When we switched sites at Shadybrook last year, we inherited an awesome wooden deer/stag. Check it out here. There was a really bad storm in June 2017 and many trees came down around our site and behind the trailer, but the stag remained standing. It's in our blog here. And then on July 23, 2017 we posted this... Our stag is missing from our forest. We have wondered if the tree cutters may have dropped a tree on it and disposed of the body... So we have inquired at the office about our stag's whereabouts. So far an unsolved mystery. The office never returned our message and for almost a year we have mourned the loss of our stag. We talk about him frequently. Today, James was throwing around some broken tree limbs behind the trailer and he saw a stag foot protruding from the pile. Could it be?!?! It is! He is a little tilted but we have given him a new post to lean on at the front of our site. It's great to have him back - no thanks to the arborist who tried to crush him and hide the evidence. He's one resilient stag! Of course that was the highlight of the weekend! The weather Friday night and Saturday was a mixed bag...sunshine and rain. It was raining when we woke up and wasn't letting up so we went for breakfast. Finally the sun broke through so we rode our bikes to the market. James bought a couple books at the second hand store in the basement of the senior's centre. It's full of treasures down there - let us know if you would like any of these gems: We biked to the end of the cottage street for a fabulous view. We noticed some very dark clouds but James decided the wind was blowing them the other way. The wind was doing no such thing and we got drenched riding back to the campsite. The rain shower was short and we had a cocktail to make. This week it is the mai tai in memory of our fun trip to Maui last August. The review is here. As soon as the cocktails were ready, the rain resumed...time to get cozy under our petite awning. After dinner we went over to Val's and she introduced us to the Dark and Stormy. Sounds mysterious doesn't it?! We'll do a proper introduction and review in a future blog. Before retiring, we made the camp classic - Jiffy Pop. It didn't burn at all. That's two miracles this weekend. We had Sunday breakfast at the Nine Iron with Val. James indulged in apple pie pancakes. It's apple pie between pancakes with whipped cream and berries. For real. We needed to work off breakfast so we went for a fabulous bike ride in and around the area. It was so peaceful - beautiful sunny day, no one around, birds chirping, the smell of pine and wildflowers. It was a perfect day with no rain. Miracle #3! Enjoy the week!
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Canada Day weekend means lots of red and white, maple leafs and free pancakes! This year we managed to have free breakfast on Saturday (at Shadybrook) and Sunday (at the Seba Beach Senior's Centre). Wa-hoo! In the last post we speculated that more trees would be taken down on our site. We were right. We made it our mission over the weekend to build walls of logs around our fire pit area to add the privacy that the trees used to afford us. We are quite proud of our accomplishments. Private and welcoming. We had a great weekend - here's an overview in photos... Enjoyed seeing everyone's Canadian spirit... Shopped at the Farmer's Market Went to the Entwistle Canada Day Parade - we love the floats and the kids running in front of trucks to retrieve candy. Found some wild strawberries - they were bitter. Hiked a bit at Pembina River and took a poor selfie. This was the best of the 10 we tried. Made the drink of the week - mermaid lemonade. The review is here. Cooked smokies over the fire Made banana boats Went for lots of walks Came home Monday when it started to rain. A great long weekend and we were exhausted by the end of it...so were the tails!
June is always busy and we haven't been able to get out to Shadybrook much. We did take a road trip this week to check on things. There was a wicked wind storm a couple weeks ago and we had a tree come down on our shed and another right by our water hook up. It was a year ago that the storm hit the site and many trees came down. Soon our site will look like Little Phoebe on the Prairies. There are some trees marked with orange tape on our site so we assume this means more firewood for us. It looks like this tree will be on the chopping block - unfortunately it is holding up our lights. Last weekend we were in Saskatchewan. We visited with family, took a bus to Regina to watch a Roughriders game and won (and then lost) at the horse races. This weekend we have family visiting so we'll stay in the city. We have three cocktails to review and we have guest judges - Mellissa's mom and dad are visiting from Victoria. The cocktails we reviewed are the Pineapple Orange Creamsicle Mimosa,the BBC (Bailey's Banana Colada) and Strawberry Shortcake Sangria. All were good you can check out the reviews here. We also had visitors from Calgary and watched my nephew, Ben play ball. When did he get so tall?!? We finished the weekend by doing yoga in Ford Hall at Rogers Place courtesy of the Edmonton Oilers Entertainment Group. It was simply splendid and just what we needed to relax! At home we had an Aperol Spritz with dinner. These don't need a review - they are always good!
