Croft's Mexico

Navel Gazing

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:48:00 +0000

I am having trouble getting past the election.

I can understand why the 1% vote for the Right, in most cases it is in their best interest. But that should give the Liiberals 1% of the vote. The rest of their voters can be divided into a couple of categories, those who simply do not care enough to make an informed decision and those who somehow think that supporting the business class and the rich will benefit them. I guess you could say they subscribe to Ronald Regan’s “Trickle Down” theory even after it has been soundly discredited in the USA. Some others are simply locked into the ideology with the drilled in mindset that “Right is good and Left is bad”. Others, some of them normally intelligent friends, do not seem to fall into any category.

I supported Adrian Dix in his decision to not engage in the US style mud slinging that the Liberals employed but looking back, I wonder if taking the high road was the best decision. People vote because they are mad and perhaps we did not give our supporters enough to be mad at. Polls that showed the NDP with a seemingly insurmountable lead did not help either. I know many of our supporters did not think the Party needed their vote, they were going to win regardless.

What is clear, the NDP blew a lead, how big a lead is open for discussion. Norma blames the loss on 1) the inaccurate polls and 2) the strategists and organizers the party imported from Ontario to run the campaign. She has always said "Easterners" do not understand BC voters. She has managed dozens of BC elections and has won the vast majority of them, more than her fair share. Perhaps she should come out of retirement.

We need to do something. We can start by finding a way to convince young people to get involved, they made up a huge share of the 49% who did not bother to vote.

Clean, Clean, Clean

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Sun, 19 May 2013 20:52:00 +0000

It is almost time to park the motorhome. Our parking space is shared with the two cars and the dolly so the motorhome has to fit quite close to the hedge separating us from the neighbour. The rotten neighbour, not the good one. That meant a lot of work.

First the paved parking area had to be pressure washed. It had a years accumulation of dirt, grease, gunk and gravel that had been kicked onto it from the commandeered space between us and the neighbour's house. The "other" neighbour, the one who had the police pointing guns at him when we were away. We have four neighbours, not counting the one at the back who is too far away to matter, This neighbours house used to be owned by our friends, Dave and Doris, and we made the agreement with them. We could use the eight or ten feet of space in front of the parking area for the dolly and to park the front ends of our vehicles on and they could use the five feet of extra lawn area behind our shed. A good agreement for everyone as both respective spaces are unused by and useless to their owners. We have not talked to the guy with the police problem, I haven't even met them. I talked to someone downtown who claimed to know the current out of town owners (it is a rental) and they said the guy was was standing either on his porch or in his front yard waving a gun at passing traffic. Probably a common occurrence in the USA, but not here in Canada, it makes you stand out. In fact it got the RCMP SWAT team pointing their guns over our fence and yelling orders at him to come out.

Just a note, we are not on the "wrong side of the tracks" here. This sort of thing is pretty much a once or twice in a lifetime thing. I hope.

We finished pressure washing the parking area and then decided to wash the side of the motorhome that would be against the hedge. It is not really accessible once it is parked there so now was the time. We added the front and back and then decided, what the heck, we may as well do the whole thing. It hadn't been washed since Las Vegas and had tons of bugs embedded in the front.

That got done and then we decided that as long as we have the pressure washer and bucket out, we may as well do the house windows.

We have tried everything with the house windows over the years. The house is only a hundred and twenty feet or so from the ocean and we get a lot of salt spray. We started using Windex and paper towels but that only spread the dirt around. We eventually tried a professional and watched carefully how he did it. He used Dove dish soap in a bucket of warm water and scrubbed the windows with a brush on a pole, much like the brush we use to wash the motorhome. That is now our preferred method. Brush on Dove and rinse. It does a good job and does not even need drying. Mind you, we have very good tap water here in Campbell River so no streaking or water spots.

So that is what we are going to do after this coffee/Blogging break. A busy Sunday. It is what people who do not go to church do on Sundays.

I am getting over the election loss. Slowly. Not happy about it. Except for that, Life is Good.

