An Irish Pub!

Yes, we have an Irish Pub here at the wedding! What is an Irish Wedding without a blow-up Irish Pub? Yes, that is a real Irishman in font!

Falling Laptop!

Disaster averted! As we were doing the roller coaster twister drive of highway 3 or 3B this morning the laptop fell from it's perch on top of the front fridge and landed on my head/shoulder/arm, bounced off and hit the floor. Hard. I figured there was no reason to panic, stop and test it. If it is broken, it is broken. Alas! When we parked I turned it on and it fired right up! And as a bonus, my Rogers Internet works in Crowsnest, Alberta, a wide spot in the road with a Tim Hortons and a Shell station with some truck parking! I needed the Internet to find the coordinates for the dish so now we can watch the Blue Jays! 

That old Toshiba is no match for my skull! Life Is Good!

Day Three Of The Epic Journey

Day 1 - Campbell River to Abbotsford, BC Walmart

Day 2 - Abbotsford to Princeton BC truck stop.

Day 3 - Princeton to Trail, BC Walmart.

Today was a brutal drive! I do not remember so many steep uphills and downhills! I had the Ford V-10 in "Haul / Tow" mode and it was working hard. It was brutally hot outside so the air conditioning was sucking power out of the engine and making things much worse. Even with the tow / haul function working I was still on the brakes too much on the downhill runs and they were hot! It was not a pleasant day and we went through about $160 worth of gas today!

We got to Trail at about 4:00, gassed up and found Walmart, It is still very hot and we are running the generator and air conditioning while we relax and make dinner. This trip is taking much longer than planned and we still have 800+ kilometers to go on winding, steep roads. We will have a better plan to get home!

Slow Trip To Alberta

We are on the mainland heading to our grand-niece's wedding on the 11th in Lacombe, Alberta. We are taking our time on the slow road, Highway 3 (Hope - Princeton Highway) which sort of follows the US border. We left Saturday, caught the 1:30 ferry and drove to Abbotsford where we discovered Norma's new phone was not working!

No Telus stores open on Sunday of a long weekend but we found a Source store (Radio Shack) where an obliging salesman had a look at it. He determined it needed a reboot which he did. It came back to life and he refused any payment. Nice guy and they don't even sell Telus.

Anyway, that took until noon so we were late getting away and tackling the mountainous Hope Princeton Highway. We pulled into Princeton at about 4:00 and are staying in a Chevron Truck Stop. My Rogers Interned gets no signal here but there is an A&W next door with free WIFI that reaches our rig. I repaid them for it's use by walking over and buying dinner to go.

Tomorrow we will drive as far as Trail, BC. It is nice being back on the road in the motorhome!

Birthday Visit

It was Norma's birthday on July 27th and on Monday Brooks picked Jayde up at the ferry dock and the two of them drove up for a visit. On Tuesday morning Sierrah arrived from Victoria with her other grandmother, Carolynn. It was so nice to see our two adult granddaughters together, something that doesn't happen very often. Everyone had a good time with lots of gabbing, food and fun!

Sierrah, Brooks, Jayde, Norma, Croft


Sierrah and Jayde taking photos in the garden


Sierrah and her two grandma's

Tim Hortons

Yesterday I walked the 3.4 KM return trip on the seawalk to Tim Hortons with no (very little) trouble. Made it there easy, sat and had a coffee and muffin, and headed back. I passed a bench and sat for a minute enjoying the view, continued on and about 200 feet from my house experienced the beginnings of a leg cramp. Hmmm, what's that all about?

My Exercise Regimine

Aside from one day it was raining too hard, I have been walking the 1.3 KM return trip to the mailbox every mail day (5 days a week) Since June 15. I have to admit the first day was more of a struggle than I like to admit as I had trouble walking a straight line and actually sat down on a park bench half way back home.

Now, I am blasting through it with no problem, am walking straight with a good pace and feel no need to rest part way. It is a revelation!

I am now wondering how I can increase my distance. There is a seaside park a bit further along so today I just might continue right past the mailbox and try for the park. Google maps says it is a 15 minute walk each way for a 2.4 KM return trip. Man, I am getting healthy, I wonder how much I weigh?

