Week eighteen @ CMR

September 11th to 17th, 2022

Sunday and I woke this morning to the sound of raindrops on the roof of the coach, we were not expecting rain so I got up at 6:30 to close the flaps on the Clam, since we purchased the floor kit for our new Clam, it holds the rain water if the flaps are left open. We learnt that lesson the hard way, having to mop up the rain water from the floor a couple of times, and of course as soon as I closed the flaps the rain quit, but I noticed our neighbour out gathering up his chair cushions as well, as there was no warning of this little rain storm.

It is hard to believe that it is twenty one years since the 9/11 attack on our neighbour to the south, and it is still hard to comprehend what we watched that day on the news. How could anyone hate someone else that much? Just one of the mysteries that I may never understand, I sure as hell do not always agree with everyone else’s opinions, but I can not imagine hating them enough to carry out some of the deeds that we constantly see on the news. Although we see it all the time now, whether it is a mass shooting in the States or a mass stabbing here in Canada, how does anyone have such disregard for a human live, or any life for that matter?

Well today is my first day working the new split shift that management has came up with, my shift today is 10:00 till 4:00 then 7:00 to 9:00, which is now a new daily shift for someone everyday, the two hours later it suppose to allow time to close the pool and clubhouse, along with the regular security checks, it also comes with the joy of being “on call” all night if any issues come up.

So I spent part of my shift watching the deer on the lawn at the entrance to the campground, there were five deer there at one point. Part of my closing process is to check that all the doors at the office are locked, but my trip up the hill to the office tonight came with some wildlife, always a bonus. I also found that as long as the pool is still open the two hours allowed is not enough, it may be enough time after the pool closes, and the 10:00 till 4:00 shift is crap, so next split shift I pull, I will be working 8:00 till 2:00 and then taking the afternoon off which will allow 5 hours before doing the lock up & security part.

My task today was to build a new wall at the back of the wood shed, ok but the wood shed isn’t really a shed it is just the space between two buildings, one made of cement blocks referred to as the “Jail” and the other is a wood structure referred to as the “Stable”, well the floor in the stable was rotten along with most of the floor joists, so the maintenance crew has been repairing the stable which meant shoring up the structure which caused the wall between the stable and the jail to become two inches too short. Hey this is my kind of task, and I was able to spend most of the day building the new wall, but I spent too much time watching the deer to finish the painting of the new plywood on the outside of the wall.

I got back to the coach a few moments after nine and we watched a couple of YouTube videos before preparing for bed at ten, just to get called out to guide an ambulance into the park, someone had fallen and needed to be taken to the local hospital, and trying to find a specific camp site after dark in this park is nearly impossible, so my task was to wait at the bottom of the entrance hill and guide the ambulance to the site. Then I return to the coach and climb back into bed for a quiet night.

Monday and I’m up at 6:30, this is my last shift before three days off, my shift today is just 8:00 till 4:00, Larry has pulled the new split shift today. Miss Laurie has a shift in the office again today, but manages to prepare bacon and eggs before heading off to her shift, I start a couple on minutes early because I’m not sure if Larry is starting at 8:00 or 10:00, so I open the clubhouse and head to the pool, where I’m met by Larry, he has decided on the early start to the split shift.

Today was a normal day, the pool opening, then the site clean ups, I had a complaint about a power supply from a camper pulling out, and while I thought it was just a big 50 amp trailer trying to work on a 30 amp site, when I checked the concern there was a legitimate problem with an open ground, so I switched out the panel with a reconditioned one. After lunch while I was finishing up a couple of small tasks I got a text from Miss Laurie that we had a visitor at the office, so I headed up the hill to the office to find Tim & Linda, our site neighbours from our time at LHR (Lake Huron Resort). It was a great surprise and certainly very touching that they took time out of their vacation time to look us up, just another example of the family that we have built from this lifestyle. Thank you Tim & Linda

Well I finished off my shift by cleaning the final site after a late check out and got the painting finished on the new wall, before getting back to the coach shortly after four o’clock. A catch-up on the news, Miss Laurie made pizza in the Ninja tonight, and we caught up on the YouTube videos before watching episode three of the rings of power, and heading to bed early tonight.