Price Of Gas

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:40:00 +0000

Expecting gas prices to be high in Canada, we topped off both the motorhome and Honda before we boarded the ferry in Port Angeles, WA. It was good we did because gas was $1.35 per liter in Victoria and $1.24 in Campbell River when we got there. Since then prices rose steadily and local stations are now demanding $1.43 here in Campbell River.

This works out to $5.25 CAN ($5.11 USA) per US gallon.

The mororhome is parked, probably for the summer with about a half a tank in it That will let me run the generator for it's requisite hour per month. In the fall I will add $100 worth and that will get us back to the USA. We have to keep the level above 1/4 to allow use of the generator in the ferry lineup the night before we sail.

Right now there are huge lineups at the border crossings every day by people crossing the border to fill up their tanks. It is kind of a break even thing when you consider the amount of gas you burn getting to the USA compared to the $20 to $30 you save on filling a normal size tank but people are trying to make a statement.

Officially Depressed

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:10:00 +0000

Well, the polls were wrong! The pundits were wrong, the press was wrong, even I was wrong. The last thing I expected was a Liberal Majority Government but that is exactly what the voters of BC decided to do last night.

What happened? Who knows. Whatever it was the result was people lying to pollsters and more importantly, young people staying home and not voting! The turnout was 51%, a very low number that should be up in the seventies. People said they wanted change but would not go out and vote to get that change.

The Green Party was the spoiler. They elected one member but came a strong third in so many ridings behind the NDP that if you combined the NDP and Green vote, it would have been enough to win all these ridings and would have put the liberals in second place. Green voters handed the election to the people they hate most, the Right Wing.

The Premier, Christie Clark, won a majority government but lost her own seat. They will fix this by asking another member in a safe seat to resign, creating a by-election that the NDP may or may not contest. My first instinct is to throw everything we have at this by-election and lock her out but I am not very realistic. By-elections are expensive and there are ridings where a liberal could not lose.

What is the answer? Maybe it is time to look at Proportional Voting. A form of that, "Single Transferable Vote" went to a referendum a few years ago and was soundly defeated. It was very confusing and few people understood it. Mandatory voting has been experimented with in some countries. Maybe it is time to seriously consider online voting as an option.

The only election I have missed in my life was one year when we were in Arizona when a Federal election was unexpectedly called. That was the only one. I cannot understand how you could justify not voting.

Well, I am heading back into my funk. See you soon.

Lets See How Close This Guy Came

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Wed, 15 May 2013 01:47:00 +0000

Threehundredeight.com posted this prediction at midnight last night, before the polls opened.

"E" Day Minus One

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:31:00 +0000

British Columbia votes tomorrow. Not me, Norma and I voted on Saturday in the Early Voting. We voted NDP. The latest polls show the race tightening up but Adrian Dix and the NDP are still in the lead. The Green party is taking away some traditional NDP votes and the Conservative Party is taking away some traditional Liberal votes.

Tomorrow will be interesting. The press is talking about the "Incumbent Effect" where last minute deciders will just vote for the incumbent Party because they are too lazy to look at alternatives. The BC "Liberals" have become so unpopular recently I do not think this will be too widespread. At least I hope this to be the case.

I am hoping that people who have traditionally voted NDP will do so again and will refrain from giving their vote to the Greens as this will only split the "left" vote and give us another four years of Liberal rule. That would be a disaster.

The race is tightening so if you have not already done so, get out tomorrow and vote for your NDP candidate. You will thank yourself when the results are in tomorrow night. You will be on the winning side!

A Taste Of "Work"

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Sat, 11 May 2013 19:27:00 +0000

Brooks had to put up the golf course net on Saturday. I had picked up this net from his supplier just north of Campbell River and the excuse for our visit was to deliver this net. LindaLee was working at her part time waitress job and I was there so, off we went. It was a 25 foot high, 60 foot long net protecting the front of a house built right on the fairway at the Arbutus Ridge Golf Course. Brooks is the only contractor "approved" to put these nets up so he gets quite a few orders and has the process down pat.

