Turbo Tax

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!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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Mars Rovers

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

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: