5C's Que Pasa

All I do everyday is deal with the must do’s. The priority was dealing with reservations heading south. I got the last site in our favourite RV Park in Las Vegas. I started by making a list of what is at the top if my mind, that is almost done with. Although I almost forgot about ordering pesos. Will do so next week. I have a large stack of paperwork from previous trips including a master list that I have yet to find. It has been two years since we prepared to head south so my mind is foggy. I didn’t even keep a daytimer in 2020. So I am now going though the 2019 one to find more to do’s. Lots of extras every month re filling tax reports for the business and other things.

Both woke up from a nap but one came out as a turtle. Carlie carried that blanket over her for some time. Cute.

Then I will go thru all those papers – hopefully I will have done some things. I do need to find my master list. A time consuming part is finding out what I need to buy before we leave, checking out the cupboards. New things, like this year the dog food including changing from puppy food to adult food in January. I did call the vet today to ask for some meds.  I always travelled with Metacam so I hope he will give me some, tick and flea meds, etc. It has been 4.5 years since I gave up my dog first aid kit, I will just have to go by the seat of my pants on this one.

A sweet photo from a few weeks ago. I often wonder what they would have done without each other.

Colin did find a generator that he will order online and pick up in Vegas. I will do as much shopping here as I can. We are trying to keep our stops down to nights in an RV park, fuelling the RV and last minute fresh food items and some wine which we will do in Las Vegas. Not to worry Kay, when shopping we plan to double mask.  We will not be seeing anyone, at least not planned thus far. Here in Canada we are masked anytime we enter through a doorway and we don’t eat in restaurants. Having our home on wheels will help keep us safe.

We also found out that that the RV Park, Tres Amigos on the Isla is going to be sure that everyone has been vaccinated. Although if people prefer to not wear masks and go to bars, etc who knows how safe it will be in the RV park.  We intend to keep to ourselves as much as we can.

Thank goodness Colin had done the majority of our fall cleanup before the border opened. The tree was full yesterday. You can see that the honeylocust is finally turning yellow. Oh I just remembered we still have produce in the garden beets and carrots. Can you freeze carrots?

Thank you to A Jame for the 12 volt plug idea. Turns out we have one. We do also have a proper inverter and can use it to certain extent. I will blog enroute but not as detailed as in years past. The pups will need attention as well. Meals will have to be planned so that they are cold or that they can be cooked over the propane stove top. Grilled cheese sandwiches and salad perhaps.  I just added make seafood chowder to the to do list.

Just another snap shot of the twins. That grate outside is covering a new hole that they dug in the lawn.

Tuesday we had a scare with Ciela sneaking down to the beach and eating weeds/crap off the beach. She came in and began gagging & had trouble catching her breath.  She would sleep for a few minutes and then wake up gagging. We figured that something was stuck deep in her throat. She drank lots of water and settled enough to eat dinner. Dr.Goggle said that if they won’t eat it is serious. But she seemed to improve as the hours went by.  Of course they slept with us. Today she is back to normal.

Are you getting ready for the witching hour?

The carpenter project got 80% done on Saturday and we have not seen him since. They left such a mess that Colin spent the full day Sunday cleaning up the house. Bits of this and that were strewn everywhere.  I am still finding bits on my desk that was used as a garbage can. Colin had given them one 🙄  So far the project looks really good except for the unfinished bits. 7PM now and we are are still waiting to see if he is coming tonight.

I hobbled out to get this for you at dusk. For those who want to know about Gus, the rest of the story will be coming once I have extra time.

Last night we discovered that we had no TV.  Very long story short – we were on the phone for three hours, we now have a dead Shaw receiver. Not only that the tech guy said we had to do a factory reset and of course we lost everything that we had taped including movies 👿  I spent another three hours this morning speaking to the powers that be and we are getting a replacement receiver shipped to us ( two week wait ) at no charge. I had no idea that you now have to pay$299.00 for a replacement 😯

Directly to the west. Usually I go to the edge of the lake to miss all the foreground but this was as far as my ankle would allow.

