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We flew back from Panama to Edmonton with minimal hassle of gate changes in Houston in early March.
Our car had been sitting in Rebekah and Nick's driveway in Edmonton for a couple of months but started fine and needed no digging to get on our way to Meadow Lake after an all too brief visit with them.
In Meadow Lake we picked up my police record check forms and sorted out the Credit Card issue. The Master Card people kinda figured out that there was something wrong when I was using the card to buy Kindle books in Nicaragua and somebody else was simultaneously buying gas in Ontario and they froze the card. I realized this when Kindle sent me a note saying the card had bounced and they were freezing all my Kindle content and if I wanted to read any of my 300+ books I would pay for the one "purchased" the night before. That was easy to fix. Just give them another card number. Sorting out Master Card required being in Canada. An easy fix, but had to wait until we were back in the country.
We hired a Bob Cat and he cleared the path to the fifth wheel, cleared the rest of the driveway and piled all the snow he could down by the fish pond. Speaking of which the gold fish didn't make it through the past winter. It was enough colder than the previous winter that the pond must have frozen to the bottom. Look at it this way. The fish we buy are "feeder fish" which are sold as food for bigger, more exotic fish. Putting them in our pond gave them a year and a half reprieve.
We took a day trip to Saskatoon where I blew in the breathalyzer and peed in a cup and was declared alcohol and drug free and given a card to take with me to the orientation and training for the refinery shutdown. A couple days before the first training day we took our fifth wheel to Regina and parked it there in the RV park we normally use. The training lasted a week and was a repeat of various past training sessions. One "day" of training was CBT (computer based training) that used to be done after we started work, but was now part of orientation week. Even though the training is all repeated on a cycle this year I learned something. If you come in and push briskly through the assigned modules you earn three hours pay. If you take your time and take a break in the middle and go visit the boys in the shop you get four hours pay. Good lesson. one should always stop and smell the roses. It pays!
There was a week between the end of training and the first day of work - the first Monday in April so we left our rig parked and returned to Meadow Lake for the week. Then it was settle in to working six, ten-hour days a week at the refinery for Paul and volunteering at the thrift store for Juanita. Juanita went to Meadow Lake a couple of time for grandkid birthday celebrations, but other than that it was work, eat, sleep, repeat for April, May and most of June. The last work day was June 28th and Paul drove the truck pulling the fifth wheel back to Meadow Lake with Juanita following in the car.
Once in Meadow Lake we loaded tools and headed to Edmonton to help with Nick and Rebekah's and neighbours' fences.
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