We spent the weekend at home catching up on some household chores. We managed to sneak in a bike ride. I have a new mountain bike - it's not as cute as my commuter bike but it's much easier to ride - it has many gears and shocks. We parked our bikes and wandered over to the Pride Parade. Always a joyous, colourful celebration of diversity. The parade was halted for about 30 minutes by a peaceful protest by some who felt the police should not be allowed in the parade. There are feelings that the police and military have more work to do on treating all people fairly and equally. We wondered why the parade had stopped and were happy to find out it wasn't anything serious. Nothing wrong with a peaceful protest. Back at home we enjoyed a BBQ on our patio and made our weekly cocktail. This week was the Lemon Meringue Martini - our review is here. It rained all day Sunday which was perfect for cleaning the house. I made some lavender Italian soda which is delicious. It's just lavender simple syrup, club soda, ice and a slice of lime. Refreshing!
There was blue sky when we woke up Saturday morning so we packed the truck and headed west. Phin loves the wind in his hair. We poked around the Farmer's Market in its new location and bought some supplies - mostly bread related. And some Kick Ass Caramels Our site is being taken over by dandelions but we are doing our part to help the bee population. You're welcome. We had a quick snack - Bavarian style - and headed further west to one of our favorite places to hike, Pembina River Provincial Park. There was blue sky when we left Shadybrook but the clouds were ominous at Pembina. 15 minutes later we were in the middle of a quick but heavy rain storm. So much for a hike. Our weekly cocktail was the Dill Pickle Vodka Martini. The review with video can be found here. Shadybrook was pretty quiet this weekend. We christened our new BBQ and made some delicious s'mores. Kick Ass caramels are really good on s'mores! It was chilly Sunday morning and we were all jealous of Westley snuggled in the heated blanket. When the sun came out we walked around Seba Beach before heading home.
Yard work and other life tasks kept us at home this weekend. Sorry Phoebe. It was a beautiful weekend so we tackled many outdoor activities - including fighting with the dead raspberry canes. To save us the war wounds next spring, we really need to deal with the raspberries in the fall this year. We planted flowers and a camping themed mini garden, cleaned the yard and garage, had a German breakfast (more about that on Mellissa's travel site Just Sayin) and bought a Saskatoon Berry shrub. We are excited for the eventual berries. We continued with our Cock Tail Scale - backyard edition. Our review of the his weekend is here Blackberry Basil Vodka Lemonade. The plan is to get to Shadybrook next weekend...and try a new cocktail.
It’s quite common in Alberta to have snow on the May long weekend - not this year. It was a glorious sunny (and busy) weekend! We spent 24 hours of our May Long weekend at Shadybrook and we made the most of the time we were there. Saturday morning we were up at the same time youngsters come home from the bar, to watch the royal wedding. We enjoyed the morning festivities with scones, Devonshire cream, tea and bubbly. And then we had two naps throughout the day. Anyhow, back to our time at Shadybrook. We were excited to turn on the water and have it flow out of the tap! That means winter is over, the ground has thawed and de-winterizing was our top priority. Once that was done, we started on our task list. Mellissa cleaned and organized the inside of Phoebe. James built the new decking - a package we purchased from Canadian Tire. Next we tackled assembling the gazebo. We took a break to have a delicious and refreshing lavender lemonade mojito. We seem to accumulate spirits that we never drink so this summer we are introducing the Cocktail Scale to our Adventure Tails Site. Every weekend we'll try a new cocktail, we'll rate the cocktail and provide the recipes on this site. Here's our thoughts on the Lavender Lemonade Mojito The mosquitoes around Shadybrook are incredibly welcoming. They have been waiting for us to show up. We strung our lights around the site and they make the site look so cozy at night. We started a fire and were excited to relax...but a thunderstorm rolled in and we were relocated inside Phoebe. Monday morning started with hot beverages and a walk around Shadybrook. After breakfast we tackled our task list for the day- wash the outside of Phoebe, clean the shed and pick some weeds. The dogs love their new bed and deck. Glamper Westley spent less time in the vehicle. Back at home we enjoyed dinner and another lavender lemonade mojito on our patio. We are sore and exhausted from a busy weekend. We call that success!