Before leaving, we welded together lengths of mat black powder coated pipes to form the four uprights and Brooks had previously buried and cemented in place slightly larger diameter pipes flush to the ground, into which these pipes would slide. On the way to the job we stopped to rent an orchard ladder that would reach to the top of the uprights. These pipes are chosen so as to not reflect the sun and cause distraction to the golfers. The net is also heavy black fishing net. These nets are expensive but is what is required by the golf course. Many residents have tried putting up their own cheaper solutions but have been ordered to take them down after complaints from golfers or neighbors.

We fastened the net to the tops of the four uprights before we raised them and dropped the bases into the previously placed larger diameter pipes in the ground. It worked perfectly. We then welded more lengths of black pipe at a 45 degree angle to the two outside uprights to provide support. It was then just a matter of attaching the net to the uprights using black tie-wraps.

This net will stop flying golf balls and will protect the homeowners from broken windows and dented siding and vehicles, the downside of living on a golf course.

The only mishap of the day occurred when I stepped on a piece of old chain link fence that was covered with grass and tore off one of my big toenails! Ouch! It was my own fault as I had foolishly decided to wear sandals while Brooks had his steel toed safety boots on. Oh well, it only cost me a teaspoon or so of blood and I got lots of sympathy from LindaLee when we got home. If I did this for a living I would have to take a little more care. Don't tell the Worker's Compensation Board!

Early Polls Are Open In BC

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Wed, 08 May 2013 21:36:00 +0000

Early voting starts today in British Columbia! Come down to the polls with us today and let's show those "Liberals" the door!

Voting day is May 14, but why wait? Norma and I will be voting for Adrian Dix and the New Democratic Party. Send your message to Christie Clark today. Don't let the door smack you in the a** on your way out, Christie!

I Live a Boring Life

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Wed, 08 May 2013 18:21:00 +0000

Nothing much going on. My niece Robin and her partner George from Alberta were up for a visit. They had just returned from a trip to Hanoi, Vietnam where Robin's daughter teaches English. They had a great time, ate wonderful food and met friendly, happy people. It was their first visit to a "Communist" country but they said you would never notice it. There was no military and little police presence in the city and surrounding countryside. They had a very nice hotel in a central location. The price was posted at $50 per night but they asked for and got the discounted rate of $35 for the school where her daughter teaches.

I just checked the price of a ticket and we could fly from Vancouver return for under $1700 each. I am getting travel fever. October is the month to visit as it is between the humid summer and the rainy winter. I have almost quit thinking of Mexico as "traveling" It is almost like a second home.

EDIT: Our Mexico RVing friends Kevin and Ruth just commented that there is an even better deal of $1000 each available! How do people find these rates?

We are driving down to Shawnigan Lake later today. Brooks is home from Fort McMurray for his ten days off. He and LindaLee have a couple of fencing jobs to do while he is home so they can't come up here to visit. One of the jobs is installing a net at a golf course and the company that makes those nets is here in Campbell River. I picked it up yesterday and will help him put it up while I am there. Maybe he will pay for my labour with a fancy breakfast.

Life is good!

Not Much Happening

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Sun, 05 May 2013 15:26:00 +0000

I have not gotten too far with the dishwasher installation. Robin, my niece from Alberta and her partner George dropped in on Friday. We had a great visit accompanied by fish and chips from Dick's down at the dock. They were in Courtenay for a birthday party and had a free day. It is always fun when they are here.

I got George to help me carry the old dishwasher out of the house and from there is went down to the end of the driveway with a "Free" sign on it. It dissapeared within two hours. Someone will either replace all the chewed parts themselves to get it working or remove the stainless steel for scrap.

Yesterday I screwed quarter inch plywood over every possible rodent size opening to keep them away from the new Bosch and will tackle that installation job today.

