Moving to BC

We're not quite tree-hugging, granola crunching, left coast hippies yet but we are getting closer. Today we got an official BC address. Tomorrow I expect somebody to drop by with our supply of medical marijuana. We still have to convince Canada Post to redirect our mail to here which will no doubt turn into an ordeal. Earlier this week Canada Post asked for a Power of Attorney from our dead mother in order for my sister to deal with them. The limits of the collective stupidity of that institution are hard to fathom. There must be some critical mass of stupid past which it becomes self sustaining and Canada Post has clearly passed that point.

Yesterday we left Whispering Pines - with great difficulty. We've been going there for so long that it was really hard to leave. That was compounded by the shower of gifts we received as we were leaving. We took several people wakeboarding and they felt compelled to repay us with alcohol. We'll cope.

The night before we left was a classic Whispering Pines evening. Gil and Larry's cousin was there. He's some kind of musical prodigy who presently teaches music somewhere. Gil and Larry are pretty musical themselves but this guy was off the scale. He played guitar several times during the week we overlapped with his visit. On the last night we were there Ron Watson showed up with his keyboard and the two of them put on a tremedous show around the campfire. That went well into the night so we weren't too lively yesterday morning. That in turn meant we were pretty late getting to Chilliwack but we got settled in to the Thousand Trails campground before dark and then went back into town for a little reconnaissance and some groceries. Its a pretty cute little town and very green. Marilyn is going on and on about the ferns and general green-ness.

The weather hasn't been great since we got here so we haven't been in any big rush to get on the lake. The little lake here looks like it probably gets thoroughly thrashed on the weekends during the summer. There are a lot of people that hang out here between cabins and campgrounds. If they all end up on the lake on the weekend there won't be an undisturbed drop of water to be found anywhere.

A life wasted

The news this morning is one drawn out tribute to Michael. Whatever you think of the freakshow that his life turned into, it is impossible to deny his talent. The tragedy of his life is that he allowed his personal peccadilloes to overwhelm his obvious and undeniable musical and entertaining genius.

The contrast between Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett who died the same day is telling. Farrah took a limited amount of talent, combined it with a life well lived and made the most of what she had. Michael took a surfeit of talent, combined it with a life of excess and squandered the gift he was given.

Rest well Michael - some of us will miss you less than others.

Rolling on the river

Later this week we will move to Chilliwack. We're really looking forward to the new adventure, discovering how the Thousand Trails and Holiday Trails camp systems work, meeting new people and discovering new terrain. If anything makes us regret leaving here it will be the Shuswap River. We have so much fun on the river it is hard to imagine that we won't miss it terribly. The only thing that is making it at all easier is the fact that the water level is very low this summer. Typically the river level will drop at least 10 feet between mid June and late August. Right now we can travel from Mara Lake all the way to the Grindrod bar but by early August it will be dangerous to go even half that distance. Last year we left the first week in August but even by then we were clipping the prop on rocks on the river bottom. I spent a couple of hours this spring straightening the prop and it should be tuned and balanced professionally.

This morning we hit the water again with Marlan and Janine Rushton. Marlan only got to ride last summer during the time he spent with us so he was making the most of his time today in case it doesn't happen again this summer. Janine turned into a fairly regular rider while Marlan was out this year. She's does really well - we've had her out with us before. We always make sure to get her mother out as well. Running a campground is all consuming for the Rushtons. This year Bernie is commuting between here and his regular job in Drayton Valley so the load on Sharon is even greater when he is "out". We figure that makes it all the more important for us to get Sharon away for a break and she seems to enjoy it too.

From Summer 2009

This afternoon Marlan left to return to Medicine Hat but he is taking the long way round. When the kids were little we used to spend time in the Kootenay Valley. Marlan will be taking a trip down memory lane as he wanders through the interior of BC from Vernon to Nakusp, south to New Denver, over the highway of ghosts to Kaslo, across Kootenay Lake from Balfour to Riondel on the ferry, down the lake to Creston and then out through the Crowsnest Pass.

From Summer 2009

The videos aren't very good quality but they do show a bit of our wonderful river.

Vitamin I

We've been hitting the river hard the past couple of days. Marlan arrived here late in the day on the 30th. There were so few people here at the end of June that we were able to ride on the lake but starting today we had to spend our time on the river. The tourists have arrived.

