The Seabreeze

Another reason to visit Campbell River!

I have been wanting to visit the Seabreeze Food Truck for weeks now but every time I suggested it Norma was too busy, too dirty. too tired or some combination of all three. This afternoon it was her who suggested it!

It is situated down on "The Spit" and has actually been there for a few years. They specialize in hamburgers and fish and chips. Norma had a burger and even though the halibut burger looked tempting, I went for my standby, halibut fish and chips.

Was it as good as Dick's? Well it was a bit different that Dicks where the fish is battered while this was coated in a crisp "breading". It was very good, at least as good as Dick's and maybe even better! The fact that the Seabreeze has outside seating which Dick's no longer has and that it has a sea view may just push it over the top! Norma's bacon (hold the cheese) burger was, according to her, very good. The woman told her she would not be able to eat all of it and she was right, She brought 3/5 of it home. I at all my fish (two large halibut slices) but brought home half my fries and the coleslaw.

A very good "linner"! $16 for the burger and $18 for the two piece fish and chips. We split a bottle of water.

Alberta Oil Shortage

Who says we need Alberta oil to keep RVing?

Linguine With Red Clam Sauce

One of my most memorable meals was Linguine with Red Clam Sauce. It was many, many years ago, decades actually and I have no memory of where it was. My memory includes a gangster era dark, wood paneled restaurant with small candle lit tables with red checkered tablecloth. The red wine flowed and the jazz singer crooned!

I thought we had found an ideal spot in Vegas last year. The Bootlegger is a Vegas favorite that was favorably reviewed by CNN's Anthony Bourdain.  It had the requisite sultry jazz singer but the restaurant turned out to be over-lit and the tables were outfitted with white tablecloths. The paneling on the walls was not the dark shade I wanted. The food and service was "pretty good" but not good enough to replace my old memories of that long ago great meal. The Vegas meal included a glass of wine each and a coffee and liqueur after. The bill was $128 Canadian!

Tonight I found a recipe for this Red Clam Sauce and discovered I had all the required ingredients on hand. The recipe feeds six and there was only me as Norma hates garlic and I refused to leave it out. There will be plenty of leftovers.

It turned out to be delicious. Not too garlicky, not too tomatoy, just about perfect. I even had french bread to go with it. The total cost was well under ten dollars, a much better deal. No sultry jazz singer but I guess we must make the occasional sacrifice!

Thanks Mastercard!

I received notification this morning that a charge of $175 had been made against my Mastercard. This is a backup card that has not been used in some time so I called mastercard. They asked if I had been using an online gambling site with my credit card. I told them no, I certainly had not! They said their computer had noticed the unusual transaction and had refused it. Good deal!

The amount never appeared on my account and they have now cancelled the card and will send a replacement. They are looking after me.

Lots Of Nothin'

We have been doing a lot of nothing or at least not very much, lately. The weather is so much better, short pants and t-shirt temperatures. Norma and her friend Kelly have been busy in the flower gardens and the new lawn cutting service has the horsetails on the back bank under control. Flowers are starting to peek up from the dirt.

I have been struggling with a bad back and was pretty much flat on my back for a couple of days but I am feeling much better now, maybe 80% back to normal. If it had not improved by today I was going to go to the chiropractor.

I have been fighting with one of our Garmin GPS units that was due for a map update. It informed me that the 4 GB micro SD card I had in it was too small and had to be formatted before the new maps could be loaded. I told it to go ahead and format it but it said it could not (?). I went down to London Drugs and bought a new card but the Garmin could not find the card (!) I then tried to format the original card using the computer but again, it refused, I guess the card is shot, the computer seems unable to determine the size of the 4 GB card. I eventually found an old 32 GB micro SD card I bought on eBay some time ago, formatted it in the computer and put it in the Garmin. The new maps downloaded and installed! Success! We now have two updated GPS units.