Tuesday, and today is driveshaft day, I will go to Nanaimo this morning to pick up the new driveshaft. But my morning starts near 6:30 as I find a couple of treats for Mister Sam, after which he heads to the big bed for a nap, while I settle in to the recliner to peck away on the keyboard and it’s not too long before Miss Laurie joins me and a cup of coffee follows shortly after, there was no blessing in this mornings coffee, and Miss Laurie explains that, “No more Baileys” until we are officially on Vacation, so about two weeks … bummer.

Miss Laurie made a omelet with chilies and feta, after which I head to Nanaimo and Laurie headed to the office for her shift today. The trip to Nanaimo was filled with lots of stoplights today, you never know how many you will hit but going from 90 kph (56 mph) to 0, then back to 90 gets old fast, there is nothing fuel efficient about this type of stop and go traffic. I picked up the shaft and $1200 and 60 minutes later I’m back at our site, now the joy of removing the old one and installing the new.

In the infinite wisdom of the Ford engineer’s they decided to make the driveshaft a disposable (unserviceable) part. Luckily some shop back in Ontario decided to reengineer the driveshaft to be a little easier on the pocketbook, so the $1200 was less than half the cost of a new Ford driveshaft, and this is in leu of changing for a $15 hanger bearing and a $50 universal joint, yea I’m sure that must had made sense to an engineer, because it sure as hell doesn’t make sense to a mechanic. But by one o’clock the new shaft is in place, and I’m in the process of cleaning up, after battling with 12 point headed 12 millimeter bolts, like why? Was there a surplus box of these stupid bolts kicking around or what? But it’s days like this that cause mechanic’s to drink … possibly in excess … jus’saying.

Now a shower and a shave to cleanup my act, and I’m now settled into the recliner with an ice cold Kilt Lifter as I try to catch-up with this weeks blog.

Wednesday it’s 6:29 and Mister Sam needed a treat, but I also realize that I have just completed 71 revolutions of the sun and have started my 72nd trip already. Today we are heading back to Nanaimo for another appointment for Mister Sam, apparently the veterinarian was a few dollars short on her all-inclusive winter vacation, well that may not be true but for a clinic that wasn’t sure if they could take Mister Sam on as a patient three months ago they have scored fairly well. So today they have to put him out to take x-rays of his jaw again, this is for the concern that his jaw is weakened, this kitty has been a major expense this summer. So for breakfast this morning Miss Laurie made French toast with sourdough bread, very good birthday breakfast.

After dropping off Mister Sam, we headed to a Nanaimo park called “Neck Point Park” it is a 36 acre park on the shoreline of Salish Sea, and besides being a popular scuba diving site it is known for its orca & sea lion sightings. of course none were sighted today but it made for a great little hike to fill in a couple of hours.

We decided to grab some lunch at a Pub that we had passed on the way to the park “Pipers Pub“, Miss Laurie had the fried cod and chips and I had a bowl of the seafood chowder, with salmon, cod, prawns, and clams, along with a 20 oz. Vancouver Island Hazy IPA. As we were enjoying a leisurely lunch, the veterinarian called to tell us that Mister Sam was good to go, oh he has another months worth of pills but other than that all is well. So after lunch we made it back to the clinic to rescue our kitty, and head back down the transCanada toward our coach.

**Check out the chunks of Salmon in that** ***chowder!***

We arrived back at the coach just before three o’clock, Mister Sam had an early dinner and headed to the big bed with Miss Laurie to sleep off the effects of the veterinarian visit, and I decided to catch up on the blog. We just realized that I have a day shift tomorrow, thank you again management for screwing up my schedule! And then I remember why Miss Courtney has taken a week to visit family back in Alberta so her shifts need to be covered, as she is the newest full time member of the maintenance staff.

