Did You Watch It?

I did not intend to but I woke up at 3:00am to find Norma sitting up in bed watching "The Wedding". I watched until after 4:00 before I rolled over and went back to sleep. Norma watched until after 5:00. I think I got to see the good part(s). People spending way too much money (theirs and the taxpayers) on pomp and circumstance, silly hats and clothes that will never be worn again. Elton John and David were there along with a million Londoners in the street. They say an estimated one third of the population of the world watched at least part of the wedding.

Taxes Done! Phew!

This morning we tackled the onerous task of sorting through all six months of mail and pick out all the tax related stuff but we did it by noon. Then I loaded my TurboTax and started entering data. I completed both returns and then had it calculate the income splitting Canada now offers pensioners. It recommended we split a certain amount, which I did, and it saved us $500! I Netfiled the returns and then electronically paid what we owed. It cost us a couple of thousand (plus the few thousand already deducted from my pension) but it is done for another year!

Remember the old days when we had to go to the post office, pick up a return and then painstakingly fill in all the boxes and mail everything with a cheque? It is so much easier now!

Home Safe and Sound!

We left Brooks and Linda's this morning, stopped at our favorite breakfast place and drove home. We arrived at about three o'clock and flopped in front of our respective TV's, mine in the bottom room and Norma's in the bedroom. The house was left spotless by our house sitter. 

We drove home through the hardest rainstorm of the whole trip. It just teemed down for about half the way. A tough drive but it is nice to be home!

The TV broadcast is being interrupted to warn of tornadoes in the South USA where we just left. We got away in time! I will be doing taxes for a couple of days but then I will have something to add about the trip, I will try to do a budget and Chris has asked how many miles we put on the motorhome. I will dig up all that soon. Thanks for riding with us!

Route Down

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Route Home

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Made It Across!

We left the casino at about 10 and headed to Sequim ("Skwim") for breakfast. We found a great all day breakfast place there last year that had Crab Eggs Benedict but I passed this year because the price had gone up to $17, a little expensive for breakfast!

One quick stop at Walmart for a couple of things we forgot and then on to the ferry. Check-in time for reservations was 1:00 and we were there by ten to. It turned out we did not need reservations but there is no loss because they deducted the $17 fee from the fare.

On the Victoria side we showed our pile of receipts and tally list. We were only $50 over our $1500 allowance so it was no problem. He then asked about booze and I was again honest. I told him we were way over but all the bottles are partly empty and that we had two full  bottles of wine. He asked a couple of questions about it and was satisfied that we were not booze smugglers so after telling us about the disastrous gas spill into the salmon creek on the Malahat he waived us through and told us to have a good day! No search, no rubber hoses, no threats, just "have a good day".

We are at Brooks' and I installed the new TV in the front of the RV and Brooks helped me remove the outside stereo that ate CD's. It is a beautiful day here in Shawnigan Lake and we spent all day out in the sun. It is great to be back with our family and Linda's mom and dad are coming for the day tomorrow. Life is good!

Seven Cedars Casino

We are parked for the night less than an hour from the ferry dock at the Seven Cedars Casino (aka 7 Cedars Casino) on the Hood Canal. Norma is adding up all our receipts for the last six months, hoping we will be under the $1,500 limit for the two of us. It is going to be close which is usually good enough for the border inspectors. We are WAY over on booze but all but a couple of bottles are open and half empty. Technically they could measure everything and charge us $1 per ounce on everything over 40 oz each. They have never done that before but there is always a first time. They are mainly looking for sealed bottles that we could be intending to sell.

We took our left over USA cash to the casino. I only had about $10 which the slot machine relieved me of in about five minutes. Like last year, it never even gave me a taste of a win. It just took it as fast as I could push the button. Norma had more and she is still over there feeding the monster. She will stick with it until it is all gone. This casino is a great place to boondock but a very poor place to gamble. I never expect to walk away with any of their money but I do expect to get a little entertainment for my money. I figure $10 should buy me maybe a half or even an hour of entertainment by whetting my appetite with the odd small win. Here, this has never happened. I play 40 pennies at a time (some machines take 500 pennies per play) and it just takes it, giving me the very odd "win" of 15 cents. I usually have fun playing within my $20 self imposed limit, but not here. Still, it is a great place to park.

The fifth game of the Vancouver - Chicago hockey series is on at 7:00 so I set up the Starchoice. The Canucks are ahead 3 games to 1 and they only have to win one more to take the series. It would be nice if they did it tonight in front of the home crowd.

Chehalis Walmart

We are at the very RV friendly Walmart in Chehalis, WA. It is about two hours from our next stopover, the 7 Cedars Casino on the Hood Canal which in turn is an hour from the ferry to Victoria where we have reservations on the Friday afternoon ferry.

We got all our buying done today. First stop was Camping World where we picked up an RV toilet for Brooks' motorhome. While we were there we bought a hard wired CO detector for our motorhome. They are supposed to be replaced every four years and ours was over due.

Then we went to the last Walmart Supercenter in Oregon where we bought a new 26' TV for the front of the motorhome. I hoped it would just be a simple swap with the 22' one there now but it is not going to be that easy. I will have to drill a couple of holes in my homemade mount to make the larger screen fit without rubbing the ceiling. Not a big job but also not one I can easily do here.

I thought I would install the new CO detector but when I opened the box I noticed the manufacture date was 2009 and it was clearly marked, "Replace by June, 2013"! These things are $79 and I was only going to get two years out of it instead of four! We are too far away to return it but I will phone them in the morning to tell them I will be returning it in November. I walked over to Home Depot and bought a battery operated CO detector as well as a new "kitchen" smoke detector for $32 total. The "kitchen" smoke detector is supposed to ignore normal kitchen emissions to reduce annoying false alarms.

I was once exposed to CO poisoning when I worked. My workmate Pal Horvath and I were driving the Sno Cat up a mountain one evening when Pal suddenly asked me if his face was red. I glanced over and his face was beet red! I told him so and he said, "So is yours"! I stopped the machine and we walked around in the cold snow for a half hour until our colour had returned. Carbon Monoxide is an odorless, colorless, deadly gas and if Pal had not noticed my red face we both could have died that night. I had no sensation that I was being poisoned, we just would have "gone to sleep"! If you do not have a CO detector, buy one! If yours is over four years old, replace it!

All That Glitters

Gold has broken the $1,500 barrier. I am "in" gold stocks! When I bought in October of '08 gold was $718 per ounce and shares were $17. I should have bought much more. But then it could have gone the other way and then I should have bought less. Much less. Now gold is $1500 per ounce and shares are $70. It is mysterious to me that gold stocks have gone up much more than the price of gold. I do not understand everything but Life is good!

Hood River, Oregon

We finally dragged ourselves away from the hot springs and got away at 11:00. Last night the RV park manager came by to tell us to disconnect the water line as it was going to freeze. It was a good thing she told us or I would have had to deal with a frozen hose this morning.

With one stop for breakfast we had a long drive and are now in the Walmart in Hood River, OR. The parking lot is posted "No Overnight Parking" but there were two other RVs here and they said they were told to go ahead and park. The signs are there just in case they need the space and have to tell us to leave. No problem tonight though as long as we are gone in the morning. Life is still good but it would be better if it was warmer!

We have a little shopping to do in “no sales tax” Oregon. With our Canadian dollar now worth $1.05 things are really cheap! We will buy a new 26” LED TV for the front of the motorhome and a 22” for the kitchen at home. Brooks called to ask us to pick up a new RV toilet for him as they are much cheaper in the USA. The Walmart here just might get well compensated for their “free” parking!

We hope to make a reservation on the Friday afternoon ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria. We will spend the long weekend with Brooks and Linda before heading home to do our taxes.