Dishwasher Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Thu, 02 May 2013 22:08:00 +0000

We drove down to the local Brick Store where the dishwasher was on sale. Norma immediately upgraded to the one with the stainless steel door for $100 more. That is OK, I would have done the same. So he starts doing the paperwork. Do you want the five year warranty? If you don't use it, you get the money back in five years in the form of a store credit. So it is like free then? Yes. Well, OK. Do you want to take advantage of our buy now, pay in 16 months promotion? Sure, why not? We can deliver it on Saturday, is that OK? That would be great, thanks.

He then handed me the invoice to sign and said, "Your total is one thousand three hundred and something. WHAT? The dishwasher was $699! What is that $299 charge? That is for the five year warranty. That is half the price of the dishwasher! Forget it, I will take my chances. What is that $199 charge? That is the "administration fee" for the "interest free" buy now, pay later plan. Forget it, I don't want it. I will pay for it now. What is that $99 charge? That is the delivery charge. Does that include disposing of the old dishwasher? No, that would be another $25. Forget it, my buddy with a pickup will do it for a bottle of beer and the old one can go down by the road with a "FREE" sign on it and it will be gone in an hour.

You really have to pay attention when you buy something in Canada. In Mexico if something is 999 pesos, that is what you pay at the till, 999 pesos. Not 1700 pesos. That would be dishonest. Here if is just, "Maybe he is not paying attention".

Anyway, we bought it. Anyone want some stainless steel scrap? Come and get it.

Dishwasher

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:54:00 +0000

Well, the verdict is in on the old dishwasher. The rodent guest chewed up quite a bit underneath it. Wire, rubber hoses and plastic parts including the pump housing (that is what was leaking). The estimate for the obvious repairs to the four year old Maytag is $450. There may be more things wrong that he will only discover after he does these repairs and tests it. We can get a brand new Bosch stainless steel washer on sale for $599. I guess this is the way to go. It's only money.

Political Sign Wars

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:55:00 +0000

The Provincial Election here in British Columbia is in full swing. Lawn signs are popping up. including a big one at the end of our driveway. Ours says "Claire Travina, NDP" (New Democratic Party). NDP signs are seriously outnumbered by the signs of the only real opposition, the Liberals. In this part of Canada the Liberals represent the far right. We also have a Conservative candidate but he will come in a distant third or forth (we also have a Green). Here in BC, all the "Conservatives" vote "Liberal". A bit of an identity crisis.

I noticed the Liberal signs as we were coming into town a few days ago. Their sign budget appears to be substantial but they obviously do not have enough people volunteering to sport one of their signs because most of them are in front of empty lots.

The Liberals will lose here, Claire will hang onto the riding. The polls say they will lose the Province as well as the people have not forgiven them for an outright lie they told during the last election. They swore they would not combine our Provincial Sales Tax with the Federal Sales Tax but as soon as they were elected this is exactly what they did. Public backlash and outrage caused the Premier to resign and there was a referendum to get rid of the new tax which passed overwhelmingly. The problem was, it took the government under it's new leader Christie Clark two years to change the tax system back to where it was before they messed with it. She in fact waited until the month before the election to do it, grabbing all the tax revenue she could and hoping the electorate would be thankful enough to give her another four years.

Christie Clark, the current Liberal Premier is a cutesy, chatty, former radio talk show host who reminds me a lot of Sarah Palin. Several years ago under a former Liberal Government our Provincially owned railway, BC Rail was sold under very suspicious circumstances. Government offices were raided, truckloads of computers and documents seized and ministerial assistants were arrested. Allegations of accepting bribes were made and the former husband of the present Premier was working for the eventual buyer. Nothing much came of it as the Courts were not anxious to embarrass the Liberals but everybody in BC could smell a big skunk when it came to the sale of the railway for millions less than it was estimated to be worth.

The leader of the New Democratic Party is Adrian Dix. An old friend of ours and a very intelligent, capable young man. He is the horse we are supporting. We were both way more active in the NDP in past years. Norma managed dozens of NDP campaigns all over Canada over the years and I worked full time on many elections, taking care of the finances. We were both on the policy making committees of the party, donating thousands of hour over the years.

