5C's Que Pasa

This is how our RV looks parked in front of our home. There needs to be enough room for a fire truck to get through plus we are only allowed to be out front for three nights and a total of ten nights within a year.

About 11AM yesterday while Colin was washing the front RV window he realized that our wipers should be replaced as they were beginning to fray. Fortunately Lordco had them in stock in their warehouse and had them back to our local store here in Lake Country within three hours.  Great service plus they gave us a 20% discount, but it still cost us $77.00.

Beautiful sunrise this morning. I seldom see them as we don’t go to bed until late.

We were concerned about traveling during the wind gusts to 70 km/h and wanted to hit the road ASAP this morning.  Three weeks ago we had booked our plumber to show up at 8AM today to blow out our water pipes. Long story short he did not arrive until 9:30AM.  I was not a happy camper at that point.  Meanwhile we discovered that he had gone to another job first, so we used that time to move the RV and hook up the Jeep. We were trying to save us time.  Once he finally got to our home, I fixed Colin’s fruit and muffin for the morning drive and prepared our coffees.  It took 35 minutes for the plumber to do the job and we were finally driving by 10:15AM.  An unexpected delay.

Our Hawthorn tree has finally started to change colour in the past few days. Meanwhile the Mountain Ash has lost all of its beautifully coloured leaves.  We still haven’t figured out why it has no berries this year.

We saw lots of colours as we drove.

We made it to the border and were asked some interesting questions.  The usual about veggies and fruits and alcohol.  He did not seem to care that I had two declared bottles of wine plus four cases of wine with me.  No questions about meat.  However he did ask how much cash we had and then he wanted to know exactly how much in each currency, CAD, USD and Mexican Pesos.  He then asked if we had any Traveler Cheques or gold or silver or anything else of value.  I showed him my wedding ring and he said that they didn’t count those.  The final question was about drugs and narcotics.  I did see a large sign as we approached the border stating that cannabis was not allowed over the border.

We were then asked to moved ahead and to wait for the agriculture officer to board and inspect out RV.  The fellow was very respectful and polite.  So a few moments later a female officer approached the RV.  She went to the driver’s window and asked Colin if we had pets.  She then asked me if we had pets.  She then gave us a wee lecture about removing the sign we had in the window to please save our pets in the case of emergency.  Yes we have been remiss to to this.  By then Colin was sitting on the sofa.  As she entered she told me to sit down.  She then asked yet again if we had pets.  She proceeded to yank open the fridge door, good thing nothing fell out.  I had stated to the first officer that we had 2 -3 bananas and romaine lettuce. She asked me what else.  She was peering into the fridge and glaring at me.  Oh right, I had one half of a Walla Walla onion.  Sorry but I am human and I forgot.  She pulled out my veggie crispers which were full of cheddar cheese and things like veggie ground round, etc.  She never checked the freezer, good thing as something would for certain have fallen out and broken her foot 😯 She turned to us and told us to stay seated until she left the RV and only then could we get up and leave 🙁  I will say that she did have some attitude.  Her last question was ‘Do you have any other animals?’

Next stop was to pick up our new Corelle dishes at the ship it place.  It would have cost too much to find a few plates to replace our broken ones so I decided to make a clean sweep. This set is called Impressions Watercolors and I am beyond impressed.  I love them.

More vivid colors as we drove through Washington state. We even saw some apple picking happening.

Then the wind picked up and got more intense. Those round grey spots are tumbleweeds.  They just kept coming across the highway.

You can see several on the left of this photo just as they had blown past us.  That poor RV in front of us was having a difficult time.  It was smaller and lighter plus having a tow dolly with only two wheels on the ground it was being blown around a good deal.  He was really having a difficult time.

We ended up stopping shortly after after 3PM to warm up the left overs from our dinner last night for a late lunch. We hadn’t been back on the road for more than seven minutes when I heard a loud bang.  I exclaimed and then saw what I thought was an open basement door flapping in the wind in Colin’s mirror.  I shouted and fortunately a pull out magically appeared.

What a lovely place to have to make an emergency stop at.

Colin went to check it out.

Turns out that it was the fender that had come loose. Perhaps it was the wind. Thank goodness for Gorilla tape and we were soon on our way.

