Week eleven @ CMR

Sunday July 24th to Saturday July 30th 2022

Sunday morning and as I roll out of bed just in time to see Miss Laurie off to her shift at the campground store, there will be no catching up on the news this morning as there is no internet in the park, the internet had gone down at three o’clock on Saturday afternoon. And while as staff members we will definitely be asked about the internet being down and why and for how long we expect it to be down, and so far there has been no information regarding its possible return, I can only imagine the complaints that the office will be receiving. We have been relying on the campground internet for all of our entertainment and communication, and right now I have a blog sitting on my laptop that I have not been able to upload, and I fear loosing so much work if this drags on too much longer. If nothing more this proves again campground internet usually sucks! So I have ordered our own cellular hub from a Canadian reseller that should also work in the States, something I was planning on getting after shutting down our “Nomad Internet” service back in May, but I was holding off because we were making do with the park system (and saving a couple of dollars), looking at it now it was a foolish decision, as we have learnt that almost everyone else working in the park has their own network solution.

As we are hopefully through all our emergencies now, it’s time to get back to some more exploration of the island, so it is time to get the drone and video cameras charged up for some exploration. It appears that the weather is turning for us and we are expecting much warmer temperatures this week, maybe we will even get the kayaks wet, who knows.

Miss Laurie finishes her shift as I’m preparing to start my afternoon shift, the problem sites from last night have all been evicted so I’m hopping for a much quieter night. I start my shift in the workshop, my task which I was unable to complete last night is to pull batteries out of two of the new to us golf carts and to install them into the two seater Gem EV. It requires six twelve volt batteries as it works on 72 volts DC, so six 12 volt batteries connected in series (6 X 12 = 72). Our electric carts operate on 48 volts DC so they each have four 12 volt batteries, so to complete this task I’m going to disable two of the carts, so the shop is getting a little crowded with my project and not a lot of room for any other projects.

So after dinner, I close the pool and the clubhouse and take a tour around the park looking for areas of concern but all seems quiet to me so back to the shop and continue the battery swap. Then just before ten we get a noise complaint on site 8, now the workshop is about as far from site 8 as you can get, which means I will have to take my cart, but my gas powered cart is noisy, so I will park it at the pool area and walk to site 8, to be able to properly judge the noise, but site 8 is totally black and quiet, there are people at site 8A, but they are certainly not what I would call noisy. So now I’m thinking it was site 8 that was complaining about noise, so I speak with the people on site 8A and site 12 which is also nearby, and also has people sitting around, but still not what I would call noisy. I report to the office that I have checked the area and that all seems quiet to me.

After returning to the shop I get another call about noise, in the same area, so I head back down to site 8A, and again I find them around the fire making s’mores, some conversation but no music or excessive noise, I drive a dozen sites away and walked back to just listen, and as I’m standing in the front of their site, I can hear nothing but the occasional chuckle, so I report back to the office and kiddingly suggest evicting the site that is complaining, because there is still no noise issue as far as I’m concerned. I never heard any thing more and went back to work on my project for the night. I headed to the coach at eleven o’clock but sat and listened to my book till near midnight before turning in.

Monday morning and again I’m up too early, Miss Laurie is working in the campground gardens this morning then has five hours in the office, while this is my Friday and I have just one afternoon shift left this week. I spent much of the morning in the antigravity chair listening to the final few chapters of the Harry Potter series, with Mister Sam keeping me company in between watching the birds. Because we still don’t have any internet, I decided to work on cleaning up some files on my laptop, after lunch I unpacked the drone and sent it 100 meters (310 feet) just to get a little aerial footage, at 100 meters I was not able to see the highway in front of the park, but could catch glimpses of the highway north or south of us, and while I never moved far from directly over the coach I did see the river at couple of locations, and the mountains in the distance on the mainland. After a few moments I was able to work it back down through the trees and land it beside the coach.