Now we are backing out of the campaigns, leaving it for the younger folks. It is a gruelling job, putting in 14 - 16 hour days before locking up the campaign headquarters at midnight or later. It is a seven day a week job where you are constantly trying to convince volunteers that the win is worth the effort you are asking of them. Now what we do is support them, vote for them and write a cheque to the campaign. We are getting old!

Home Work

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Thu, 02 May 2013 05:21:00 +0000

We dug into the Job Jar yesterday and today. First was the dishwasher. Our housesitter reported that it leaks badly out of the bottom as soon as he starts it. Not being able to see anything obvious through the inspection panel in the wall behind it, we called the Maytag Repairman. Yes there really are Maytag Repairmen.

He saw nothing either and after analyzing the situation, suggested that it sounded like a rodent had chewed through the water line after the valve in the washer. He said the built-in unit had to come out of the cabinet and that we might want to do that ourselves as 1) it would take a long time at his high hourly rate and 2) he has a bad back and cannot lift. The wall oven had to come out first to give us room to lift the dishwasher up over the bamboo flooring we had added since installing it. I called my old workmate, Brian for help and after a lot of grunting, groaning and bleeding, we got everything out. I owe him a few beer! There was a lot of evidence of rodent activity in there so I suspect the repair guy was correct. He will be back tomorrow to fix it. If you live near the ocean in BC, you get the odd rodent.

Next was the shower head. When I turned it on this morning it sprayed water out over the top of the curtain. Not good. This was fixed by replacing the rain head. A fifty dollar repair.

After that it was a badly leaking drain in the main bathroom sink. I took the trap and riser out and found a clog in the pipe where it goes into the wall. I improvised a wire hook and got a lot of hair out before pushing the clog down the pipe and beyond my reach. I decided to try one trick before calling the plumber. We passed the garden hose through the window, wrapped a rag tightly around the end and pushed it into the exposed end of the pipe using the rag to form a watertight seal. Norma then turned the outside tap on full and I heard water flowing down the pipe. We had cleared the clog without a plumber! I reassembled the trap using some Teflon tape and added a wrap of Eternabond RV roof repair tape to a leaking factory solder joint in the drain pipe under the sink. No more leak.

Tomorrow I will replace the kitchen faucet in the motorhome that developed a leak over the winter. It should be an easy job as long as I can get in there and see what I am doing.

Turbo Tax

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:05:00 +0000

Well, I did it! I did our taxes! I just "Netfiled" the returns and got confirmations back. DONE!

I changed some of my gold (Precious Metals) funds over to something that was actually going up in value late last year and that generated a capital gains of a substantial amount of money that I have to pay taxes on. I hate it when this happens because I do not actually get to see, touch or feel this money, it just goes back into the portfolio ("The Black Hole" as Norma calls it). But I have to pay capital gains tax on it, in this case about $5000! Ouch! These funds have made nothing in the last year and have actually gone down significantly in value but looking back to when I bought them in the late 90's, they have almost quadrupled in value, hence the capital gains! Oh well, no sense in delaying the inevitable. "Death and taxes" as they say.

Well, at least it is out of the way for this year. Back to my house repairs!

HOME!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:46:00 +0000

We had a great couple of nights with LindaLee. It was the first time we have been with her for any length of time without our son around and we really enjoyed her. I can certainly see what Brooks sees in her!

We got ready and headed home at about ten, stopped at Campbell River's free dump site downtown and then drove home. I am parked in the driveway until we are unloaded. No rush, there is still lots of room to park the cars.

The house was left in pretty good shape by the house sitter. The drain is leaking in the bathroom sink and instead of fixing it, he just turned the water off. He emailed us early in the winter to tell us the dishwasher was not working and I do not know if he got it fixed. I don't want to try it until I talk to him.

Otherwise, the place is clean. He got Norma's regular housekeeper in before we arrived home.

