5C's Que Pasa

We having been busy getting ready in a variety of ways for our upcoming trip.  I am so looking forward to heading out to the airport.  Up until yesterday we weren’t sure that we would be able to travel.  I have been dealing with a medical issue for the past three weeks which included medical appointments and a number of tests which all came back negative.  Sadly I was still affected with my symptoms.  A few days ago the doctor offered to write a medical letter to whomever so we could recoup some of our losses as we would have to cancel the trip 😥  Instead I took control of the situation and made some big changes in my diet and consulted our pharmacist. Fortunately with the use of an OTC medication I can still travel and resume tests when I get back the end of June.  However I fully intend to be able to function normally within the next week.  Right now I am just taking it half a day at a time.

The weather has has warmed up enough for us to put our pots out along the patio edge. We won’t be put the rest of our patio furniture out until we get back.  The lake level as you can see remains low.  It was two years ago this weekend that we were evacuated.

Last year we came within 1/4 inch of being flooded. I went with simple petunias this year.  Hopefully they will grow and be colourful.

This is the first time in two years that we have flowers and I decided to keep it simple.  The window above this pot opens outward and the pot is there to stop anyone from hitting their head on the window edge.  I am looking forward to see how they will have grown while we were away.  Six weeks is a long time.

Colin has been doing all the work under my supervision. Today he transplanted the tomatoes and one cucumber plant into larger pots.  I wanted them to have room to grow.  They will all be put into our garden once we get back home.  The tomatoe plant in the middle has yellow flowers already.  These will be taken to a friends home for her to water daily.

This morning Colin pulled out our luggage and discovered a broken wheel. This suitcase was new last spring and only used for four weeks.  Fortunately is has a ten year warranty.

He figured out how to remove the wheel. We just need a new one. He will be on the phone tomorrow morning  trying to get us a replacement.

Always something to have to deal with.  Fortunately we still have a week before we leave.  Hopefully that will be enough to get both myself and the suitcase fixed 😕

Back in March I talked about Cloii and then in April I shared some information on Channel.  This May calendar photo is a collage of the two of them.

Cloii wore the raspberry coloured collar and the teal collar was Channel’s.  Channel did sleep like that with her head on the floor.  Their noses are dusty in the photo top right as they were digging for crabs on the beach.  In the middle shot you can see how large Channel’s chest was.  I knit them each a blanket the same colour as their collars.  We buried Cloii in her blanket and I guess Channel’s was left at the pet hospital.  Colin did go back to settle the bill and to pick up a paw print in plaster they had done for us.  We had asked for some of her hair as it was so long & soft for a short haired doxie. When Cloii died in Mexico one of the RVers went to get some clay from a river and made a crude paw print for us.  I guess she had seen it done before.  So we have a very special unique memento from each of them.

With the paw prints and the doxie angels we have a small memorial in our  china cabinet. Channel’s hair is in the small tin.  I don’t think that we have opened  it since we put the hair in there long ago.

On our second last night on the road I dropped a Corelle dinner plate and it shattered.  You can read about that incident here.  Recently I have begun to try and find a replacement.  Not an easy task and none are in Canada.  What surprised me is that my pattern, Callaway, is considered vintage 😯

This single plate is$34.43 CAD with free shipping.

Or I could buy four plates for $98.82USD or about $133.00 CAD.

I could buy an entire new set of four place settings for only $67.00USD.

The top left photo shows one dinner plate for $44.41 CAD while the bottle right photo is showing four plates for $47.39, a good price but I don’t need four more plates, just the one.

And then I found four plates for $26.41 but the delivery to Canada is another $67.14 CAD.

Now this is great price but it is only the US.

It pays to shop around.  I think the best I can do is wait until early October and hope that some of these deals will still be out there, then I can pick it up as we head south in the fall.

Getting excited.  We are leaving two weeks from today. The research is completed and I am now dealing in details, such as sorting out the locations of the business class lounges in the various countries we will be in. We are flying back and forth between a few countries at our own expense on regular economy flights.  I am always amazed at how inexpensive travel is within Europe.  With the new no foreign exchange credit card we signed up for last summer we still have a total of eight Priority Pass lounge passes left to use by the end of June.  I now know where those lounges are located.  So even if we are only traveling in economy we still get to use a special lounge with all the perks.  Another thing to check off the list.  This trip is the last of our free travel points with Aeroplan.  I know I will be forever spoiled for future travel.

A week ago today we spotted this balloon coming towards us.

It began its descent which is where other balloons have landed in years past.

I was working on a few things for our trip when I realized that we will be sleeping in eleven different beds  😯 on this trip as well as two different airline beds overnight  😕 .  It is going to be an interesting six weeks.

But for some unknown reason it ascended again.

Then it began drifting closer towards us along the shoreline.

I still have to go through all my Airbnb notes to make sure I have the correct info on where to meet and what buzzer number I need to press.  In one place we need to go a block away to get our keys and then cart our luggage back to our apartment, a bit of a pain.