My shift started at four and it was a wonderful quiet night, I was able to get my batteries reconnected and took the Gem EV out for a drive, I was looking to bring the batteries down enough to confirm if the charger built into the car would recharge the batteries, and I’m afraid to say that after all that time and effort the batteries are not being charged. A little history is needed here, the park used to have a 4 seat EV as well as this 2 seat EV, they had used them to show potential members around the park, since they no longer do that they sold off the four seater, but not before stripping a lot of parts off of it, then someone installed a bunch of new electrical components from the 4 seater onto the 2 seater, it apparently worked for a year or so then the charging issue started. Now bring on the new guy to try and figure it out, now if what I’m being told is correct than I suspect a faulty charger, but we have no shop manual on the charger to allow me to diagnose it, so I’m left searching on the internet for answers. A very quiet evening allowing me to head to the coach at eleven and head off to bed directly.

Tuesday and another early morning, Miss Laurie has traded her office shift today for one on Friday, to help out another member of the staff, and there is still no internet in the park as it’s only been three days why rush into fixing it now. Although they do have the office and store back up and operating online, too bad they don’t seem to care about the guests or staff, but there again most of the staff have their own systems.

I spent most of the day cleaning up file on the laptop, and removable hard drives, working on this blog on the iPad still holding out hope that I have not lost last weeks blog. As the days have rolled by that hope is sinking a little more each day, but it will be whatever it will be, Mister Sam is playing with his yellow (his favorite colour) spring in the clam, in between the birds at both feeders, it is good to just have a quiet day to kick back and sneak in a little shut eye here and there.

**I think they are checking out the camera!**

Wednesday and we are off on an adventure today, we are going to get our kayaks wet, it has been way too long, and now that we are getting some sunshine and warmth we need to take advantage. We are going a little more that half an hour down the road to Bear Lake, this little lake is more like a really big bend in a river, but it was teaming with wildlife I have done a separate blog for the Bear Lake kayaking adventure.

After our little adventure we made a slight detour into Duncan to pick up this weeks supplies, before heading back to the coach. We have had one air conditioner running to take the humidity out of the air, we are on a thirty amp circuit and but with the new SoftStart install, there has been no issue with the breaker. Well that’s not totally true, we have been using our onboard washer/dryer, as well as using the electric water heater, and because both of those items operated on the power leg feed that does not have an inverter to assist with any extra power demand, so we have kicked the breaker off a couple of times. The benefit of the hybrid inverter is that it allows me to limit the load on the power grid by assisting the demand with the power from our battery bank, the second inverter on the other power leg would be nice but not a priority at this time.

Thursday and because the kayaks are still in the back of the toad we decided to explore Fuller Lake today. Fuller Lake is a small lake that we have driven past multiple times as we visited Chemainus, there was a gravel boat launch that allowed easy access to the lake, motor boats were limited to 7.5 horsepower motors so there will be no noisy jet skies scaring off the wildlife. No here on Fuller Lake they have a children’s summer camp to make sure the wildlife stays away, the lake was also surrounded by a lot of residential properties, so not really an adventure worth more than just a mention.

We also took a quick look at Waddle’s Lake, another little lake just minuets from the coach, and while there was no cottages on the lake, it was just too small for any serious exploration. We took a quick trip down to Kinsman Park in Chemainus but with the tide being out and the parking lot being full of vacationers we decided to just headed back to the coach to spend a quiet afternoon, enjoying the sunshine, which was a long time arriving.

Friday and we both are working today, I have a day shift, so I start with the pool opening, followed by opening the clubhouse, then into today’s site cleanup, and with more that thirty check outs today, it keeps me humping till after twelve o’clock. Bruce was working on a campsite with the excavator trying to get it ready for the long weekend so I did all but two of the departure sites. After lunch I have some weed whacking that needed to be done (we always seen to need to trim around the pool fence on busy weekends), then some pruning, changing out a picnic table, exchanging some recycling bins and presto whammy I’m done for the day.