We unloaded the necessities and I am flopped in my Lazy Boy in front of the big screen, waiting for the Canucks - Oilers game. Go Canucks!

Tomorrow we will sort the mail and I will start inputting our income tax information. Hopefully they will go easy on me!

The Rubber Glove Treatment

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 05:47:00 +0000

Not quite but almost!

When the ferry docked and we pulled up to the customs booth I noticed we had a female inspector. Sorry but..... they seem to take their job more seriously than the men. Just say'n.

She asked when we left Canada? November 9. What is the value of goods purchased? $1620, and we have a detailed list with receipts. How much alcohol? I know we are over the limit but they are all partial bottles, some almost empty and some fuller. There are four bottles of wine, nothing else is sealed. How many milliliters in total? I have no idea. How many bottles? Maybe ten, all partially empty. Pull over to the side there and wait for an inspection. Oh Oh!

They sent us over to the side of the parking lot and four inspectors went into the motorhome. Fifteen minutes later one of them came out and tried the car door. It was locked so he came for the key. He opened all the doors and the trunk. He then pulled a cart over and emptied the trunk onto it.

After 40 minutes two of them approached us. "Here's the deal" one of them said. "You told us you had ten partial bottles of liquor. Actually you have eighteen bottles and four of them have broken seals but are effectively full. On top of the four bottles of wine you declared, you have a five liter box of wine beside the bed". I told him the box of wine had sat in the sun for a week and was probably spoiled. Norma had told me to throw it out but I didn't because I wanted to test it first and had simply forgotten about it. Sorry, but I will dump it out now. This made him laugh. I knew we were OK.

"I had to ask myself" he said, "Are these two professional smugglers or are they just lazy? I decided you were just lazy. Too lazy to actually check how much booze you had. Real smugglers would not put it all in one place in plain sight, they would hide it under the mattress and in the laundry. You did not do that so we are going to let you off. Just remember next time. We don't really care about part bottles but a part bottle is maybe half full, not 99% full. For instance, that 1.5 liter bottle of vodka you have with the $15 price tag on it is worth over $55 in Canada. The difference is taxes and that is what we could charge you. Same goes for everything else. We are not going to worry about it this time but next time, be careful, you might not be so lucky".

Wow! I thought for sure that after tying them up for three man hours of searching we were going to get nailed. The one guy who dealt with us had a bit of a sense of humor, the other three had a more serious look. I told him it was a rotating liquor cabinet. When we ran low on something we replaced it and I guess it just built up on us. We shook hands all around and drove out, complete with the five liter box of wine, which I have yet to test.

We live a charmed life.

On the downside, the place was left a mess! They went through all the food, clothes, shower, outside bins, overhead, everything. All the pottery from Mexico was left unwrapped and everything they could not get back into the trunk, they piled on the front seat. Norma is not happy. I am just happy I am at LindaLee's and not in jail.

In The Ferry Lineup

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:07:00 +0000

We are in the ferry lineup at Port Angeles, WA. They measured us at 48 feet and the bill was $224 USA. We got here at 9:30 and the ferry sails at 2:30. We are guaranteed to get on.

After we parked and paid, we walked over to a little restaurant next door to have our last HUGE portion breakfast in the USA for a few months.

Norma is fretting around and making lists "just in case they ask us". My Virgin Broadband works here so I am playing on the computer.

Just a few more hours till we are back on Canadian soil!

Seven Cedars Casino

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:16:00 +0000

We finished our day parked for the night in the huge lot behind the Seven Cedars Casino on the Olympic Peninsula near Sequim ("Squim"). I love the drive here but the narrow winding road with ever changing speed limits is exhausting.

The Aboriginal band that owns the casino has a deal on right now. Buy ten gallons of gas at their gas station and they will give you $5 in free slot play and a $5 discount in any casino restaurant. We bought gas and took the receipt to the rewards desk. She gave me my $5 ticket for the slots and told me that as soon as I earned ten points to come back and she would give me another. Even a better deal!