Not more than five minutes down the road Colin pulled over yet again 🙁  He explained that when he had gone out to check the basement door/fender situation he had taken the basement keys with him.  In the last few miles he wondered if he had lost those keys as the shorts that he was wearing were his work shorts and the pockets had holes in them. So he stopped the RV and there were the keys hanging where they should be.  Thank goodness that we did not have to go back and search for those keys.

By 5:15PM we were settled in the Moses Lake Walmart.  We were just heading into the store to pick up some fruit and wine when I turned and saw the sunset reflecting on the RV.

So here I sit with the generator running and a few heaters on.  It is cool but no where near as freezing cold as the next few nights are supposed to be.  Fortunately we have free Wifi from Walmart tonight.  I will deal with the weather tomorrow.  Time for more wine and dinner, almost 9PM now. ( actually 9:55PM with proofing but I have been eating as I work ).  Fortunately I had the forethought to put wine in the fridge at home for when we return April 1st 😳   Thanks for stopping in.

We drove 255.2 miles today. A short day compared to what the next two days will bring.

Here are some new things I have discovered in the past week regarding travel to Mexico.

Good news on the road conditions  traveling south from Nogales.

We had a friend cross the border last week at Nogales and drive down to Zihuatanejo, while making notes as to the condition of the roads.

What a report!!!! With the exception of one kilometer north of Hermosillo where you are sent over to the other side and it’s one lane each way, all construction is complete and all of the bypasses are done!!!

He did comment that there was a much larger police presence than he’s seen in the past and they were using radar guns. The roads are so good and so fast that they are enforcing the speed limits.

He makes this drive twice a year and in the past hasn’t really worried about his speed. This time he kept it to no more than 10 KPH over the posted limits and did fine.

This is the link to that excerpt.

Further more I was sent this video by blog reader Sandy who got this from her friend Lorraine.  It is a video on the new Hermosillo bypass. If it is not coming up properly on the blog email me and I will send you a different link.

October 28, 1914 – October 18, 2019

We were informed Friday afternoon at 1:25 our time that Mommio had passed away ( just as Adam our Telus rep rang the door bell ).  He was so sweet and offered hugs right away.  Colin’s bother and sister in law called to give us the news.  Colin had tried three times on Friday to get a nurse at the main desk but his calls went to voice mail.  It was the end of March 2017 that we lost our girls and found out that same evening that Mommio was in Emergency with serious issues.  Within a few weeks she was admitted to the home she has been in ever since.  She was not happy there and wanted to move on.  So now our dear Mommio is at peace.  She is now free to go wherever she desires.  She lived to be ten days shy of 105 years of age and was never ill.  The only issue she had was loss of hearing. We are happy that she is free of the home and she knows that we will love her forever.  We are sad and our hearts are heavy but at the same time we are happy that she is no longer restrained.  She had a very long life and at the end was totally aware of what was happening anywhere in the world.  Her mind was as sharp as her vision.

Mommio with Colin, perhaps 1952.

Colin and his Mom, perhaps 1963 or thereabouts.

We did some ballroom dancing at the Panorama Roof at the Vancouver Hotel with Dal Richards and other orchestras.  Mommio joined us late November/early December either 1997 or 1998.  We got dressed to the nines and danced and danced.  Mommio likely was 84.  Mommio was ageless.

Somewhere around 2003, with Dennis, her yellow napped Amazon parrot.  She is also holding a dachshund statue.  She used to have a standard female doxie called Venus.

Happy 90th Mommio. We gave her a sweater with 90  $5.00 bills pinned inside.

Still dancing at 90 years of age in 2004.

She came to visit us in 2006 here in Kelowna. We moved here the fall of 2003.  The girls loved being close to Mommio.

At 93 Mommio came to visit us again the summer of 2007.

One day during this stay Colin had to work and gave us each $100.00 each to spend.  I took Mommio to the casino.  It was the most fun ever and we both laughed and laughed.  After both making a pile of money on the quarter machines we moved onto the dollars slots.  We sat side by side and took our time and would count one – two – three and then hit the spin button at the same moment.  At one point we both hit the jackpot at the same time!!!  So we decided to tell Colin that we lost all of his money.  He said that was okay and as long as we had fun. Then Sshe pulled out close to $2,000.00 in various bills and threw them up in the air. “We won, we won she said”. I would give anything to relive that day with her.

