5C's Que Pasa

It is a long weekend here in Canada and I decided to treat myself and stay away from the computer for at least 24 hours.  I mostly did stay away but a few times I did check emails.  It was a real freedom to just turn the computer off and do other things.

Because of the many ducks and geese and the mess they leave in the water many don’t swim in our lake. This fellow just bought the site two over from us,  the end of June and is really enjoying it.

Yesterday we deep cleaned the house.  What else are you going to do on a hot hot day with smoke all around?  Stay inside and clean.  We were most happy with how it felt once done.  Not so much this late this morning when I noticed a layer of dust on everything.  We generally only turn the A/C on about noon or 1PM and then shut it when it cools down to 80F about 9PM.  Then the windows are all open and when the wind blows, the dust comes in.  Of late we have had some soot and ash come in.  Not so easy keeping the house clean.

My self imposed task today was for me to clean out two  24 – 35 inch stacks of paperwork.  Meanwhile Colin cleaned out old files in his storage area. We never discussed this project but is just seemed to evolve on its own.  Bit by tiny bit, shelf by shelf, closet by closet, drawer by drawer we are going though the house and purging unneeded things and boxes of paper.

Long time readers will remember that I have had problems with burning eyes over the years. I found this special photo earlier today. Here I am laying on the bed in the RV on this Isla.  I have a warm damp cloth over my eyes.  As soon as I lay down the girls came up the ramp and surrounded me with love and protection.  That is Carmeh with her head on my leg.

Old letters and cards are being read.  Some are discarded but many are being kept to read and enjoy in the years to come.  Today I reopened an envelope post marked Dec 21, 2009.  It contained a $100.00 gift card for Earls restaurant.  No idea how it got lost in all the other papers but it was a gift all over again.  I re read wonderful cards from a dear friend who I met just before grade 7.  We don’t see each other often but she always sends wonderful greeting cards with every space covered with her thoughts.  So very special to read them again.  Of course they are going into the re read pile in a few years.  I also found a postcard that my Mom had sent me when I was 10 years old, signed Mommy.  My parents had been on a quick trip to Vancouver from Edmonton.  A very special memento.  The stamp cost 5 cents.

No sense talking about the fires other than that they continue.  I read today that ….Wildfires burning across the province have charred 591,000 hectares, about the size of Prince Edward Island, said a BC Wildfire Service spokesperson on Sunday.  At the moment 127 fires continue to burn.

Quite the exhaust system.

Life on the Isla is much simpler.

Earlier this spring the girls tended to hang here in the mornings.  They were always together.

We’ve all seen this before but it is good to remember it again.

I spoke about the rail trail in a post last August, click here for that. You even get a wonderful view of our golf course and the creek before the flood.  I explain in that post how this used to be a rail corridor that is now being converted metre by metre in a wonderful trail for walkers, hikers, bikers and folks on horseback.

The trail will run close to 50km/31miles.  It is the red line above.  Our lake is the tiny one next to the trail about 2/3 down.

Chase Wines, a new vineyard here in Lake Country donated the construction of 1km of the trail so that we could see how it would appear once completed.  A great incentive to have more folks donate funds.  The three photos at the bottom show the development.  Last weekend was the official opening of that 1km of trial and it was well received.

This is pretty much how the trail looked once the rail ties were removed.  Some parts have much more loose gravel and rock than others.  The girls did not enjoy walking the rough trail.

This is the first phase of the official 1km showing the existing trail as is.  Certainly usable.

The sign reads ‘start of the rail trail 1km test section.  You can see how it has been widened and flattened.

It is so very easy to walk along and the bikes were speeding past us.  Many families on bikes were also enjoying this developed section.  The scenery is wonderful and one has to remember that many miles will run parallel to three of the lakes providing even more wonderful vistas.

There are existing trails that go off the rail trail for the more adventuresome hikers.

Certainly not a boring walk.

This is an example of an existing agricultural crossing.  We spoke with the farmer whose home was behind us in this photo.  He was asking the walkers their opinion on having some tables and chairs and selling water, drinks, snacks and ice cream.  Quite the entrepreneur.  We told him that we would certainly take a break and buy a cone from him.

So many styles of bikes were out to try the trail that day.

We are so very fortunate that this is just outside the gate to our park.  The trail is well ahead of expected for this time.  It is more that 50% funded.  I believe that in less than two years this  is where I will be doing my walking.  Not so sure about biking.  I am really not that steady on a bike and am in constant fear of falling and damaging my two titanium hips.

After my walk this morning, I try and do at least 5000 steps, I sat at my desk to cool down.  Once I got my desk sorted out I called the insurance broker who had not yet checked if she could write the policy today.  She called and found out that she was clear to write and I told her we would be there shortly.  We wanted to get it done right away just in case there was another fire within 50KM later today or tomorrow.  We were relieved to have that out of the way.

Blog reader Dee made a comment yesterday about disaster insurance relative to the US.  Just to clarify, we can get home owners insurance during fires but not if there is one burning within 50KM of your address.  We have had two such fires in the last few weeks but are now clear.  As to flood insurance which here in Canada is called overland water meaning a river, creek or lake rising and coming over the land is very new here in Canada.  It was first introduced in only two provinces in 2015 and just last fall here in BC.  Being as we live on a lake it was important to get that coverage.  What most people don’t know is that it is very inexpensive.  It only cost us an additional $100.00 for the year.

We ran several errands while we were out including adding another USB flash drive to our safe box at the bank.  This one holds five years of company tax information on it.  We also added our passports as well as extra cash in the form of US dollars, pesos and euros, you can’t be too careful.  So glad that we no longer have to be concerned about being prepared.  We are ready.