Of course my sitting at my desk is not helping my sore ankle. Yes it still hurts and I still limp. Nothing to do but keep pushing through. Once we leave I hope to be able to totally relax it. Usually I never leave the RV from when we leave here until we get to Vegas, so not too much walking involved. Good thing that we have a small house here as well. I have not even done 1000 steps today.

How many of you are planning to get a flu shot this fall?

So true as I was keeping my foot elevated.

The decision has been made. Colin wants the girls to enjoy the beach and not the snow. We are heading south to Mexico. But then yesterday my foot acted up again. Is this ever going to go away, it has been four weeks? So now we are hesitant. The last time we were to the Isla, winter of 2019, my knee went and I needed surgery.  I do not want another year of not walking the beach.  What to do?

Chewing bones in unison.

So I am going to baby my foot for a few days and see how it goes.  We do need to make a decision pronto. Colin has found a generator that we can pick up in Las Vegas. We just have to get through two nights of dry camping but we do have our Mr Buddy and the furnace. However we won’t have energy to run the computer = no blog, and will have to eat whatever we can make on a propane stove top. Hmm guess I will make a hearty soup to heat up.  Hot water for coffee will be heated on the burner.

These are actually mini antlers which are cut in half making it easier for small dogs to enjoy.

Thanks to a few people we have opened our eyes to a few RV parks that we were not aware of.  However I have not yet checked if they are pull throughs.

Plus much easier on the teeth.

So we need a few more days to decide beyond the point of no return. However I am proceeding as if we are leaving on November 11th based on weather.

The girls are being so very good through all of this construction upheaval as well as my obvious personal unsettledness.

We are in the midst of what was to be a smallish reno which it really is but the amount of dirt and debris is a real pain. If they finish tomorrow that will be the next post.

I did check with both workers yesterday that they were fully vaccinated. They were, thank goodness.

Taken just a few days ago.

This blog post was to discuss the possibility of shipping our RV and the Jeep across the border and flying over on a charter plane. Colin has been against it but because so many were doing it this year I did some investigation. Long story short, it would cost us $4,200.00. Gulp 🙁 It is cheaper for those just having a 5th wheel or a trailer and truck. We have two motorized vehicles which is more expensive. There is also a choice of a 3 seater or 5 seater aircraft. We would need the 5 seater because of the puppies as well as two of Colin’s guitars. He would not leave those two irreplaceable instruments in the RV and take a chance. So the short decision is no, we were not going to do that. We don’t have that disposable income and then what if the border should open shortly thereafter?

Mist on the lake left from the last post.

The girls are so enjoying the early morning sunshine.  Often they ring the bells to go out but once the door is open they look up and give us the eye. Way too cold for them.

This looks like a good app to download,  What3Words A logical choice.

Of course I heard the news online about the Canada/US border opening in early November. Thanks to the all of you who messaged, emailed, etc to let me know. You all want to know what we are going to do.  As this news broke I was busy concentrating on Mazatlan and the Isla, trying to find out how badly category 1 Hurricane Pamela damaged our second home.

We have not heard how La Cruz is going, there are a few RV parks there. Tres Amigos on the Isla is supposed to be okay.

Mazatlan had damage, some folks used boats to transit the streets because of the amount of rain. Some areas had no electricity while others did. Many businesses were damaged as were homes. Fortunately Pamela hit 45 miles north of Mazatlan which made a huge difference. On the Isla the electric went out right away and many still have none tonight. Most of the ocean front restaurants have damage including losing their palapas. Streets are damaged as well as some restaurants suffered significant damage.

Someone very kindly went and took a few photos of our site. Love you both and thanks ever so much. We have some damage to both palapas but from the photos it appears that we might only need to replace some palm fronds.  We just finished redoing the entire roof of both palapas in January of 2020. We were forced to leave mid March of 2020. It was a major expense. Because we could not travel last winter due to the border being closed someone else enjoyed our site.

We can handle this damage. However trying to find someone who is free to do repairs is another story. It is a bit worse than it looks and there may be more damage on top and on the back. But not anywhere near as bad as we had feared.