Thursday and I didn’t have a good night, not sure if it was a touch of the flu or what, but it wasn’t a good night at all, I was up at 3:30 when the rain started and was still up at 7:15 when Miss Laurie got up as well. I was able to keep my breakfast down and headed to work at 7:55, the commute was easy this morning and I was checking the pool chemicals by 8:05, we are down to the last few days of the pool, as it closes on the 18th of this month for the year.

So today there were only eight sites to clean up, and as it worked out I didn’t have to clean any, no I spent the rest of the morning working on Larry’s golf cart. He had been complaining about it being hard to start for some time, but he had never asked me, to look at, he had changed the spark plug and the fuel filter, but nothing had improved. So a couple of days ago he couldn’t get it to start, and when I looked at it the carburetor was literally falling off, so I took the single nut that was left holding the air cleaner and the carburetor on and tightened it up to allow it to start and run. He only made it a short distance and we ended up towing it back to the shop, it just wouldn’t run, so on inspection today I found the fuel line between the new fuel filter and the fuel pump was kinked not allowing fuel to pass.

Bruce had ordered a couple of new cables for the throttle, so I changed them out (I’m not sure why other than I was asked to), the found a couple of 8 mm nuts that will hold the air cleaner and carburetor in place, I replaced the kinked fuel hose and started the cart, it is running but it needs new gaskets on the carburetor as the gasket is ripped allowing it to draw air and run too lean at this point. After lunch I replaced the fuel filter on the dump truck and then assisted Bruce is digging in one of their septic extensions, This week they had pumped our most of the septic tanks in the park, they had a couple of trucks here for Tuesday & Wednesday, luckily I was off so I missed most of the excitement.

I think it would be safe to say that most of the septic systems do not meet code, and most that are located in the forested part use a couple of plastic 205 liter (55 gallon) drums to collect solids and then they use what they call an extension as a leaching bed. what this extension consists of is a 3″ perforated drain pipe allowing liquids to run into a leaching bed which consists of a deep hole which contains a cubic yard or so of stone covered with landscaping fabric then soil, the concept is simple enough, and seems to work in most cases, as illegal as it may be. The problem arises when someone like us pulls in pays for full hook ups and after being on the road for ten day and tries to dump our tanks, and overwhelms the makeshift system, or you get the tank flusher’s who want to fill and flush their holding tanks every time they dump, the system just can not handle that type of surge of liquid even with the “extension“.

I get back to the coach by 4:10 and Laurie and I work on our southern route, so it appears that we have settled on a route that will get us to Yuma and allow for some exploration on the way, the basics are Hwy 101 down the coast of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California to just north of San Francisco. Then turn inland to Interstate 5 then south till we can catch Interstate 40 then east to Arizona and AZ-95 south toward our destination. It’s a little more complex than that but that covers the basics. For dinner tonight it’s burgers, since I now work the afternoon shift on Fridays barbequing is restricted to when I’m available, and that is tonight. After dinner and catching up on the news, we have started to watch the new series “A League of their Own” on Prime video, and having seen the original movie with Tom Hanks, I have to say it hasn’t been just exactly what I was expecting, but we are watching waiting for the next episode of the rings of power, and we turn in shortly before ten o’clock

Friday and I’m up at six o’clock, it was a chilly night but not too bad yet, it looks like we have another good week weather wise ahead of us and we have a couple of adventures planned for next week. But some how our streaming service is not working this morning so we decide to watch the Baja YouTube videos by Paul & Lorena. Ok some clarification would be good now, Paul & Lorena were a couple from Las Vegas that decided to go full time RVing and we had watched them as we were going through the same issues, Paul in a Canadian boy from the London area in Ontario and he married Lorena a beautiful Mexican girl from Mexico. We had met them in Niagara Falls in September 2017, and had spent a week with them in January 2018 in the LTVA in Quartzsite. And they went to the Baja over the 2018 – 2019 winter while we were in Florida, and we had planed to caravan with them to Baja winter of 2020 -2021, but because of Covid we had to cancel. But their videos are of many of the places that we will be visiting this winter so it was good to see what is to be expected

Well around noon we decided to call it enough, Miss Laurie made some grilled cheese sandwiches and Mister Sam and I had retreated to the Clam, I’m working on the blog while Mister Sam is having a nap in a chair, not a lot different than him having a nap in the coach but he loves to be out in the Clam. So as I look ahead to my shift I wonder what kind of a weekend it will be, last weekend was the full moon, the weekend before was the long weekend and now the Canadian Federal Government has decided this coming Monday should ne a national day of morning over the death of Queen Elizabeth II, so I’m wondering it that will make this weekend seem like a long weekend because all the public servants here in British Columbia are taking the day off as well so no school on Monday, I guess only time will tell, how may weekend warriors can take advantage.

***Mister Sam napping on a chair in the Clam***

Well my shift was a quiet shift tonight, the cold temperatures could have had something to do with it, 12°C (53°F) which seemed colder because the humidity is still at 73% after the rain, it felt darn good to get into the coach, shortly after eleven tonight. On my final round there were a few people out sitting by their propane fire pits, but not many and if my count was correct there are only half a dozen people in tents out there tonight. I spent most of my shift in the workshop cleaning up, they are preparing to shut most things down by Thanksgiving which is only about three weeks away, so most projects are outdoor projects that don’t real work after dark. I won’t be long out of bed tonight, I’m tired and I seem to have caught a chill, I’m going to need more layers for tomorrow’s shift.

Saturday morning and damn it is cold 9°C (49°F), I had enough of a chill last night that I turned on my mattress heater when I crawled in, and I had even set the space heater out to maintain a temperature of 18°C (65°F) in the coach. It was not heating when I got out of bed at seven o’clock this morning, but Miss Laurie had the coffee on and even without a little blessing it’s hitting the spot this morning. The sun is just peaking over the tops of the trees, and that wasn’t even in today’s forecast, but is a welcome sight as it warms the coach this morning, as today high temperature is forecast to be only 19°C (66°F) which is on the cool side as well.

Miss Laurie prepared a mushroom omelet this morning for breakfast, always one of my favourites, I have another afternoon shift today, and I believe today is Laurie’s last day in the gardens, they have cut her hours drastically recently, I’m not sure if it is really that slow or whether the people filling in for the manager are just saving hours for themselves, or trying to reduce costs, either way had we known we would not have stayed for these last four weeks, as this is time we could have spent exploring more of British Columbia.

I spent some time this morning going over items on the coach, a couple of tail lights that had a bad connection, I have turned the hurricane boiler back on, it hasn’t fired up yet but we will need it shortly, I repositioned the spare tire on the coach and have it secured properly in place now after exchanging the tire. I can not load up the road until we are done our adventures next week, the kayaks on the roof, the bikes on the back, and the scuba gear in the box, not that big of task so will be next weekends project.

This afternoons shift starts out with another task at the area referred to as the wood shed, there are two roofs that cover this area, there fore keeping the bags of wood stored there dry, there is river rock on the base and then just the two exterior walls of both buildings. But because the roof of the jail is a steel roof and the steel is just attached to 1″ X 4″ boards and it also has an overhang of over 3 feet so it is supported it by putting props on the stable roof that are extended up to the jail roof, because of the angles each one is different in length so it was a multi trip task. My next call was to check the septic tank on site 51, yes I know they just had the septic trucks in on Tuesday and Wednesday but in the normal “penny wise, dollar foolish” they had decided not to pump site 51, when they had the rest pumped, so now they can call the truck in again to pump it now.