Miss Laurie on the other hand has the day from hell ahead of her, remember if you will the day she agreed to switch out with the other staff member. It earned her this Friday shift on a long weekend, with only a hundred guests checking in today. Her shift is noon till seven, so I’m thinking there could be a cocktail in her future, possibly even a second one.

I have finally got the television back online with the campground internet, it is still a crappy intermittent signal, but I have been unable get the WineGard back on the free connection, but I can at times get my laptop to connect to the store connection. I have a modem and router on order for the new cellular based system, but now I just have to wait. But we did get caught up on some YouTube videos before turning in.

Saturday and I’m on the afternoons shift and Miss Laurie has a float day, which she had planned to work around the gardens, but a sudden case of the long weekend flu and Miss Laurie has been asked to cover a shift in the camp store, it always amazes me how much illness there seems to be around us but we never seem to catch it (I guess those vitamins we take really do work).

I finally got a decent enough connection today to recreate last weeks blog, and allow me to get it published, the signal was not strong enough to upload any photos, other than the featured photo from the drone, I have never been this late on a publication time. Damn internet!

As I’m getting dressed for my afternoon shift, I have decided on wearing a pair of shorts, for the first time as I usually wear blue jeans, I’m hopefully that I won’t regret the choice. Because it is a long weekend my shift is till midnight an hour longer than normal, but this is also the first long weekend that has any warmth, up until now shifts it has been cool enough to even make a sweatshirt a very nice option. I also received a text from Costco that my new glasses are ready to be picked up, but it will most likely be Tuesday before I can pick them up.

I start my shift in the work shop, I’m back to work on the GEM EV, there is a second used battery charger on a shelf, so I’m going to switch out the charger and see what happens. The charging system just seems over complicated, the world has been charging electric golf carts for decades, so this should not be that difficult, the difference is that because it is built in, they have tried to make it way to complicated, by having a charge indicator on the dash that flashes green when it is charging, and turns solid green when charged, or flashes red if there is a problem.

The original charger just has one continuous flashing red lamp, after switching out the second charger although I’m still getting a flashing red lamp, this time it is a double flash which is indicating an actual fault code. So maybe the the single flash was also a fault code as well. and if so it the exact opposite code that the second charger shows.

After rechecking the battery voltage, which was 76.4 volts, which is a great number from six, twelve volt batteries. So one code showed high voltage while the other code shows low voltage. But both have a common point, that is the line “return the charger for service” so in my retired professional opinion there is a problem with both chargers.

I have also suggested purchasing a electric golf cart style battery charger, it could be wired in to charge the batteries the same as any other golf cart. In this case I believe the complexity of the system is causing more problems that it is worth.

The rest of my shift was just the normal hot evening items, breakers that had been overloaded, the recycling of internet antennas, unplugging toilets, selling firewood, closing the clubhouse and pool, and the regular security checks. As I went up the hill to do my security check I had a little company keeping an eye on me on my rounds.

Saturday evening of the long weekend was one of the quietest this year, and while my expectations would have been different I was pleasantly surprised.

Staying strong & positive!

Blog 432

Day 1762

Week ten @ CMR

Sunday July 17th to Saturday July 23rd 2022

Sunday morning and we awoke to rainy July morning, and while much of the continent is under extreme heat, we here on Vancouver Island are hoping to reach a high of 20C (68F) today. Mr. Sam has gotten his appetite back, but we are only able to let him have soft food for a few more days, obviously this is not a real hardship for Mr. Sam as the soft food was always his main treat. We decided that no more pain killer shots for Sam, as he seems to making a great recovery from his surgery on Thursday, Miss Laurie is working in the store today, and because of the rain and being a big departure day, she most likely will not be busy, and there is another problem with the POS (point of sale) equipment which has been creating issues for people using credit or debit card and in todays society no one has cash. Of course we have an ATM but it comes with a $5 sur charge on every transaction plus your regular bank charges.

