in Cold Lake for the summer, which included:

• Moose Lake walk on the beach
• Trestle bridge walk
• Cold Lake Marina boardwalk
• drinks on the patio at the brewery
• spent the morning at the museum
• bike riding to the bike park
• dinner at Mamacita’s

Todd and I were very surprised at the number of lakes in and around the area! We didn’t bring our lake boat with us, and said next time we come up, we have to bring the boat.  A quick 3-day visit was over and we dropped G-ma in Edmonton so she could visit her cousin and we drove back to Ryley RV park with a car full of groceries. I spent a couple days working and Todd fixed the brakes and CV joint on the tracker – although we did manage to lock the keys in the car and had to call AMA to help! Lucky for us, they had a local person to the campground in < 30 mins! We did a bit of touring around in the evenings to check out the area. We found alot of RV & golf courses and of course we drove to Vegreville to see the big egg! Although the RV park was located by the ball diamonds, we never saw another camper their until the day we left. Ryley is certainly not a “mecca”; we rode our bikes a few times around the town and done in less than 10 minutes each day! We watched train after train after train go by – how is it possible for so many on the same line in an hours time period is crazy! The town is also famous for its landfills; Todd nick-named it the “two-dump town”!. So although not a lot to do, it was 10 minutes from the music fest location and it was a cheap weeks stay ($105 for 7 days); That price is tough to beat!

We departed for our long trip up (15 km) the highway to our favourite music festival that only happens every two years: Wild Oats and Notes music festival. I’m sure I have previous blogpost on it, but for anyone who doesn’t go back to the archives to read, I can give you the highlights here about the festival:

• its on private land
• its very reasonably priced to attend the concert AND camp
• there are limited tickets sold so there is never more than 1500 people at the main event
• it’s a fund raiser for the local schools music program
• it supports a variety of musically talented people from newbies to well established bands
• you never know what kind of music you will hear and are ALWAYS pleasantly surprised by people’s talent
• you bring a lawn chair and your own trolley/cart with snacks and drinks to the stage
• for anyone that likes to dance, you can start doing it anytime you want!
• Its just super fun!

We arrived the day before the festivities and this year we decided to camp at the front entrance area instead of the back 40. Last time we got the buses stuck in mud in the back after a crazy rainstorm. When we arrived this year, the owner and the volunteers all told us we were not going to the back this time, we had to stay up front! No problem! As we were settling in, Todd saw a heavy-duty tow truck pulling a 1980’s Vanguard motorhome into the campground and drop it off. We thought that was crazy, and the next day, as I was working, he walked over to the motorhome to see if he could help them diagnose the problem. Turns out it was the fuel pump AND they had an extra one on board. So Todd brought his tools over and spent the morning removing the old and installing the new one while making new friends with Sheldon, Joe and Marcy! We went back for a visit later that afternoon and they had a campfire and guitar, taking our favourite requests.

This music festival is unlike any we’ve ever been too. Its so relaxed and chill and just a mix of good people. The music starts at 1 pm and ends at midnight – there is always someone on stage. And there is always campers jamming their guitars with new friends in the campground. We had most of our regular travel crew with us for the weekend and we also had a handful of few newbies that fully agreed they would be back next time!

Here is a few snippets of the amazing talent we saw (I screwed up on my video editing on this one): Music samples from Oats and Notes (rumble.com)

And a few pics of how much fun we had: Oats and Notes pics (rumble.com)

On our way back south, we pitstopped in Leduc for a very short overnight; we tried to park at the rec centre to go for a swim, only to find out that Canada Day celebrations were being setup. They indicated to us to park in overflow while the festivities were getting started. It was full of food trucks, live music, face painting and the whole gammut. The end of the night was a free concert by the Trews and fireworks display! We got to watch the fireworks from the back bedroom, how cool was that?!!

Our location in comparison to the stage!

We were back to the family cabin for a very short turnaround and the install of 4 more solar panels on the roof before we jetting off to Ghost Lake for a hot summer weekend in the boat! We needed a bit more solar power for the A/C we needed to keep cool at the lake.

4 more panels on the cage

How many more can we get on?

Always a good time at the lake! Ghost lake (rumble.com)

Where to next?!!