Oops, they are calling for rain this afternoon. It may or may not show up. If it is not raining I will head out with my phone so I can call for a ride back if needed. What's a little rain?

Edit: I corrected the mileage. A little problem with Google Maps.

Supporting The Evil Empire

It is with heavy hearts that we are watching the inhumanity that is going on in the USA lately. Concentration camps for children being set up at the southern US border, school children being slaughtered in their schools, idiots with "MAGA" hats on running around with guns. The First Lady sporting a Nazi Stormtrooper slogan on her jacket.

No one is safe from the tyranny. Today it is brown skinned people, Muslim or Hispanic, tomorrow it could be another color or race. Norwegians may be on some future list in the mind of a madman. Or English people. It is unpredictable and there seems to be no effective opposition to the current President.

Are we going to spend our hard earned money in the USA next winter? Not likely. We have to make a statement that what is going on down there is simply unacceptable and cannot be supported. We enjoyed our winters down there and have made friends with many individual Americans. It is not these individual Americans we have a problem with but is the leadership of their country. I know the $20K or so that we spend down there every year is just a drop in their bucket but we have to make a statement, no matter how small.

I don't know what the solution is. Many friends and our son say we should just fly somewhere in Mexico or Central America and rent a house for a few months. That has it's appeal but is not the way we like to travel, we like being able to move around and we like having all our "stuff" with us. Another possibility is to just hold our noses and drive directly through the USA, boondocking as we go spending money only on gas. We could be in Mexico in four or five days. The return home in April would be the same and would limit our exposure to the Death Star that is today's USA. Of course by then they may have concentration camps on their northern border.

The discussion will continue.

We Cancelled!

We had reservations at the Cluxewe Resort near Port McNeil, BC for next week. We had been looking forward to it and had plans to meet up with our friends Ken and Kris from Port Hardy. It was going to be a fun week relaxing on the water and a trip to their son in law's restaurant in Port Hardy.

However the weather has been looking worse and worse for next week and the final check this morning showed pretty constant rain with only a couple of days of no rain but cloud. It was also going to be on the cool side. Bottom line, we would be spending most of our time inside watching TV, if we could even hook up to the satellite from the well treed site.

So we bit the bullet and cancelled. We will lose our $32 deposit but that is just the way it goes. It was not going to be as much fun as we were hoping for. We will save the $200 in gas and the $150 we owed the park for the rest of the week. We will do it when the weather is better.

Wildlife!

Here I was, lazing in bed this morning at about 7:45 when I heard Norma outside yelling,"Goddammit, get out of here!". Hoping she wasn't talking to me, I peeked out the window to see her disappear around the side of the house. "What is it?" asked I, having an inkling of what the answer would be. "Deer in the yard" was the answer.

I quickly got dressed and went out to help with the wrangling. She had chased the two of them into the southwest corner of the lot where they could do no damage but also where it was steep, muddy and very hard for me to get to. Nothing to eat there but bush and grass, no flowers. We opened the gate and made our plans. I threw rocks behind them to get them moving towards the far side of the house and Norma followed to keep them moving while I positioned myself to keep them from circling the house again, a game they delight in. It worked! They went out the gate and down the driveway.

It does not appear they have done any harm to Norma's precious flowers or freshly planted tomatoes. We don't think they had been in the yard long but we have no idea where they got in! I will have to try to get up the bank and inspect the fence line. It is not an easy task!

EAGLE!

While I was back there checking out what I could see of the fence from the walkway, I heard an eagle squawk! It sounded close and when I looked up, there it was in the tree above me right behind the house! It was  a beautiful yearling, not yet with the white head feathers marking an adult. I went in to grab my camera and it was still there when I returned! Luckily I got a shot from the back because when I walked around the house to try from the front, she/he flew away.

EDIT:

We found the breech! It was in the rolling gate which is made up of a steel pipe frame with horizontal rows of tightly stretched stainless steel wire spaced one foot apart at the top and six inches apart at the bottom. The deer got his nose between two wires and just pushed his way through, stretching and displacing the wire. His brother/sister then followed. It must have hurt!