Yesterday we went for a quick ride on the lake and river. Then we headed down to Kelowna to celebrate Dan's (Marilyn's brother) 60th birthday. We stopped in at her other brother's place in Winfield and gave Fred some of the stuff that we had saved from the house. He let us pick fresh cherries from one of the trees in his back yard. That would be a serious plus about living out here - fresh raspberries and cherries. After the party we hustled back to Whispering Pines, loaded up Sharon and her kids and headed into town on the water to watch the Canada Day fireworks.

The water is finally starting to warm up but I still wore my drysuit today. Marlan thinks we are sissies but I think he is just too embarassed to ask to wear the drysuit. Marilyn is doing the sport of fat old broads and loving every minute of it. Advil should sponsor the ski tour. After a hard day on the water about 4 Advil or the generic equivalent is a pretty good plan if us old guys want to ski again in the morning.

Today Marlan & I took the awning down and repaired it again. Clifford gave us a free awning but it hasn't ended up being entirely free. I haven't added up everything that I have in it but it is somewhere north of $600 now. When I ordered the replacement arm that I had shipped to Verde Valley I also ordered an idler end for the roller. It was sticky from the start but we were making it work. It finally gave up the ghost at Airdrie and in the process of discovering that it was dead I managed to pull off the strap that unrolls the awning. That meant that it was a little challenging to unroll it today and then after we got the mechanical part drilled out and the new one rivetted in I had to get out the needle & thread. It all appears to be working well now and it sure is nice to have an awning. Too bad Mark isn't here so I could stand under it and gloat.

Its good to be back in Mara

We arrived here about 5:30 on Saturday after an incredibly frustrating drive from Airdrie. Fortunately it was a good day for driving but the traffic was horrendous, there was construction around every second bend in the road and to top it all off there was an accident by the Lake Louise turnoff. That accident jammed up traffic so badly that we spent 1-1/2 hours travelling less than 6 km. It wasn't hot enough to need the air conditioner which was a good thing because Marilyn didn't have one in the cube van. When I tried running the genset in the bus (which would have let me run the AC) it shut down in about 15 miles for reasons as yet undetermined. I started it up again and then it seemed to be interfering with the tachometer so I eventually shut it down again. All in all not a great trip out here.

Sharon was surprised to see us on Saturday - apparently we hadn't reserved until Sunday but it didn't really matter because the place is almost empty. Its always that way until the Stampede starts. By the time Stampede week is over this place will be jammed but right now it is pleasantly quiet.

Yesterday Darrel & Tammy Ozmun from Nipawin arrived on their way to Vancouver Island. We spent the day on the water with them today and they will be on their way again tomorrow. Marlan is arriving tomorrow with one of his friends so we will have a busy week here. Gil and Larry are here with their kids again - we taught all of them to ski or wakeboard last year so they are anxious to get back on the water. Darlene & Don are supposed to be arriving on Thursday so Marilyn will have a berry picking partner.

Lots of little projects behind us

We arrived at Al & Camiel's exactly a week ago and what a week it has been. I installed Jim Shepherd's temperature monitor system last weekend. On Monday I tried to install a 3 pole automatic transfer switch that I bought in Saskatoon. I got it installed but it was a crude affair and then once I had it in place it turned out that it didn't work. Not only that but it somehow affected our inverter to the point where I ended up taking the inverter out and taking it into Calgary for service. John determined that there was nothing wrong with the inverter but the transfer switch was definitely no good so off I went to Bucar RV for a new transfer switch.

On Tuesday I had a meeting in Red Deer. When I got back we tackled a messy job that neither of us wanted to tear into but both of us knew had to be done. For quite a while now we've known that the bathroom floor had "issues". We had tightened the toilet down a couple of times but each time it took less time before it started to flop around when we sat on it. Not a good feature in a toilet but what was more alarming was the odours that emanated from the toilet. It was becoming increasingly clear that we had a leak somewhere around the base where the toilet connected to the plumbing or the tank - we weren't 100% sure what the situation was. The stinky head came to a head a couple of weeks ago when we waited too long to dump the black tank and ended up backing the sewer up into the toilet bowl. That shouldn't have been a problem if the system was sealed but let's just say that it became apparent that the system was no longer completely sealed.