The rest of my evening was spent cleaning up in the shop, and making regular security rounds, this weekend there are a number of older children in the park which are usually the problem ones, but other than a couple of small issues the rest of the evening was quiet, now it was cold as hell, but at least it was quiet. I finished my shift at eleven o’clock and was back in the coach moments later to find the electric space heater running, I had taken an extra sweatshirt after dinner so it worked out better than the previous evening.

On the road again in only ten days!

Blog 446

Day 1810

Week seventeen @ CMR

September 4th to September 10th 2022

Sunday and as of today it has now been 300 days since the Canadian/American border reopened, we are also down to 24 days till our departure from Country Maples Resort (CMR) and only 34 days till our passage back to Washington State. We are still in middle of the labour day long weekend, but we have survived the Saturday night which I had figured would be the worst night of the weekend. Miss Laurie has her regular shift in the camp store today, and I’m on another afternoon lock up and security shift so I’m going to try the pancake breakfast this morning. All the staff was invited to breakfast this morning, this is the pancake breakfast that they have been serving most of the summer, a couple of pancakes, two sausage, coffee, orange juice or a bottle of water. The pancakes were very good, light and fluffy, the sausage was a typical plain breakfast sausage, weak coffee, not a bad meal, but I still think $8 is a little rich, especially if your feeding a large family, but they have been selling a hundred plus breakfasts on most weekends. And as much as I thought Sunday was the wrong day, maybe it is a quick way to get a hot breakfast before pulling out for that 11 am check out time.

The rain has finally found us but so far it is just a very light rain, it will be enough to keep the dust down for the rest of the weekend but as far as helping the lawns or the trees, I’m thinking it just isn’t going to be any where close to enough to help. With rain in the forecast for most of the day it could be a good day for a couple of indoor projects, we have had an issue with the power supply to the front television area since, well since forever. There is only one receptacle there and as much as I added a six plug unit, because most of the items plugged in are transformers which are heavy, the have the tendency to vibrate loose on the road, meaning that after we stop I have to try and get everything plugged back in again to have internet or television. So I have purchased from my good friends at Amazon a small power bar with big spaces, designed for the transformers to plug in and can sit flat so as not to allow them to vibrate loose and fall out.

Well I got the new power bar installed and I suspect it should solve the issue of the transformers falling out over a day of travel on regular roads. It went well and seems to be reasonably well it has a total of eight well spaced plugs and has four USB ports as well because when ever possible I eliminate the transformer and plug into the USB directly. After lunch because it is a cooler day with some showers I attempted the afternoon nap again, with the windows closed, blinds drawn, and Alexa playing some smooth jazz, I think I did doze off for a while, then the rain quit and the noise started again from the mini putt course and I decided to work on this weeks blog. Mister Sam is not happy about not getting into the Clam today but it’s just plain chilly with the high temperature today only being 20°C (68°F) and mainly cloudy with a few sunny intervals, a breeze of 8 kmph (5 mph) and the humidity of 73% and we have only received 2 mm (1/10 inch) of rain. So I’m up now and dressed for work, blue jeans, and a sweatshirt should be appropriate attire for this afternoon, and we will have to wait and see what surprises todays shift brings.

Well it should have been a peaceful uneventful evening but there always has to be somebody to screw that up, and tonight was no different. Last evening I had a group of teenage girls that kept returning to the playground equipment after the closing time (dusk), well tonight guess what the same four girls were back, so this time I went to speak with their parent / guardian and that’s when I was verbally abused for just doing my job, another perfect example of “my little Johnny would not do any thing wrong!” so they threatened to report me to the manager, and I’m thinking great, we may be able to leave sooner. Anyway the rest of the shift had been ok, I assembled a couple of new picnic tables, and had also done my normal lock-up and security rounds to a reasonably quiet park. I was back to the coach by eleven and wrote up an incident report regarding the children and emailed it to the manager before turning in.