I turned that free $10 in slot play into $19.90 cash and that added to the $5 meal discount bought us dinner at their little Italian restaurant. Well I had to add $10 of my own money but still a good deal!

I noticed they had a coin counter so we came back to the motorhome and gathered up all our USA change and I walked it back. She ran it through and handed me just under $25 for the coins.

We are trying for the 2:00 ferry tomorrow. We could not get reservations but she told us if we were in line by 10 AM we should get on. I am looking forward to seeing our DIL, LindaLee. It has been a long time!

Mt. St. Helen's RV Park

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 03:30:00 +0000

We decided to stop at Mount St. Helens for the night. The Mount St. Helens RV Park was listed as a Passport America park but is no longer. We got a night at the Good Sam rate of $27 instead of $15. Not so good a deal but it is a nice park, eight miles off the highway so it will be very quiet as long as the volcano behaves.

When I was getting the Starchoice dish out of the car. I noticed the electric locks did not work. I then realized the parking lights were on and the battery was flat dead! I must have hit the steering wheel switch when I was loading stuff into the car this morning. Luckily, I carry a battery charger with me so I hooked it up and it will charge tonight. We don't need the car tonight anyway. Life is good!

On to Washington and Home

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:21:00 +0000

It turned out the Les Schwab store is on the way out of town so we left that for the morning and pulled into Walmart after a stop at the Pendleton Wool Factory Outlet. Norma of course found some items we simply could not do without so we are a few pounds heavier.

Walmart did not have an RV bay in their lube and oil area so that is on hold again. We should have started looking earlier. We pass by a large Walmart near Portland, OR so maybe there. I want to get it done in the USA as it is much cheaper.

It was warm yesterday but turned very cold overnight! We might look for a Passport America park tonight so we can leave the electric heater(s) on all night. I miss Mexico.

We are going to try for the Thursday morning ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria. That will let us spend a couple of nights and day with our DIL, LindaLee in Shawnigan Lake and still make it home in lots of time to do our taxes. Brooks is working in Fort McMurray, Alberta and will not be home for a few more days.

Pendleton, OR

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:54:00 +0000

Sorry, no Internet last night. We stayed in Catfish Junction RV Park ("B" on the map) last night, a nice, clean $12 a night Passport America park. Very nice people and very dark and quiet. Until the wind came up at about 1:00 AM! It blew very hard for three or four hours and then died down. No problems except our bedroom rocking back and forth, and not in a fun way.

We got up at eight and headed for Pendleton and it's Les Schwab Tire shop and Walmart Superstore. I want to get the tires checked and inflated properly and an oil and lube done at Walmart. We will probably spend the night if Walmart is RV friendly.

EDIT: Yes, Norma found the Pendleton Wool Factory Outlet.

Mars Rovers

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 04:57:00 +0000

Just in case you forgot, the twin Mars Rovers have been on the surface of Mars for just under TEN YEARS and one of them, Opportunity, is still functioning! These rovers were launched on June 7th and July 10, 2003! They landed and deployed on January 4 and 25 of 2004.

Their goal was to cover one kilometer, performing scientific experiments along the way. It was hoped at the time that they would survive two to six months. These goals have been far exceeded with Opportunity covering 35.65 kilometers and Spirit, 7.73 kilometers before it went dead, probably from dust covering it's solar panels. This is an amazing feat and the scientists at Jet Propulsion Laboratories have a lot to be proud of!

This was a day off for us and we did nothing! We will try to make it to Oregon tomorrow.

Ely To Jackpot

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:52:00 +0000

It was a fairly short drive today. We got up at seven, made a pot of coffee and then walked over for a casino breakfast. $4.60 for a huge plate of eggs, hash browns and toast. Walked back and had a great conversation with our neighbours, George and Salli The Author's Road.com. They are touring America interviewing working writers. They are an interesting couple.