We received an email this week to inform us that the water was turned on at Shadybrook on Thursday. Our goal on this beautiful sunny day - bring out our camping gear and clean Phoebe. Inside and out. We even bought new cleaning supplies to get her sparkling. We were told we would need to run the water for 5 min to get the bleach out of the system. We turned on the tap. Nothing. Huh? We went over to the neighbors and tried their tap. They have water. Off to the office we went to see what’s up. We were handed a hose and a splitter and told to hook in to our neighbor’s water. Note - water is included in our seasonal fee. Apparently the ground is not completely thawed and some sites don’t have water. Hm. The problem is, our neighbour's water hook up is quite far from our trailer and the 25 ft hose didn't cut it. The neighbor on the other side doesn’t have water either. We decided to unpack our supplies and clean next weekend. After unpacking, we walked across the road to treat ourselves to our first ice cream of the season. We were saddened to discover Trickle Creek is still closed. Drat! On our walk back we noticed ice still on the creek. Funny how as soon as we get a few nice days, winter is a distant memory. I guess it takes a lot longer to thaw than we think it should. Back at home we enjoyed margaritas on our patio. We got new furniture this week that we are loving! We will head out with our cleaning supplies again next weekend - May long 2018!
Did you miss us? Shadybrook officially opened for the season today. Kind of. There is no water yet thanks to a slow ground thaw. We were excited to see our little silver girl. Doesn't she look great? Our excessive use of Bounce sheets and Irish Spring worked again this year and not only did Phoebe smell fresh when we opened the door, she also did not house any rodents over the winter. We walked around Shadybrook and chatted with friends we haven't since the fall. We caught up with fellow Airstreamer Val over dinner at the Nine Iron Grill. It was a beautiful evening for dinner on the patio. What's new at Shadybrook?
However, there's a fire ban so we are not allowed to burn all the wood we have.
Westley spent his usual glamping time in the car while Phin sunned himself. We hope the water is on next weekend so we can de-winterize and clean Phoebe and load her up for the season.
We are looking forward to many adventures. Stay tuned! Phoebe came home for a cleaning and we decided to take her back out to Shadybrook Thursday evening. As we headed west the sky got darker - we thought it was the smoke from the BC forest fires. It wasn't. Lightening and thunder cracked through the sky and we were pelted with heavy rain and hail. For the record, every Airstream owner has nightmares about hail. We had to pull off the highway and wait until we could see out the windshield before continuing. We finally got Phoebe back in to her spot at Shadybrook amidst the rain, lightening and hungry mosquitoes. However, she is now full of mud. Lesson - get a hose and sprayer for Shadybrook so we can clean her on site! We had some things to do around home for part of the weekend so we didn't get out to Shadybrook until later in the afternoon Saturday. We didn't have time to get groceries before we left home so we decided to dine at the Kokanee Springs RV Pub & Grill and watch the Roughrider game with our Shadybrook neighbor, and fellow Airstream owner, Val. We also had breakfast Sunday morning at Kokanee Springs. There was a bison and a pelican (named Lilly) watching over us. Parked outside was a truck with testicles. I haven't seen those since Oprah was gifted a pair when she visited Edmonton. I still shake my head at the classless gesture. Back to our day... We decided to make a road trip to Wildwood, AB. We told our waitress at breakfast that we were going and she asked why? To check it out, we replied. She had never been but thought there was an ice cream shop. There is - Jennie's ice Cream Shoppe - but it was closed. There is a lot of property for sale in Wildwood if anyone is interested. Wildwood is a hamlet with a population of 273. Next census there might be fewer people if all those properties aren't purchased. Wildwood was originally called Junkins (after an engineer for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway) and was settled by African Americans from Oklahoma and Texas in 1908. The community understandably changed the name in 1929. The Lobstick River runs through the hamlet and 20 km north is Chip Lake. We drove to the lake and walked around the campsite. It is very peaceful around the lake. In the two weeks we have been away from the site, the arborists have been very busy. There are piles of cut up wood all around our site. We think there is more to come because there are still leaning trees. When the wood cures in a couple years, we'll be set for campfires galore! After the road trip we re-organized our site and stacked wood to create some ambiance walls. Ned and Fred have a lot more wood to guard now. Our stag is missing from our forest. We have wondered if the tree cutters may have dropped a tree on it and disposed of the body... So we have inquired at the office about our stag's whereabouts. So far an unsolved mystery. Many of the sites at Shadybrook have elaborate welcome entrances. We went with the flamingo and beach theme. We may have to take a trip back to Wildwood for the fair in August. Check out the activities planned. We've never seen a greased pig catching contest. Have you?
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AuthorMellissa & James live in Edmonton, Alberta and enjoy exploring. Currently our Airstream is parked at a seasonal site about an hour from our home. Archives
May 2021
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