The balloon was now in the Kelowna airport flight path and the jets were having to  divert from their normal flight pattern.  What the heck is going on?

Moving further east but there is nowhere to land in this area other than where his first attempted descent was.  There are no roads around this area at all.

At least he is out of the jet flight path.  This is a new balloon to us.  We have never seen these colors here before.

I still have to think about packing but first I need to figure out the temperatures in the various areas we will be in.  Also I have to figure out what to wear on the flight that is both comfortable and respectful of business class.  Our flight lifts off at 9:30AM Tuesday May 14th and we don’t get out of an airport and into fresh air until 8:45PM on Wednesday the 15th, all local times.  By then we will have been in five airports.  Fun, fun, fun  😀

It wasn’t long before the balloon was opposite our home.

The balloon began to descend but again there are no roads in this area for the chase team to pick up the balloon and passengers.

I still have a lot of paperwork on my desk which I am not stressing over, it may or may not get done before we leave.  One thing that does need to get done is our booking of our RV park in Las Vegas the end of October.  They have become so busy that you need to book very far in advance.  So now I have to try and figure out when we leave here in the fall and the where’s and when’s.  I haven’t even left for Europe yet but need to start planning our winter trip 🙄

With our travel camera Colin was able to zoom in on the basket.  One couple and the pilot.  They are certainly getting more of a ride the expected with some adventure thrown in as well.

Still moving east.  That is our rec centre in the foreground.  The pilot is getting closer to a road.

We are continuing to work on decreasing our expenses as we head towards serious semi retirement.  If you recall, a few weeks ago I had an incident at the insurance office and with encouragement from Cheapchick I called back and we now have an $18.00 credit.  Also rather than just pay what our insurance company was asking for our business insurance we shopped around and got a few quotes.  We were able to decrease the company insurance cost by $750.00  😎

Finally starting what we hope is the final descent.

Just behind the house in front of us but on the other side of what used to be the railroad tracks but is now the new Rail Trail.

And he is almost down.  Can you see the tiny bit of balloon?

Wow that was fun.  I am happy to report that the plants we potted just two days ago are happy, we can actually see them growing 😆

Hope you all had a good day.

We didn’t get to bed till after 1:30AM Friday/Saturday so we slept in a bit.  Looks like we have some new visitors to the lake.  They were not cooperative in posing but they are beautiful ducks, especially the males.

We were about to head out Saturday morning to do a lot of errands when the phone rang.  It was our accountant.  Overall we are doing well.  We are getting a company refund mostly because our invoicing was less that 50% of the previous year because of the fires and resulting smoke.  But we do have to pay some personal taxes.  So between the refund and the payout we are only about $750.00 out of pocket.  Good to know before we headed out to spend some money.

Saturday was a very cold day between the wind and low temps. There were snow flurries in the hills around us and you could see some new snow.  That is, when the clouds lifted.

One quick stop we made was to see Kathy of Kathy & Eric’s Travels.  She had graciously offered to pick up that grocery item I had neglected to purchase before we left the US.  Mil gracias amiga.  They left this morning to quickly head back home as they were expecting snow up there on Wednesday.

We had one more stop and then finally we were home.  That is a lot of stuff.  We got things for the Isla, a new hose ( which we still also take to the Isla when we leave ), a few groceries, the final new sound system for the TV ( the one we had was a demo ) and odds and ends.  That teal bag holds some mango fruit punch tea and I even bought a new tea infuser at Stokes.

One of our purchases were shoes for Colin.  The colour did not come out correctly in this photo but in fact there are only two different pairs of shoes but two of each. The truer colour is on the left.  Regular price would have been $526.40 but we only paid $83.86 and can take them back if after wearing them in the house if they don’t feel right.  We saved $442.54.  That is an amazing deal.

Late this morning we headed out to pick up our flowers for the summer.  What a busy place.

So many colourful pots.

How cute! This was a very good dog. I only spotted it out of the corner of my eye. Our girls would have been running all over the place.

Hard to believe that this cost $189.00 but almost half was for the soil and fertilizer ( the latter for both here and for the Isla ).

It only took a few hours to clean the pots, add soil and plant them.

Because we have a frost warning for tonight and -1C expected for Monday night we put the pots under the overhang.  Just not sure if we should tarp the plants as well???!!?

My tomatoe plants and a cucumber plant. These will be planted into larger pots before we leave in a few weeks and then put in the garden the end of June.  Just not sure how to deal with the cucumber plant.  So many of the tags I read today said to plant them in threes in hills?  Any suggestions?

Looks like someone is enjoying our site on the Isla.  License plate says Texas but the RV looks European.  Notice how they have lights strung out as well as a hammock.  Not too happy about the latter as it means we have to paint the poles again in the fall.  Thanks to Joyce for the photo.  Joyce and Ken have RVed for over ten years in RV2 and also have built a home on the Isla.  They go between both homes, lucky them.

Saturday night sunset. Tonight’s sunset is almost identical.