Monday morning at 6:30 and Mister Sam thought I should be up, and I conceded more because of a call of nature than Mister Sam’s urging, but I was rewarded with some kitty lap time which is always a great start to my day. So today is officially labour day, and there will be over ninety departures today, which should mean the park will be pretty empty, which should make the security issue much easier.

It was after 8:00 before Miss Laurie got up, apparently Mister Sam had rousted Laurie from bed at 5:30 for some snacks. Who do you think is in control around here? Do you think it could be a black kitty?

Miss Laurie is working in the gardens today, and my afternoon shift has be modified for this evening, as apparently today is a special day here at Country Maples, all the staff is having a dinner at the clubhouse today, hence why my shift has been modified. Today is what is considered to be the end of the summer season, so before the summer staff start to leave, there is a catered dinner for all the staff. I had originally thought I would just miss the dinner because of my regular shift but the September Schedule, has me starting my shift at 7:30 to 10:00 so basically it will be closing the pool, and the regular afternoon lock-up, and a little security. So now we start into a month of shifts that are all over the map, kind of like in the spring, as security becomes less of an issue, I will be working more day shifts as the start to prepare the park for the winter season.

Well at noon and I’m thinking my odds of being let go early are dwindling quickly, oh well it was good to dream. Mister Sam and I have moved to the Clam, it is a cooler day here on the island, the hot days of last week are now just a memory that is fading fast, but it is a beautiful sunny day, there is a cool breeze so I’m wearing shorts with a sweatshirt.

This evening is our end of season staff party, or I might refer to it as the “you survived party”. So all the staff and spouses were invited, the clubhouse was closed for this function, and it was catered by Sandy’s Ukrainian Kitchen, they are from Nanaimo, but also camp in the park, I didn’t hear if they were members but I would suspect they are, as that is the normal business trend here at this park. So after a happy hour from 5:00 till 6:30 followed by a dinner of perogies, cabbage rolls, and kielbasa was served, the meal was tasty and the servings were large, there was a strawberry desert, but I passed on desert as I had to leave early because my shift started at 7:30. The manager thanked everyone for working together, and said it was a good year for positive reviews, and I could see that there is a core group that have worked together for a number of years that also live here year round, and there was the others that were here for the first year and then a couple of outsiders from Ontario.

My shift this evening is only 2½ hrs. so I had the pool to close, along with all the regular lock-up items, the park is almost empty, I’m thinking there are only around thirty campers in the park, other than staff members. So as the staff had moved from the clubhouse to the mini putt course, I went to work in the shop assembling another picnic table stopping at nine while I locked up the clubhouse, before finishing the table, After which I made a final security round for the evening at around a quarter to ten, and only seen a couple of people huddled around a propane fireplace, so I headed to the coach to call it an evening.

Oh just as a foot note on the issue of the children from the weekend. And this may explain what is wrong with today’s society, the mother of one of the teenage girls (this is the same parent that verbally abused me the night before) told the manager that her daughter was just going to the washroom (all four times?), and was now having nightmares because of being harassed by the mean security man. So just like the child, this mother lied and twisted the truth to protect her little “Johnny“. Then people wonder why so many of the children today are such disrespectful little brats, and well while some might wonder, I think know why! The children may be disrespectful but they are just a creation of poor or in some cases no parental guidance, just shameful, to see and you know the world will be blamed for their failures as parents. But sadly there will be no early departure for me, so I can look forward for a couple more weekends of abuse.

Tuesday morning and it’s 7:00 and at just 11°C (51°F) the morning feels cool, no let’s upgrade that to cold, luckily for me I have this warm black kitty curled up on my lap keeping me warm because now I’m thinking I need to find the space heater if this keeps up. And as I check the forecast the next ten days are showing similar temperatures, apparently fall comes early to the island. Miss Laurie made a cheese omelet for breakfast and there is some Bailey’s in this mornings coffee, I’m thinking that Laurie is already thinking vacation mode, because that is our vacation tradition to start every day. I guess the advantage to being isolated on the island is that it has certainly cut down on our alcohol consumption, and this has been the loneliest seasons that we have experienced since moving into the coach, even worse than the winter of Covid that we spent in Goderich.