So Mister Sam and I are just hanging out in the coach today, he is wanting to get out to the Clam, but its too rainy today. Although I did fire up the barbeque and cook up a number of items four pork chops, two pounds of breakfast sausage, and of course a hot dog for lunch. Because of working on opposite shifts it is easier to just reheat items for dinner, and when your heating the grill anyway it just makes sense to cook a number of items at the same time. Miss Laurie started some pasta sauce in the slow cooker before she started her shift, as it is cool and damp today it will make for a great dinner tonight.

With these afternoon shifts of mine we have been having dinner at seven o’clock, that time seems to be working out good at this point, I just take a half hour break in between projects, which breaks up my seven hour shift nicely. I still have not perfected the whole napping thing as well as either Mister Sam or Miss Laurie, but I should get three days off this week, so I have a number of things that I need to accomplish on my time off. This afternoons shift was another quiet one, with me spending most of the shift working on projects in the shop in between my lock up procedure and security checks, and I’m back in the coach a few minuets after 11:00, and listen to an audiobook till midnight, at this point I should be safe to hit the hay.

Monday morning and our life is almost back to normal in the coach, Mister Sam is falling back into his routine, although he is still struggling with the feeding arrangements, as he is still on soft food, so his regular food needs to be soaked before being dispensed, this time allotment for soaking is not sitting well with Sam, he has always been able to snack on his hard food when ever he wanted (grazing we called it) so now he is only able to eat as we allow. Miss Laurie is in the office today, again another long day with no break, it seem the only people that get lunch breaks are a select few, I’m sure that there are labour laws against this type of treatment but this is just a short term summer job so not really worth siring things up.

The sky is still overcast but at least its not raining today, and with Mister Sam is wanting to be outside big time, and although I will have to mop some rain water off the Clam floor, I think he will get his wish today, so I will load up the bird feeders and get the floor mopped up and move my blog typing to the Clam. The reality is I’m still working on last weeks blog, and I’m finding for the first time in my life I’m starting to loose track of what day it is, so me putting the day on the different paragraphs in these blogs is more for my convenience than anything else. I have one more afternoon shift today before my three days off, I have been making great progress on the Harry Potter series as I’m on book five now, and while I’m not looking for physical tasks today, I have not heard back from the body shop yet, so today I’m going to call the insurance adjuster to light a fire under some ones butt.

I did sneak down to the river today because as I was finishing last weeks blog, it was lacking a decent photo as the feature picture, and as much as I may seem to be complaining way too much, I have to emphasize this is a beautiful park and is in a beautiful area, and nothing the management does will ever change that, and to just sit by the river for a few minuets today seemed to make the whole stay a little better. And as I get back to the coach and I’m opening the Clam, I notice Mister Sam pacing on the coach’s dash. Still not real warm but I’m in shorts with a thermal shirt as we move into the Clam. The internet is crap today, all RV park internet is crap, so its just comes down to different levels of crap and todays level is some of the worst crap, so I have lost a few paragraphs of the blog because I was not able to save it to the cloud, but after recreating them I have to start doing a manual save after each addition, as it seems to be during the autosave that the issue shows up.

By noon Mister Sam who has been getting real tuna for his lunch is now pacing looking to get back into the coach for his lunch, but as soon as the tuna has been devoured it’s back to the Clam. My insurance adjuster is not in the office today, so I leave a message and send a follow up email, as we look to to the winter we may have a big adventure coming together for this November, so I need to get the toad fixed up before we head south.

The afternoon seemed to fly by, with Mister Sam chasing the birds from window to window watching all the birds at the feeders, and while he gets so excited then just a couple minuets later he is curled up on Laurie’s chair with his eyes closed. This is my last shift for the week and I’m really not looking forward to it, the park is quiet so there are no security issues, and all the maintenance tasks seem to involve painting right now, not one of my favorite tasks, but I will fill an evening best I can doing whatever I have to.

