We didn’t have many plans for our week off in August (ten days counting weekends on either end) but a chance conversation with a library patron has us heading to Calgary for a few days.
We’d been talking about visiting the Calgary Zoo to see the pandas since they were announced as coming. But we weren’t in a rush until I got talking to a patron while helping her print out a plane ticket to Cowtown. During that conversation, she mentioned that the adult pandas are there for awhile yet but apparently the baby pandas are going home this fall.
Shea and I talked and figured we could hive off a few days from our 10-day break to hit Calgary before going camping.
Although we lived there for three and a half years from 2001-2004, we’ve only been back a couple times since leaving so are looking forward to another return visit.
We haven’t been to Regina Folk Fest for a few years since we got our RV and now tend to be camping every weekend in the summer.
But since it was the RFF’s 50th Anniversary this year, we decided to cut camping short this weekend so we could catch at least part of the festival. Shea and the kids caught a ride out to our campsite on Thursday then I whipped out Friday night after work, spent the evening and half of Saturday there before coming back in for the Saturday evening of the festival.
It was a great evening and made me realise how much I miss the Folk Fest. (A fond memory from a few years ago – CTV was doing vox pops about the festival and approached me. I didn’t have much time to think about it so blurted something generic and dumb then as the camera guy walked away, I literally chased him down and said “Do you mind if I do that again?” On my second try I said “I think that if every day was like Regina Folk Fest, the world would be a better place!” I was happy to see they ended up using my quote to close their piece that night!)
I have a few other thoughts about the Folk Fest, Garth Brooks, politics and some other interconnected issues but instead, I wanted to make an observation about…amateur photography.
It’s pretty hard to take decent photos with an iPhone at the best of times but I remember hearing the light at dusk called “God’s Lighting Rig” as that’s a good way to guarantee good lighting.
I’m an atheist but happen to believe that’s true and was fascinated to see this effect magnified even further by the light reflecting into Victoria Park off the windows of a nearby office building.
I managed to capture Sasha enjoying the music and reminded me of that quote I gave CTV – how it was great to be among a large group of people who had a vibe of love, inclusion and joy. (Well, most of them – we had a couple people move our lawn chairs when we left our spot to go for food and we had a drunken Seth Rogan-soundalike behind us holding court for a while. But overall, great evening!)
It seems like one of the highest priorities for any conservative government is targeting the funding of public libraries – in Newfoundland (May 2016), in Saskatchewan (March 2017), in Ontario (April 2019), and now in Alberta (August 2019 (although to be fair, Jason Kenney’s Conservatives haven’t cut yet but are withholding 50% in advance of a fall budget similar to how Rachel Notley’s NDP government apparently withheld 25% though if I’m guessing who’s more likely to turn “withholding” into “cuts”, it’s a conservative Alberta government!)
…maybe I should just upload screenshots of the witty retorts I draft but then discard without posting because I don’t feel like getting into it with people?
(Shea and I spend a lot of time talking about how liberals are often at a disadvantage in arguments with conservatives because they tend to just say whatever shit they think and liberals will sit there and go “Oh, if I post that, it’ll look like I’m attacking a woman” or “Oh, I shouldn’t judge someone just because they’re an ultra-Christian homeschooler” or “Oh, it’s a sad reality that some people with less privilege can’t afford a family vacation and I shouldn’t shame them even if their reasoning for why their not being able to afford to take their kids to the West Edmonton Mall appears somewhat misguided.” or even “Maybe I should try to find a way to word my retort so I might have a chance of changing her mind instead of scoring invisible Internet snark points.”)
Through the first couple years of pulling it around the province, one year in a provincial seasonal site and the last couple in a regional park, I continue to feel like we made an awesome decision to buy this amazing little camper (and a lucky one too – the particular floor model we have is hard to find at the best of times and it appears Forest River is no longer making models with rear garages at all so it’s not like we could upgrade to a newer year of the same model, even if we wanted to.)
On that note, occasionally, we think about whether to upgrade to a larger camper, especially now that we have a permanent seasonal site. But we got an amazing deal on the rPod so its paid for, we’re in the same campground as Shea’s parents so spend a lot of time in their much bigger camper as it is, and I love that having a smaller camper sort of forces us to be outside instead of inside sitting by the fireplace or in a hot tub or whatever other crazy features some of those large campers have! 😉
Anyhow, our camper is small but mighty but has a lot of things we love about it:
The rDome side tent add-a-room is easy to set-up and basically doubles your floor space. We use ours for everything from a place for extra storage to a shelter during the heat of the day, during rainstorms or when bugs are particularly bad to a place where we can easily increase or decrease our privacy whether we have the sides of the tent open or closed.
The rear kitchen is where we prepare most of our meals (and cocktails!), do all our dishes, watch the occasional movie with the TV that’s easily moved from inside to out and back again and store a large amount of supplies (mostly cooking related but there’s a few uncracked glow sticks back there too!)
Our model has bunk beds which was great when the kids were small and is even better now that pre-teen Pace has moved out into a tent which leaves us a whole bunk open for extra storage (very valuable!)
Full wet bath with toilet and shower. With as small as it is, it’s amazing to have a spot where you can even have a shower (well, Shea and the kids can – I’m just a bit too big for that!)
This isn’t as obvious as the other things on this list but rPods are very well made with a lot of thought put into their design and construction to make sure they’re long-lasting (but still lightweight) which means they’re less likely to have problems over the years.
Here’s a tour of a model that’s very similar to ours…
I posted a Cody Jinks song before I went on holidays so why not post another Jinks’ song since it was in the top three of my most listened to songs over the past couple weeks (with the other two – “Cumberland Gap” by Jason Isbell and “Tear Stained Eye” by Son Volt both being songs I’ve posted before!)
