It’s early October and you can tell it is fall. the temperatures are heading south on the thermometer so its time to start packing for our next journey. Yesterday I replaced all the rest of the lower marker light on Thunder with the new LED ones, so much better looking and should make us much more visible. I also replaced the tail / brake lamp bulbs to LED 1157 bulbs and that made a big improvement as well.

I also reinstalled the kayak racks on the towed and replaced the wiper blades, and hope to get the kayaks in the racks this afternoon, I have today off because I worked Monday on a little project with Richard, so my hope is to get most of the towed packed so I can start packing the basement next week. But it is raining this morning so I’m off to town to pick up some items and order some more LED bulbs for the towed the difference between the LED’s and the old incandescent bulbs is amazing and the last thing we need is someone running into our house.

The weather is in full fall effect with the cool rainy days and as I mentioned the falling temperature, oh well I wont have to worry about working up too much of a sweat for a while packing, the towed or the basement, now its all about getting a break from the rain to get the job finished, I did get the kayaks in place, and the bike rack mounted on the towed and its raining again…come on just give us a little break on the rain!

The lights took a little longer than I had hoped, but I did find the short in the trailer plug wiring, a couple of shorted wires. Because the coach has separate brake and turn signal bulbs and our towed does not (the brake and turn signal use the same bulb) the coach had an adapter to solve that issue,so a couple hundred dollars in parts for a new adapter and LED lights for the towed and the coach is all fixed up reconnected, of course because of the location of the connections  I used crimp connectors  and added heat shrink tubing to keep moisture out. Now I have to see if replacing the turn signal flasher on the towed will make the warning system happier.

One of the biggest expenses’ we incur when we head south is the exchange of our Canadian dollars to American dollars so we have been using the exchange service of the “Canadian Snowbird Association” of which we are a member this a Canadian organization that shops for the best exchange rate each month. They allow each member to exchange a pre-set amount each month, we have an American account that we use to accomplish this, so on the first of each month monies are taken from our Canadian bank account and is exchanged and deposited into our American bank account it takes approximately five days and has a cost of $2.00 per transaction.

Again we used this program last year and have had great service the exchange rate is better than I could find either at a currency exchange or any Canadian bank. I have exchanged larger amounts before and know the more you exchange the better the rate, but when it’s just a small amount (under $1000) each month this is the best I have found, we are presently paying about a 35% premium on U.S. dollars so that $10 item on a shelf really costs $13.50, and when all your income is in Canadian dollars that hurts when we travel in the States. But it’s just the price we pay for sunshine and warmth during the winter months, and it’s also why we like Arizona, no tax on solar upgrades, and the rates to camp are less than half of Florida, plus there are no bugs!