The summer of 2009 when Mommio turned 95 she came out yet again.  She would stay in the RV on the lake site and we lived in our home across the road.  She loved her wine as I did.

We always had fun together.

Even our Mexican Red Head Amazon parrot Chiekka loved her.  By the way I took this photo, one of my best.

2009 was her last visit here to us.  We definitely made the most of it. Over the six visits we flew her out for she had unique and fun experiences each time.

The next year (2010 ) when Mommio was 96 Colin started visiting her in Winnipeg and treating her to a variety of restaurants including the Dairy Queen, one of her favourites.

Here they are in 2011 at the Fort Gary Hotel in Winnipeg.  They were both celebrating a birthday on the 28th of October, 97 years of age.

Mommio’s 98th in 2012.

100 years of age in 2014 at the Prairie 360 revolving restaurant.

Celebrating 100 years at the Fort Gary on the actual day.

The next year, 2015 and 101 years of living.  Again at the Fort Gary, her favourite place. A classy place for a classy lady.

Luciano, a long time waiter at the Fort Gary.  They truly admired each other.  He remembered her annual visits.

This was taken in October of 2016 and Mommio at 102 was still living on her own.  He retired shortly after this photo was taken.   A few months later, in March of 2017, Mommio was admitted to hospital from complications due to reactions to her medications and her not eating properly ( likely caused from being nauseous due to the medications ), a true Catch 22.

Celebrating her 103rd in 2017 at the home.

She still loved her wine.

Colin brought his guitalele in his visit honouring her 104th.  They sang and played and had a fabulous visit.

In his April visit ( 104 1/2 years of age )  2019, they went out to the mall, had a hamburger at McDonalds, had dinner at the Lobster House and enjoyed appetizers and wine at the Fort Gary Hotel.  As you can see they laughed and had lots of fun.

October 8th, 2019, ten days before she soared.

She was always smiling.

October 28, 1914 – October 18, 2019

Now that Colin has an iPhone we were working on how to transfer/ call forward it to our home voicemail while we are away.  It would not transfer.  We have been doing this for over twenty years now with no issues.  It simply would not connect.  In a nutshell we have spent at least 14 hours ( sometimes both of us at the same time, resulting  in  even more man hours ) over the past 2.5 days trying to sort out the issue.  We dealt with both tech support in the residential area and then in the mobility division.  In fact as I am typing this this evening a Telus technician is sitting at my desk trying to sort this out.  He has been on hold for close to two hours.  So far no go.  So in total we are up over 16 hours of hold time.

What beautiful colours.  Yes those are Christmas lights hanging in the foreground.  I have decided to add my fall tree shots into this post as otherwise it would be dry narrative.

Colin took the Jeep in on Wednesday morning to do an oil change.  It was a new Chrysler dealership to us ( there are two here ) and they decided to do a full inspection at no charge to us.  They discovered the differential oil was discolored and as we were towing the car a long way it was suggested we change it.  Likely it has not been changed in a very long time, if ever. So Colin dealt with that on Thursday morning.

This tree sits at the end of our street. You will see it change colours in this post.

Between us we took turns holding online with a variety of Telus agents for what seems like forever.  No go. Unable to fix the problem.

I had a medical appointment Thursday morning but managed to get my final grocery shopping done beforehand and just had to stop at the dollar store for Canadian stickers for the RV windows, the post office to mail a card to Mommio, a quick stop at Save on and then the bank.  I got to the bank at 2:10PM and it was closed 🙁  They had closed at 2:00PM so that all the staff could go do some community volunteer work.  Apparently it had been advertised on the bank windows, which I haven’t been to for awhile and website which I never look at.  Well I obviously would have to come back as we did need to get out passports out of the safe box.

Our Mountain Ash which only has ten berries this year. Last year it was loaded with berries.  We hope it is alright.  I haven’t had a chance to see how other Mountain Ash are doing in the area.