I am getting ready to Game 2 of the second round Winnipeg Jets hockey game tonight. They did really great against the new Las Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday night so I am hoping they can persevere again tonight. Anyhow, that is my evening planned!

Expenses, Last Winter vs This Winter

Around this time of year I usually do a cost breakdown of our winter's travels. We did not travel this winter so I thought it might be valuable to explore the difference in costs staying home vs traveling.

It is a big difference.

First, one of our biggest costs last winter was my dental work in Mexico ($6,500) and I will take that out of the equation.

So the bottom line is, after taking out the dental expenses, we saved around $16.250 by staying home! The dates I used were November 1 to April 30.(6 months).

The big expenses we had last winter that we did not have this year were:

Medical insurance       $4,300
Motorhome Fuel          $2,000
Motorhome insurance  $700
Dining out                    $1.600 last year and only $220 this year
Groceries                      $4,700 last year and $3,400 this year
RV Park Fees               $3,500
Ferries                          $700
Hotels                           $300

RV, dolly, vehicle repairs  were $4,500 I excluded this in my calculations  It was an unusually expensive year in this category.

RV park fees were kept low because we got long term rates in Mesa, AZ.

There were lots of other minor expenses but these are the biggies. "Groceries" in the US includes booze. In Canada it is separate and I hardly buy any in Canada (still have left-overs from the US).

We have pretty much been hermits this winter and hardly went out for dinner at all.

Surprise Visit!

We had a couple of surprise visits from our niece Robin a few days ago! She lives in Alberta and was out here in BC to visit her uncle on her dad's side (me) and her aunt on her mother's side in Comox. It was great to see her as Robin and I have always had a close relationship.

We spent a few hours catching up on our lives and family and on Thursday night the whole group met down the beach at the Driftwood Cafe for dinner. It was a beautiful evening and a fun time was had!

Cardioversion!

Today Was The Day!

Cardioversion - done
A Fib - gone
Heartbeat - normal

The process started at 7:30 AM and took only a few minutes. I am home and feeling great. I can't drive for 24 hours as I am legally impaired but other than that, I am done! 

I had a really good nurse who stayed with me right through the procedure. He answered all my questions. Does this always work? He said stats say no but he personally has never been involved in one that failed. He said Doctor Dhansay is very good. The nurse stuck the electrodes on early as perfect contact is important. He wrote himself a reminder to remove them while I was still "out" as it hurts to remove them. He said I might have two burns (front and back) from the electrodes but there were none so the contact must have been good.

He told me if the first shock does not work they will probably give me one more at a higher voltage. Some doctors will keep going for several shocks but my doctor normally stops after two. They only had to give me one before my heart fell into "normal" rhythm. That was it. The nurse told me that when they shocked me I bounced on the bed and my heart fell into normal rhythm but I was not breathing which is not optimal. The anesthesiologist tipped my head back to open my airway and I quickly started breathing on my own. Everyone except me knew what they were doing! Thankfully!

 I had to lay there with the monitors attached for one hour and then for one more hour under observation. Another cardio technician gave me an ECG and then they let me go. The specialist wants to see me in about two weeks.

He gave me a coffee soon after I woke up and refilled it when I asked. In hindsight I thought that a little strange but maybe they wanted the stimulation.

Anyway, I feel great!

Changed Title of Blog

I changed the title of the Blog by removing the term "Mexico". It has been three years since we have been down there so it seemed appropriate to do this. It makes no difference to readers, the Internet address remains the same, only the title you see when you get here has changed.

Like Trump is so fond of saying, "We'll see how it goes".

Made Norma's Day!

Made Norma's Day!

Norma was at the local Husky / Mohawk station yesterday paying at the till when another customer came in to pay. The gentleman, about her age (mid 70's), looked at her and asked, "Would you go out for dinner with me tonight?" She said, "No, but thank you SO much for asking!" The clerk told her he was a regular customer and had recently moved here from Newfoundland.

She is quite pleased with herself! "Well, I still must look pretty good"!