These girls have so much fun together.

So now the border is to open in early November. What is your definition of early November? I guess we will know next  Wednesday. It usually takes me a full 6 weeks to prepare for Mexico. It is a full two years since my mind was taxed with the preparation.  Can I get this done in time? There are three big challenges. The first is my having to reschedule two medical procedures, one that needs to be done in the winter. I had to book this a year in advance. The other is best done over the winter but perhaps can be changed, it takes six months to get an appointment. The second is crossing the mountains at that time of year and the third is finding a portable generator. Colin has been looking for months now and everything he finds is out of stock –  a normal thing since Covid.

The last time we went to Mexico, we left the 25th of October, 2019 and had challenges. I don’t have time to do “a click here” so here are the links if you care to check. The last one is related to the horrific weather conditions that had changed over night.

Rude crossing into the US.  http://www.contessajewall.com/2019/10/25/an-interesting-first-day/

The next day ended in the loss of our generator. http://www.contessajewall.com/2019/10/26/it-seemed-like-a-very-long-day/

This was the 488 mile travel day due to weather. http://www.contessajewall.com/2019/10/27/what-a-night-followed-by-what-a-day/

We certainly do not want a repeat of those last two days.

So Colin and I are about to enter into some discussions tomorrow. We agree that the generator is a must. I have to figure out where to get the energy to become organized. So many minute details to figure out. Going to Mexico mostly means heat, sand and a beach. Eating out is not an option because of the girls. They are not ready to be left on their own and not bark to bother others. My medical situation, etc. So you will have to be patient and see how it goes. Of course we will have  to wait for an opening through the mountains if and when the time comes.

Will this RV get on the road or not?

No those are not diamonds glistening on the roof of the car but frost. Two mornings in a row.

A pause for a cuteness break.

The past two mornings the cold air -6C/25F has created some neat looking mist over the lake.

This is my favourite photo thus far.

From Google….This particular fog, called a steam fog, forms when cold air drifts across relatively warm water. The lake water evaporates into the air above the lake surface. … The air is cooled and moistened, causing the dew point to increase. As the dew point approaches the air temperature, condensation occurs, forming fog droplets.

Meanwhile the snow appears to have arrived up top. It looks like it will be staying till the spring.

The girls don’t mind being outside in the cold but not for too long. Their feet get very cold and take a long while to warm up. Colin spent a good part of the weekend putting what needed to be stored for the winter away. Not much left to be done.

Yesterday after the first unexpected frost we went to the garden to salvage what we could. That is our zucchini plant, the one that Colin had fully cut down early September. It actually grew back, you can see the flowers. The dark grey leaves are from the frost.

In the bottom right hand corner you can see the tiny new zucchini growing. There are two of them. Why didn’t they grow during the summer so that we could have enjoyed them?

The large white bag is full of Swiss chard, the smaller bag is almost half of the second sowing of carrots  ( more to come ) and  next to them is the last of the cucumbers. The bowl holds the last of the tomatoes, we also have more tomatoes in the house in various stages of ripening. We still have parsnips, beets and carrots to harvest within the next few weeks.

Sadly in very recent news today….

Mazatlan and the Isla are about to be hit by a Hurricane, category 1 ( downgraded from a 2 to 3 ) but it could still intensify. The red area shows where Pamela will make landfall.

In this more recent projection you can see the the hurricane took a sharp veer to the left which makes landfill just a tiny tiny bit further away from Mazatlan.

To the right of the word Mazatlan in the grey section under the red line ( which marks the landfall area ) you can see the opening of the shipping channel and how it flows upward and then into the estuary.  The Isla starts at the lighter grey area ( across from the shipping channel ) opposite the letter ‘n’. Most everyone lives along the red line and between it and the estuary. All we can do is hope and pray.

Thanks to Joyce and Ken who live on the Isla for this image of the fishermen working to get all the launchas and pangas out of the water and tied down.

Although tomorrow is the actual holiday, today is the day that most celebrate.

We all have something to be thankful for. I appreciate each and everyone of my readers.

Not sure he has something to be thankful for.