Back home to take over the Telus ( Colin’s cell phone provider, our home and separate business line provider and one of our two online email providers ) online hold.  Colin had to go to the dentist. By the time he got back from the dentist I was still on hold.  We ended that about 5:45PM.  Turns out I had been dealing with a tech agent in El Salvador who had been putting me on hold while she was on hold to her each people 🙄  She did leave me a message today that she had installed something that had repaired the problem.  It did not!

So today Colin headed off to see his chiropractor, he always likes to see her before we leave. As it turns out, he thankfully picked up a Papa Murphys pizza for dinner for tonight.  I headed out to the bank to do a few simple transactions.  I made a deposit, opened a second savings account, arranged for a post dated cheque to be deposited  for November 1st and asked for $100.00 cash.  I distinctly remember asking three times for my cash as the teller appeared distracted. My final task was to get into our safe deposit box to pick up USD, Pesos and our passports.  I also had two US one hundred dollar bills to put into our safe box.  I was being very careful of remaining within the legal limit of monies that we could cross the border with.

Just a few days with very cold temps has made a colourful change to the tree at the end of the road.

I got back home and realized that I did not have my cash 😯  What the heck.  So I called the bank and was transferred here and there.  Close to two hours later ( I was supposed to be working in the the RV ) I finally spoke with the teller I had dealt with.  Another long story short, she says she got flustered and instead of giving me the $100.00 in cash, she had deposited it into my account and then later, she had merely erased our $100.00 transaction.  What!!  So I asked her how was I supposed to get my cash.  Come back to the bank she said.  That would make three visits to the bank when I should have been able to so it all on Thursday.  So I will have to go back tomorrow.  I could not go back today as once again we were dealing with Telus issues.

Over the past week we have some some very low temps, down to -9C.  Can you see the frost on the roof? The white patches. That bit of smoke on the right above the roof is from a furnace vent.

We called Adam the onsite tech who was assigned to our case on day one.  It really is not his job and has nothing to do with an onsite visit.  We had already spoken with dozens of Telus people over the phone these past few days who were reaching out to others within their field. All part of the being on hold process was while someone was checking with someone else.  I just wanted to update him on how we could get no further but had figured out ( on our own ) a possible solution using Colin’s cell phone which needs to be shut down while we are in Mexico.  There should have been no need for a solution.  We have been doing this call forward to our home line ( which then sends an email of the call to our computer in Mexico ) for close to twenty years, if not longer.  Adam said that he had just had a cancellation and was in the area and would come over and work on the problem.  Wonderful.  However he ended up arriving at an inopportune time but we let him in and he did his thing while we did ours.

Love the colours in the tree at then end of our street. Now, just a few days later, the wind is blowing off the leaves.

Adam was here for close to three hours.  He spent the majority of that time on hold.  He finally decided to call another department who was able to do a few things for him.  I believe that he had been checking things online while he was waiting on the phone ( same as we had to do ) and came up with an idea.  We all cheered when he got the okay to install some sort of feature ( which we used to have – things are changing in the Telus world ) and then he tried it 💡 It actually worked 😀  To paraphrase Adam, it was a simple thing yet dozens and dozens of people (most of whom were techs ) and many hours were involved to no avail.  Well done Adam and thank you for your perservereance.

Our Mountain Ash a few days later and now the leaves are being blown off.

The sun was out yesterday morning.

We were all ecstatic at the results this evening, most especially Adam.  He was working with three phones ( as had Colin and I been ) as well as his laptop and giving it all of his knowledge and company connections.

Adam was so happy to have figured out the problem.  We sent him away with wine and beer close to 6PM tonight.  Hopefully he gets overtime as well and then gets to enjoy the evening with his wife once their four  😥 kids are in bed.  Thank you so very much Adam, Sara and the final lady at the end ( sorry I forgot her name, there have been so many ) who enabled Adam to try a few things and reach the ultimate success.

We had some transiting geese on the lake yesterday morning and I managed to catch them as they headed out, hopefully south.  In the photo they are heading north.

It really has been a beyond crazy few days.  Sadly I have not got much packing done nor loading and putting away in the RV.  Good thing we started a bit earlier this year.  So very many needless glitches.

We were fortunate to catch the beaver last evening as he headed back to his home.  Likely we won’t see  him again until the spring.  I hope that he has a good winter.

Isn’t nature amazing as is Adam 😎