Tuesday and it’s my day off, Miss Laurie has another full day in the office, and I’m in the coach battling with the internet, to get some more information on the new tow-bar we are going to use to tow the toad this fall, the original was damaged in the accident so needs to be replaced anyway and I want to move to what is called a non-binding style. and that term just refers to how it attaches the toad to the coach. The original bar appears to be around nine hundred dollars, and the upgraded one is around one thousand, so no big deal to get the added benefit of the non-binding style.

As I have just suddenly realize that it’s almost noon and I’m still working on the blog, but worse yet I’m still in my PJs, Mister Sam has just wondered by and had a big stretch after his extended morning nap. But now he is wanting to get outside to the Clam and I need to get up and get moving as well. So I just throw on a pair of shorts and that thermal shirt and Sam and I move outside, I’m trying to clean-up the toad, from our time back at LHR it is still covered with droppings from the trees and then add to that the oil bath it received from the blown hydraulic hose on the coach in Washington State it is in serious need of a major clean up, so today will be a washing it and then I will start on the the tree sap and I learnt today that neither mineral spirits nor turpentine work for the tree sap removal.

As Miss Laurie gets done her shift we settle into the Clam for a quiet warm rest before dinner, its taco Tuesday and after catching up on the news we catch up on some YouTube videos, one of our regular watches (Nomadic Fanatic) is doing a blog everyday for the month of July, so we have been getting a real view into his life as opposed to the normal highly edited one, and The Wynn’s have just moved off of their sail boat after six years, so lots of things to get caught up on. And then almost amazingly it is ten o’clock and time for bed.

Wednesday morning and I’m up at 4:45, but had been awake for some time tossing and turning so I just decided to get up. I have been working on a number of blogs over the last month or so. and decided to take the time to finish one and add to a few others. Mister Sam has spent some time on my lap as I continue to peck away on the keyboard, which has been a welcome return to a past normal that I enjoyed most of the winter and has changed because of the afternoon shift hours.

Thursday and we have a trip to Nanaimo scheduled this afternoon, I have an appointment to get my eyes tested this afternoon, similar to back in Ontario, getting an appointment for any medical issue has become a major challenge, but a cancellation at the Costco has made one available, so with any kind of luck I will have some new glasses in early August, I had tried to get some glasses in the States but no one would fill my prescription as it was over two years old, and getting an eye test in the States was not easy either. And we are planning on catching a viewing of “Top Gun Maverick” while in Nanaimo, a movie that we have been waiting to hit the theaters for years now.

The morning was spent kicked back relaxing and as we prepare to head out to Nanaimo, I have heard back from our insurance adjuster, the body shop has not sent her any information yet, somehow I’m not surprised it seems to be an island thing, but she is going to call them and try to get things rolling. And as I’m working on this blog it is very obvious that I do need new glasses as I’m starting to struggle to get the type face big enough on the screen to see the punctuation. We decide to have lunch and head out as Miss Laurie wants to do a little shopping before my appointment.

Walmart, then Costco and I settle in for my eye examination, while Miss Laurie scouts out some deals. I’m not sure whether they will put drops in my eyes to dilate my pupils so I grabbed my clip-on sunglasses, luckily they don’t have to and all went well, I had my most recent pair of glasses with me as well as the second last prescription that I have been wearing for the last number of months. And while my eyes checked out good, with no old fart issues like cataracts or the like, but my prescription has changed, which at least makes me feel better about paying the $160 for the examination. Miss Laurie has been picking out glasses that she likes, so I try on a couple of pair and pick some steel frame glasses that come with a clip-on, I always purchase transition lenses but they don’t work worth a damn when driving, so $499 later I’m 10 to 14 days from being able to see again.

