Now that the 4th is over and we are back in the city park by the beach I thought I'd share some brief financial insights to the fun life.

The cost to park this big chunk of fiberglass was $35 a night in the marina for only electric service ... yep you gotta go dump the poop every three days or so. Compared to full service in Washington, Oregon, and California where you got full hookups for about $350 a month.

Now that we are in the city park again, it is still pretty stiff at $30 per night. Yes, we have sewer and power, but no TV ... at $1000 a month ... eeeuh.

Today the Canadian Dollar and the US Dollar are equal in value at the broker. In spite of that gas is $1.36 a liter here ... ok, time for conversions. There are 4 liters in a Canadian gallon but there are about 3.8 liters in an American gallon ... high school physics here, eh. Anyhow if you pass the test, it is about 5 bucks a gallon no matter how you cut it.

If you go into Wal Mart most of the stuff is about twenty percent higher for the same item across the border ... taxes I guess. On the same line of thought a car here that is, say $20000, will be $15000 in the states, and the ironic part is that the same car is built in Windsor, Ontario. Obviously they they have people going south to buy cars.

Wine is about 80% more here. All alcohol is controlled by the province and a representive on might be Lindeman's Cab which is about $6.25 at home ... here is 12.50. The cheapest wine on the shelf is .... absolutely, including Ripple, is $7.50 for a normal 750 ml bottle.

The off side to this is that the province allows people to make their own wine and the Martins brew about 30 bottles a month for a cost of about 3 bucks a bottle and that is what we are drinking. Not bad stuff and it matures in about a month. I think they now have about 250 bottles of a variety in the basement at this time ... yeah I know, what's a basement. It's a really cool, dark place, perfect for storing wine, eh, and avoiding tornados ...