Friday Feb 7th

Happy birthday Daniel, our special 11 year old, we miss you and hope you had a great birthday.
  The day started off early for Marg as she volunteered to help with the bake sale and kitchen.  It was the annual park-wide sale where everyone puts out stuff they no longer have use for.  There is a big raffle anyone can buy tickets on and this year they had 60+ prizes.  Ladies donate baking, some of which is sold and the pies are sold by the piece.  They also make sloppy joes and sell them for lunch.  Marg ends up in the thick of all this kitchen activity.  Me - not so much.

  I was prowling around looking for deals, well I was visiting with Ron D anyway, when Bud pulled up with Linda on his golf cart.  An unusual combination, well not this AM.  Linda grabbed me by the arm saying Marg was looking at a trailer that I needed to see and she had been sent to fetch me.  With most people this would be unusual, but not with Linda; so coffee cup in had I jumped on with them.  It turns out a couple had decided not to return and put a for sale sign on the park model in site #86, that's on Happy Hour Lane.  This just happens to be the lane the gamblin' gals live on, the one we go to happy hour on, the one several of our friends are on.  The park model was in very nice condition and has been kept up by the owners [from Minnesota].  It has an Arizona room, a nice concrete drive, and car port as well as a shed on the patio in the rear.  It is an older model, but an affordable price, so Marg was fairly jumping up and down.  We ended up purchasing it, well agreeing to purchase it as I had to call the banker to send more money.  I jokingly told the owners that we had only brought $3,000 with us as I only bring what I expect my wife to spend.  They have paid the rent on the lot up until November and will be leaving all the furnishings, dishes, etc.  Marg told her to take anything she wants out of it.  We have to complete the deal, likely next week.  The owners plan on returning to Minn. by the end of the month, so we should get possession on March 1st.  Lots of stuff to do, like a title transfer, insurance, etc.

 People were saying they didn't know this park model was for sale, but this park is so popular, you have to be a bit lucky to get something.  In fact when Marg went to give them the deposit cheque, another rv'er in the park was trying to make a deal on the unit we were dealing on.  Pretty much a sellers market.

  It was so nice to see how many people were happy that we purchased a place.  Marg said she has never been hugged so much.  Word spread through the park like wildfire.  Kenny said he heard in the bathroom.  Most often comment I heard was that people weren't aware we were looking for a park model; to which I replied, "Neither was I!"
  Oh yeh, got some tools, good deals too.  Everyone was joking about getting enough for the tool shed.  Bought most from a lady whose husband died last year and she was clearing them out.
  Went to the hall for the aforementioned sloppy joe and pie.  Sat with a bunch of friends who were all questions about our plans, both for the park model and motorhome. My answer, don't know this is all new, so we need time to make some decisions.  At the end of the lunch they held the drawings for all the raffle prizes.  Marg actually won two, but only kept the first, telling them to re-draw on the second one.  Most people keep everything they win, but Marg has done this in prior years when she had multiple wins.  Kenny was trying to claim our prize having had the site were are in for 15 years before turning it over to us.

  The day flew by and before we knew, it was time to go for happy hour.  Lots of laughs and kidding about the amount of money the Canadians have.  My reply was that I bought this with 88 cent dollars and paid almost a thousand dollars in exchange on the money I transferred.  Yeh, the bank had the money in our account in AJ within 2 hours of my phone call.  Pretty impressive.
  Had to limit myself to one beer for happy hour.  You just don't take a chance on DUI here as there is a mandatory 2 weeks in jail on top of the fines and everything else and we had to go out for supper.  Being busy, Marg never had a chance to prepare for supper and it was a bit of a celebration day.  Blanke's & Bingers went with us to the Village Inn and being as we were there before 6 PM, we qualified for the early bird special.  This meant a good price on dinner plus free pie, which we got to-go.
  Got back in time for the animal races.  When we were late getting there, someone told a joke about the Gourlay's being too broke to attend.  The animals were not kind to us tonight, but we had fun.  Had a piece of pie with coffee when I got back to the rv, making it 2 pieces of pie today.  Now that was a good day!