Next was a trip into Kelowna to pick up my new iPhone 6.  Best Buy had a sale that ended tonight where I did not have to put any money out, just pay my $55.00 per month for two years.  The only glitch is that the package I wanted which was unlimited texting and talk Canada wide had been removed last night. Apparently all carriers change their plans often.  All I could get was $55.00 which includes 500 anytime minutes and unlimited minutes after 5PM to 7AM and on weekends and 1GB of data per month.  I really did not want data but more the unlimited talk as if I am out I want to be able to talk to Colin as much as I like.  With my car I can use hands free talk but that is okay as I don’t didn’t have a phone before today and managed without talking to him.  I have used pay phones in the past but those are almost impossible to find these days.

So I now finally have a phone with a phone number that I hope is written on the contract somewhere 🙁   I got a mini lesson, the guy just did not understand that I seriously had no idea how to operate a smartphone.  Nor does Colin, he has a flip phone Blackberry.  He quickly mentioned this and that, I would stop him and ask detailed questions and write the answers down.  Despite the very short lesson I have no idea what I am doing and have managed to get locked out of a few areas 😯   The only thing I enjoyed was playing with the various sounds.  So I have chosen one to indicate an incoming phone call, one for texts and one for voicemail.  Now I just have to figure how to call and to text never mind remember which sound is for what  🙄 Within a few hours I was ready to throw the phone in the lake.  My head was spinning and the day was not over.

I played with the phone as Colin drove us over to West Kelowna.  Traffic was extremely slow and thick.  We finally got on the bridge ( the only bridge I might add ) and saw an accident coming from the Westside to Kelowna.  As we drove we saw how backed up the traffic was.  It would take hours to get back to Kelowna.  We were on our way to pick up the RV.

Freightliner was finally done with it.  They have had it since June 26th and wanted us to pick it up ASAP as they needed the space.  So as soon as we gave them $4100.00 they gave us the keys to the RV.   Long story short, we needed a power steering pump.  It took a while for the parts to come in from the US.  You might remember that in early May when we went to pick up the RV as we were being evacuated due to the flooding and needed a place to live in, that we were charged about $3000.00 and that was for new shocks, annual maintenance ( usually 1500.00 ) and a few broken rods related to the front suspension, likely due to the Mexican roads we have driven over the many years.

However due to the bridge accident and miles and miles of backup we left the RV in the parking lot and drove somewhere close by for dinner.  We were supposed to meet the owner of a new storage lot at 6PM but that was impossible and was rescheduled to 9PM.  She wanted to wait till tomorrow but we had no place to leave the RV overnight.  I’m sure that you recall that we had to be winched out of the park’s storage lot which was and still is full of ground water.  By the way Good Sam did pay for the winching even though I only called them after the fact.  My photos did help tell them the story and there was no question that we had to act fast and were not able to call them.

So we finally got back across the lake and Colin parked the RV on the street for 30 minutes while we waited to meet the our new RV storage landlord.  Too much paperwork to deal with and it was very dark ( dusk long gone ) when it came time to park.  It is a very dusty lot and I was getting a face full of dust as I directed Colin to the spot.  Not an easy feat in the dark but we eventually did it.  We offered to re park in the daylight if she was not happy with what we had done.  We were most fortunate that she came late for us and that we only have to pay by the month.  It appears that unlike here at the park, we won’t have to pay while we are away.  Nice to catch a savings of $412.50.  That will help balance things out.

So with saving $100.00 down on the iPhone, no charge for the $10.00 Virgin SIM card and the RV storage saving of $412.50, we are ahead $522.50.  Plus by using my WestJet ( Canadian airline ) Travel MasterCard we will get close to  $62.00 deposited into our WestJet travel fund.  I have to say that the positives far outweighed the few negatives today.

No photos as the entire day was at a hectic pace.  11:50PM and I can now say that my day is complete.

Cheers!

Not sure if I have mentioned that we are changing our home insurance broker.  We want to add overland water to our policy which means flood coverage from lakes, rivers and creeks.  Our current broker does not offer this.  So I have spent that last three plus weeks comparing apples to apples even though most prefer to compare apples to oranges.  I feel like I am ready to write an exam to become a broker.  So we finally settled on what we want for a policy and who we want to write it.

Easy, right?  Not quite.  That fire we had here in Kelowna last Sunday, the one at Knox Mountain has not been cleared by the BC Wildfire people.  It is still smoldering on 0.07 of a hectare.  That means that the broker cannot write us a new policy.  Our policy expires at midnight on Monday, August 7th which happens to be a statutory holiday here in BC, in other words a long weekend and everyone is closed on that date.  So in order to be covered from 0001 on the 8th we need to have a policy in place by end of day this coming Friday the 4th of August.

Of course we can continue with our current policy and broker but it is not clear that once we pay for the year that we can change to what and who we want once the fire has been removed from the active status.  Lots of fine print and of course we don’t want the current broker to know that we are planning to leave them.

Just another dilemma in our lives as a result of the fire situation.

Our August calendar page.  Carmeh is on the left.

When we got home in April, I searched online for hours looking for the perfect  memento of our girls and finally found what we decided was perfect for us.  Sadly one of the items was out of stock and we only finally received our order the other day and we just opened the parcel today.  The photos are from the website.

This little angel is for Carmeh. It came with a tiny bit of black paint missing on it’s nose.  Carmeh had a pink spot on her nose in the same place, the result of Caeli scratching her during a tussle.  This is exactly how she would curl up and sleep.

Doesn’t this little angel look like our Caeli who loved to lay on her back?

A very special thank you to the Mexicans who are on their way to BC to help with the fires and many thanks to all the Americans who are helping, as well as those who have come from across Canada.  We are so very grateful.