We then hit the road, intending to drive to Twin Falls, Idaho. Along the way, Norma started searching for RV parks in the area but nothing jumped out at her. She asked If I wanted to stop at Jackpot, NV, about 40 miles before Twin Falls where there was an $18 RV park at Cactus Pete's Casino. That sounded good to me.

There were small piles of snow along the side of the road and we drove with the heater on all the way. It spitted rain the odd time and I would not have been surprised if it had turned to snow, but it did not.

It was only about 3:00 when we stopped at Jackpot under a cold, overcast sky. There were some programs we wanted to tape so we set up the Starchoice. It started raining just before I finished. We relaxed a while and headed over to the casino at about 5:30. I put $10 into the penny slots and slowly lost it all while Norma put $80 ($20 at a time) into a Wheel of Fortune) and won $185. $100 profit, not bad.

We are now only 800 miles from the Port Angeles, WA ferry to Vancouver Island so we decided to take a day off traveling. We have six days to make it there and can drive the 800 miles easily in three or four so we can slow down a little.

The repairs to the propane are holding and we tried the generator once and it worked fine. So far, so good. Life is expensive at times, but good!

Yesterday's drive:

Expensive Day For The RV!

noreply@blogger.com (Croft Randle) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 04:39:00 +0000

We had an appointment for the propane leak at 1:30 Wednesday afternoon. We hung around the Oasis RV Park until noon checkout time and drove over to Double Eagle RV Service. We had to park on the street for an hour until our appointment. Norma wanted some coffee so she pushed the start button for the generator and NOTHING! I tried a couple of times and nothing for me either. Last time we used it, it was fine, maybe two weeks ago,

After my moaning and groaning it was time to move into the shop for the propane repair. It was the same line that was repaired 12.1 months ago by Camping World. The flair was bad again, cracked. This time he replaced the entire copper line and it stopped the leak. $90. Not bad.

I asked them if they knew where we could get the generator looked at and they said they did them. Great! Their Onan guy came over and checked things out, having no better luck than us. He opened the generator up and tried the start button on the unit – nothing. A couple more checks and he determined the circuit board was shot. Their local supplier did not have one and the soonest they could have one delivered was Friday, too late for us. He said Cummins might have one but I would have to go and get it myself. If I could come up with one, he would install it first thing in the morning.

We called Cummins and they had the circuit board so we drove out there to get it. The bad news is it cost $370 USA! We found the Road Runner RV Park near the RV repair place for a very reasonable $16 per night with pool and hot tub. This morning we were at Double Eagle RV repair for our 9:30 appointment and they started work. He replaced the board, I pushed the start button and it started! Success – short lived. He tried to turn it off with the switch on the generator and it would not turn off. None of the other switches would turn it off either. He told me to turn on the air conditioner and we discovered the generator, although it was running, was not putting out any power. Things were rapidly going from bad to worse! He told me the circuit board controls the output.

After a bit of head scratching, he determined that the new board was faulty and a call to Cummins told us they did not have another. Darn! “Well”, he said, “I have a similar generator that I rebuilt out back that has a new board in it. I will give you that one and I will send the bad one back to Cummins for replacement when they have one”. He called Cummins to make sure they would let me transfer the warranty from me to him. No problem.

That is what he did and it now started AND stopped and we had power in the RV. It worked! Their bill was $175 so that added to the $370 for the board came to $545. Ouch! Add the $90 Propane repair and it brought the total RV repair to $640, a sobering number.

It was noon when we got out of there and headed up I15 to 93 North. We got as far as Ely, NV and checked into the RV park at the Prospector Casino. It is a reasonable $15 per night and they gave me a coupon for a free Margarita, which by this time I needed! It was almost six hours on the road today.

It is ~~chilly~~ cold here in Ely at almost 6000 feet altitude! There is snow under the trees and on the surrounding hills. It is 59F at eight o’clock. We thought of going to the casino buffet for dinner but then decided to eat here and watch TV. Time to stop spending money for the day!

That is my story for today. I hope tomorrow will be cheaper!