Top Gun Maverick did not disappoint, and I was surprised to see the theater pretty much full after having been released so long ago, but the theaters of today with the power recliners, and the great sound, made it a very enjoyable experience. We picked a 6:20 showing so that it would still be reasonably light for the trip home, and it was. Tim Horton’s has been advertising a peanut butter cheesecake filled donut, not a choice I would pick, but Miss Laurie thought it sounded pretty good so we stopped in Ladysmith to pick up a couple, but apparently to no ones surprise the advertisement was very misleading as Miss Laurie was very disappointed, imagine that someone being disappointed with Tim Horton’s, how unCanadian. But not hard for me to believe, right from their burnt tasting coffee to the mass produced factory donuts, that are re-baked, I’m afraid they have been faltering for years but people still go there, as at one time they were a Canadian company but know its owned by who know.

Friday and we both are back to the grind today, Miss Laurie is working in the gardens for the day and I have the dayshift today that will be made up of opening the clubhouse and pool, followed by the cleaning of campsites, to compete my morning. As I expect to have the expectation there will be a priority project to fill my afternoon, but we will see how that works out after lunch.

So it’s after lunch now and my project this afternoon is to replace a power post on site #37, the original post was a four by six wood post that I think was just being held together by the thickness of the years of green paint. The new post will be two lengths landscaping ties screwed together, making a wide enough post to hold the large electrical panel with a hydro (electric) meter mounded on top on one side and the water supply on the other. the thinking was that the pressure treated ties will stand up to the wet conditions better than painted wood. While not a nice task, it is one that I have become quite adept at since my arrival at the park, and after I finished this task I was left to keep my self busy for the last hour of my shift.

And I did so preparing for my next afternoon task, which would be switching batteries from a golf cart to the Gem car that is in the work shop and has not operated for some time. But with the recent purchase of some battery operated golf carts, now we have enough batteries to test the theory that the Gem just needs new batteries.

Saturday and today is Miss Laurie’s Birthday! And she gets to work in the gardens today, most likely not her first choice as how to spend her birthday, but a better choice than a shift in either the store or the office. I on the other hand now switch to the afternoon shift today, so there will be no taking Laurie out for a birthday dinner today. I’m working on the blog before using the weed wacker to trim the grass and weeds our site, and Mister Sam and I moved to the Clam, I loaded up the feeders to keep Mister Sam occupied, and then grabbed a sweatshirt as we settled into the Clam, July 23rd and I’m sitting outside wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, the clouds are breaking up but it is not nearly as warm as the weather people were suggesting.

Miss Laurie stopped for lunch at noon and as we look ahead to next week it appears that summer may finally show up after all, in fact there is talk of heat warnings into next week. There has already be a fire ban on any fire other than a campfire and the size of the campfire can be no larger than half a meter (20 inches) high and half a meter in size, so now I need a tape measure to check the size of campfires? Miss Laurie ventured back to the gardens and I was preparing for the start of my shift, and I’m heading out as Laurie returns.

Today’s shift will consist of working on the electric GEM car, which is a battery operated vehicle that uses 6 batteries to operate. This is a regular weekend so I’m not expecting any major issues, but there had been a campsite in the group camping area that the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) had to be escorted out of the park, that kind of action normally spreads through the park like wildfire, but apparently not everyone had heard. I had a group near the pool that felt it necessary to climb over the fence for a dip after the pool had closed, now possibly there could have been cocktails involved, but they had jumped out of the pool right in front of their site, so when I stopped at their site I suggested a quick shower could be a good area, since I had just added twenty cups of chemical into the pool and could cause some irritation on tender skin areas … then there was a party group that I needed to visit four times, and eventually had to be evicted a day before the end of their reservation.

So much for a quiet Saturday evening, I did not get a lot accomplished beyond answering complaint calls, and I’m thinking next weekend the long weekend could be a lot of fun! Oh yea the last piece of a annoyance today was that the crappy internet providers system had a total melt down failure, so another summer weekend with a nightmare for the staff created by the internet provider.

Just a week late! And no photos!

Blog 431

Day 1754