Miss Laurie has a shift in the office today, and Mister Sam and I are just going to kick back in the Clam today, it is a well known fact that it’s much better napping in the Clam on a nice sunny day then it is in the coach. After Laurie’s shift I barbequed some pork chops before we settled in to catch up on some YouTube videos before calling it a night.

Wednesday and it is early, we had planned to be on the road at 6:30 this morning, but it is 6:30 now and I just rolled out of bed, so it’s looking more like a 7:00 start time to me. Now you may be wondering why such an early start on a day off? Well it’s a funny story (NOT) Miss Laurie who is always so much in control of almost everything, has managed to misplace (lose) her passport so sometime after crossing from Washington state in May and now she has managed to lose it. And with our winter travel just around the corner (like 30 days) she needs to get a replacement, and if you have seen any Canadian news recently you will now that “Service Canada” has been backed up forever, with people wanting to travel again, the line ups are hours long. So we picked today to drive to Victoria which is the closest passport office to get a replacement, she had called Service Canada last week and was told that was the only way. So we headed to Victoria and got there shortly after 8:00, Miss Laurie grabbed a chair in the line that was most likely 50 people long, and the office doesn’t open till 8:30, and while the chair looked more inviting than standing, I decided to find a padded chair in the food court.

So the line moved quickly, and Laurie discovered that the required paperwork was the same that is required was for a new passport, so passport photos, a guarantor signature, birth certificate, references and the whole sh-bang. I was able to sign as the guarantor but for that I needed my passport number and the dates of issue and expiration, well my passport was back at the coach! I never thought about picking it up before we left, why would it possibly be the need? Well where you used to need a notary public stamp for verification it has been replaced with the guarantor, but the guarantor need to hold valid passport, so back to Chemainus to get my passport then return to Victoria to wait inline again, now the real kick is if you have everything in order then you get to get a number to actually see someone about getting your passport, thank you Service Canada.

Well Laurie has succeeded with the whole process, she has gone through the complete process, jumped through the proper hoops, and now just has to wait two weeks for the passport to be processed. We can pick it up from the Victoria office after 2:00 pm on the 21st of September, but you still have to wait in the line to pick it up. We stopped at the Costco in Langford to pick up some supplies, this Costco had both fuel and propane, which is an improvement over the one in Nanaimo, the size seemed very similar. We made it back to the coach by 5:30 and because somehow we had missed lunch I threw a couple of burgers on the barbeque for dinner. We discussed heading back to Botanical Beach tomorrow, i checked the weather it was looking perfect, but the tides were wrong with high tide cresting at noon which meant low tide was 6:00 in either morning or afternoon, exactly opposite to what would be ideal for exploration or viewing. So tomorrow will be a day of rest before our trip to Nanaimo tomorrow, a little television, before an early night.

Thursday and this morning of course I’m awake at 6:00, I guess going to bed early last night I must have got my required allotment of rest. This morning there was a little blessing in my cup of fresh perked coffee, and the smell of bacon for a bacon and tomato sandwich is in the air. During all the hub bub yesterday we got checking when things expired, and I found out that my health card and drivers license need to be renewed, this is suppose to be a simple on line process, so I started it this morning only to find out that I couldn’t get it to accept my renewal, so I called Service Ontario to get some assistance, I spoke to two people in my hour long wait and the end result was that I couldn’t renew because I have an “Air Brake” endorsement on my license. Just one more bump in the road, because apparently I need to rewrite an exam to prove I’m able to drive my coach.

