Weekly Post

It's the August long weekend! We are in Alix, Alberta population of 830 (2011). There is a beautiful little lake and of course, my folks. We try to come up here at least once a month to spend some much needed time with my family  and to get away from the normal rut that seems to creep into our lives.

We spent some time in Red Deer yesterday looking to purchase a new GPS. Apparently no-one in Red Deer sells any of the "entry models" that I am willing to pay for. I did find a few that were well over my budget of $200. I even found one that was close to $1000!

Why do I want a GPS you ask? Well, to get back into geocaching. Many years ago we found a nice Magellan Color GPS and started caching it served us well until someone broke into my truck and stole the unit. They left the change in the ashtray but got the GPS and my air freshener. I don't get that one either. Anyhow, we stopped caching for a bit but eventually tried again with a smart phone. It works but it's no where near accurate enough. The phone gets us into the right area but when you are hunting for a small container you need to be with in a few feet. So, we haven't really done any caching for a couple years. Now with a couple big trips coming up in the next couple years I think it would be kinda neat to find a few caches not in Alberta.

We also stopped by an outdoor store that I have never gone into before; Atmosphere. They seem to have about the same selection as MEC but the prices seem to be a bit cheaper. Which I found a bit odd. They gave me 10% off my first purchase and a coupon for 10% off in the next month. Also I am supposed to be getting another coupon e-mailed to me in a month. So, just by giving them my e-mail address I get 30% off of purchases.

I'm going to let you get back to living your lives and I will talk to you next week.

Short trip

So, I haven’t been on here in a while and for that I am sorry. I figured I should post an update where we are in this adventure and lay out a slight change in this blog.

First, the update, I have sourced most of the parts for the two trikes and fabrication is slowly progressing, I am at a point with one trike that I now need suspension parts and those prove to be very expensive or hard to locate. I did manage to find two old mountain bikes with suspension parts but neither one is beefy enough for our purposes. I can however use these parts to mock up the trikes. I have also found a place that sells parts for electric scooters and the suspension parts from them seem to be a better price. I am also waiting for a local machine shop to finish the hubs for these trikes so I can carry on. So, both frames are welded up and now I am just waiting for a few little things to happen so I can properly measure and assemble other parts of the frames.

Now a slight change in direction for this blog. I know that you will get tired of the updates eventually; although if I only post once a month that may not happen. However you would lose interest and stop reading so... Big news! We live lives outside of this trip! I am going to start posting once a week, hopfully on Sunday afternoons. I will be laying out all kinds of stuff, don’t worry I will keep the private parts of our lives just that.

Here is the first bit of news that only a few people know. My lovely wife told me a few months back that she has never been to Whitehorse, Yukon (I drove through in 1999) and she really wants to go. So, in a couple weeks we will be packing up the tent, sleeping bags, chuck box and a bit of food and running off (sans kids) to the Yukon Territories for a week.

Over the next couple weeks I will be prepping all the camping gear and purchasing the consumables (propane, spices etc.) I will make a video of our chuck box so you all can see how ultra organized we are! (Okay, just a wish -- the ultra orginized part anyhow.) I will then put it on YouTube and try to link it to this blog so it will be a one stop shop. I am also going to build a camera mount for the car so I can do a time lapse video of our drive. Then I will have to test out the camera mount and live shooting so, get ready for some videos about that too.

When we are not planning trips and exciting stuff I will just update you all on our lives and other more mudane things. I hopefully will not bore you guys into running away. We do have a few plans for our backyard and such so maybe I will talk more about that in the future.