So Tuesday night we pulled the crapper out of the bathroom and then commenced ripping up the ceramic floor tiles. A couple of them around the toilet were already cracked and another one had cracked in front of the toilet which was just further confirmation that the floor beneath our feet was giving way. The tiles were pretty easy to lift where the floor was rotten immediately around the toilet but they were a serious challenge further out where the floor was still sound. We were pleasantly surprised once we got all the tiles lifted because while the floor was clearly in bad shape it wasn't so bad that we would need to completely replace it.

We ended up putting a layer of fibreglass cloth over the entire floor with double layers around the base of the toilet. I saturated the whole works in epoxy resin and let the resin flow to the low spots to fill up some of the areas that had rotted the worst. Once that had cured we poured about 3/8" of levelling compound over the whole floor which brought us back to roughly the level of the top of the tiles. On top of that we painted a rubber membrane. Then we layed vinyl flooring over the whole issue. Today Marilyn finished caulking the edges and I put the toilet back in it's place. Not bad for 4 days work.

I ended up making a rush trip back to Bucar RV today to get the gasket for where the toilet base connects to the floor. When I bought the transfer switch last Monday there was a girl at the parts counter who looked to be about 18. I wasn't wild about dealing with her but I couldn't find what I wanted so I asked her. She promptly trotted off to the back and returned with a 50 amp 3 pole transfer switch - just what I needed. So I wasn't nearly as nervous about asking her help today and she was just as efficient. We both looked directly at the gasket hanging on the wall but neither of us knew exactly what we were looking for so we didn't recognize it. She eventually found the part number online and matched it to the package on her wall. I have never had anything but excellent service from Bucar's and the two trips there this week were no exception.

Marilyn leaves for a return trip to McLean Lake tomorrow so I enlisted her help to pull the wire for the Trimetric monitor tonight. It looks to be a pretty straight forward install so I should have that done tomorrow night. I've been told that you shouldn't try to install solar panels without some kind of a battery monitoring system and that the Trimetric is the gold standard for those systems. We bought the parts while we were in Florida and had them shipped to Albuquerque. We've been tripping over them ever since so it will be good to have them off the floor and on the wall.

I got the oil changed in the cube van today - the genset is on the agenda for tomorrow. Then I have to crawl underneath the bus with a squirt bottle of soapy water looking for air leaks. And that should be the end of the list of little projects.

You think I could make this stuff up?

So we've got this woman in Nipawin who forwards our mail to wherever we may be. She picks it up once a week, sends us an email and if we think something might be important she will open it, scan it and email it to us. Otherwise I suppose it accumulates in a box in her kitchen and then after a month or so we send her an address and sometime later our mail arrives.

We knew we were heading to Airdrie and I had actually bought Jim Shepherd's temperature monitor and had him ship it here. So it was logical that we would also have our mail sent here. I gave our address as Bob Evans, c/o Growsafe Systems, etc. Alison had been very concerned that the shipment from RV Systems might not arrive unless it had both my name and Growsafe on the package so I was very explicit in my instructions to that effect.

When we arrived here Alison told us that we would have to go into town to the post office because they refused to leave our package here. Apparently Canada Post or the local carrier or some other busybody inside the post office took it upon themself to decide that I wasn't a "normal" recipient of mail at Growsafe and therefore they wouldn't leave the envelope. So we had this little claim form that we were supposed to take in, with ID, in order to pick up our mail. Bad enough so far but wait - it gets much worse.

Marilyn went in to pick up the mail. Of course she isn't an Evans so she knew that was going to complicate matters but she is so good to me and she knew I would likely stroke out on the spot if they did something stupid, which they immediately did. They wanted me to come in with ID that showed my name and Growsafe's address. Huh? WTF? I would have come unglued at that point but Marilyn stayed focused on the prize and asked them what other alternatives they had in mind.

We ended up with some official looking form that I had to sign that authorized Growsafe to pick up my mail. Then Marilyn and Lorry from Growsafe went in to the post office together, armed with the special form signed by me. That time they finally returned home with our mail. I really didn't think they would succeed and had already decided that I was going to go to the cops and tell them that someone had stolen our mail. And then make it up on the fly depending on where the conversation went. I was almost looking forward to it.