As I’m on hold with for the license renewal thing it flashed across the television which was on mute that Queen Elizabeth had passed away, they had reported that she was not well yesterday but at 96 years old what would you expect. So to say it was a bit of a shock would be a bit of an understatement as she just greeted the new Prime Minister of England earlier this week. While she had no direct influence over Canada, the Monarchy has always been part of our Canadian history, so there will be a period of mourning I’m sure, and the worst part is that her oldest son Charles will take over the reign as the new King, and to say he has acted like a bumbling idiot in comparison would also be an understatement. And after 70 years of rock solid stability, this could be a major blow to the commonwealth as we have known it, as we had seen some cracks even before this.

So we have ventured into the new Prime Video series from the “Power of the Rings”, Amazon has spent some big bucks to bring this series to life and I hope my lack of knowledge about the original Lord of the Rings won’t be too much of a drawback to keeping up, so far I’m struggling a little with all the different players. So after the first couple of episodes I’m hanging in there so far.

Friday and with the new fall work schedule I’m on the afternoon shift today instead of the day shift, so it’s a bit more laidback this morning, a cup of perked coffee with some Baileys is a good start, in fact good enough to have a refill. Mister Sam has an appointment today to have his surgery checked in Nanaimo at 10:30 and he is now able to have his kibble back, he also got his rabies shot today, which may change our travel plans a bit as we had planned to be in the Nanaimo area on October the 7th for that to happen. But he has another appointment for an x-ray next week to check his jaw, to see if he needs anymore medication. A quick stop for groceries and we are back at the coach shortly after noon, and of course early afternoon and I get the email to tell me that the new driveshaft is in, I had checked this morning, hoping to pick it up while there for Mister Sam’s appointment.

We have received our quotes for Mexican insurance today, our regular Canadian insurance is not good enough for our journey to Mexico. So everyone that crosses into Mexico by vehicle needs to purchase this Mexican insurance and it can be purchased for a day or a year, and because we have two vehicles each vehicle needs it’s own insurance. Our cost for the trip will be $570 for both vehicles and that is for six months of coverage, we only need two months but after the one month mark it is the best deal that we could get. I remember paying $40 U.S. for a day a couple of years ago.

My shift today started at 4:00 and there are a number of changes since my shift last weekend, the swimming pool now closes at 7:00 and there are not nearly as many campers in the park, so most of my shift will be spent in the work shop, so tonight I assembled a couple of picnic tables, along with my regular security checks and locking up the clubhouse, and checking all other buildings. I stopped for dinner at 7:00 and Miss Laurie prepared some more fish in the air fryer, and the balance of my evening was quiet, other than another wasp nest that I needed to address later in the evening.

Saturday morning and I woke at 7:45 to find Mister Sam napping on Laurie’s side of the bed, it was a cool night, with clear skies, so at 9°C (49°F) this morning it has to been a damn cold night in a tent, we have a forecast high of 28°C (83°F) but these are the kind of wild temperature swings we associate with the desert.

This mornings breakfast was toasted bacon and tomato sandwich, then just kick back till Mister Sam and I make our way out to the Clam, and as we sat enjoying a warm day when the colour of the sky changed, and a golden glow seemed to take over. So I ventured outside to see a small pink dot in the sky, where the sun should be. We have been lucky all summer with costal breezes but this week the wind has changed to a offshore wind bringing it with the wildfire smoke from the mainland.

**Today’s afternoon sky full of wildfire smoke!**

It is a few minutes to four and time for my shift, I already know what is on my to-do list, I will be servicing a golf cart, air filter, fuel filter, oil change, and a new spark plug, then a picnic table or two. Along with closing the swimming pool, and locking up the clubhouse, there is a full moon but other than one campsite full of girls that has spent most of the weekend drinking, the rest of the park is quiet, and the girls seem to run out of steam fairly early, one of the hazards of trying to drink all day, a task that can be hard on armatures.

Thank heavens that school is back in!

Blog 444

Days 1803