5C's Que Pasa

I only ask because today, May 22nd, I turned 64 😀   Click here to listen to the Beatles sing my birthday song.

It was a beautiful sunny and very warm day.  30C/86F is an abnormal high for this time of year, perhaps a new record was made.  I sort of eased into the day, after all, I’m 64 now and just a tad slower.  Thanks to those who sent suggestions for our upcoming trip to Venice, I have some serious reading to do and a few videos to watch.

Sadly I don’t have the date this was taken but I think I was around two or younger.

A few years later, maybe 4 or so?

Grade 6?? I have no idea of the dates that go with the photos.  Who has the family albums with all the info?  No se 🙁

We eventually headed out today for a late breakfast and after a few errands we decided to check out a few wineries near our RV park. Called The View, this one is known for its red shoe.  I didn’t even finish my five wine tastes for $4.00.  They went into the slop bucket.

The next stop was at the Spierhead Winery.   Five tastes for $5.00. Some were pretty good.

Our final stop was at the Vibrant Vine, a most unique place which one could see even from the parking lot.

They are the only 3D winery in all of the world. The brother of the onsite vintner lives in Colorado and creates everything that is in the shop from wine labels to pieces of art to anything else in 3D.  When you enter the winery you are presented with 3D glasses.  Very interesting  and unique concept.  Their tasting was free.

The wine was very good and we bought a bottle of Pinot Grigio and one of Whoops.

The Whoops is on the left in the photo and if you look closely the label in upside down.  By accident an employee who had been indulging in a bit of the product had put over 700 labels on the bottles upside down before it was noticed.  The owners decided to go with it and renamed the wine Whoops!  Shortly thereafter they decided to enter the bottle in a label competition in Geneva, Switzerland.  After all what did they have to lose with an upside down label and they were eager to hear the comments.  They sent a full case over which the people in Geneva found unusual as only empty bottles are entered in the label competition.  They thought that perhaps the winery had made an error and decided to enter the wine into the wine competition without telling the winery,  Two days later the phone rang here in Kelowna at 3AM announcing that the wine had won the Best White Wine in all the World for 2012! Whoops 😆   Quite the story and really a good wine.

We even found a few hours in the afternoon to do some  further Venice research and then off to dinner.  All in all it was a great day.  Now off to have a final birthday dance to my very special song of the day.

Two weeks from today we will have landed in Italy.  Venice, Italy to be precise.  In early April when we were trying to cope with the loss of our girls we decided that a holiday to somewhere new and in a manner that we have not done in a long while was in order.  We really needed something to shake up our routine and lifestyle.  A substantial change was in order.  Before dogs we flew all over the world traveling.  It did help that I used to work for Air Canada and we took advantage of that for ten years until our first fur kid arrived.

We have never traveled to Venice and who wouldn’t want to go there.  While Colin was in Winnipeg visiting Mommio in hospital and I was all alone in Vegas I started researching a trip.  I knew that we needed something to look forward to, something to take our minds off of our enormous loss.  At first I came upon a deal to Dubai but one week is not enough time to give that city and all it has to offer.  Then an email popped into my inbox and there it was, Venice.

Something that we could thoroughly enjoy in a short week.  We are not yet retired so that is all the time we can take off at the moment.  I know, such a waste to spend all that money on airfare for six nights in the city.  However the main focus of this trip is to shake up our lifestyle.  We haven’t flown anywhere together in over twenty years.  It is worth it to us.

However, who knew that once we got back to our home in Canada from Mexico that we would head out right away on a road trip to buy a new to us tow vehicle. Once back home with the Jeep we only had a few days before our lake started to rise and then we were flooded and evacuated.  Time has flown and we have been overloaded with little time to think.

Do you get the irony that we are going from being flooded to a city that floods annually?

So we are leaving in 12 days, very early morning and are still living in our RV.  By the way we did pack what we thought we would need for Venice when we were evacuated.  So stressful at the time.  Now we are likely going to be moving back home this coming Friday ( can’t do it sooner due to jobs….besides the way things are going, our lake may very well rise again ) which brings a whole new set of to do’s to get the RV unloaded and then put some semblance of order to our home.  We definitely won’t be going through all those bins before we leave 😯

However much as we anticipated the trip to Venice before being evacuated we are now scrambling to get prepared for the trip with what to see and explore while there.  Instead our time has been limited due to all the evacuation stuff and our business not to mention our colds and my fall which has not helped.  At the moment it appears that by the time we leave, I will be able to walk with no pain.  So if anyone has been to Venice and has some suggestions we would love to hear from you.

We are really excited about the new  adventure that is just around the corner.

There will be so much to see and do and I don’t want to miss a minute of it.

Actually I had a few wonderful surprises yesterday.  Colin came home early from a two day photo shoot in Vancouver.  He also returned with about 40 frozen small individual tuna pot pies ( a once per week treat that we really enjoy ) which we had to get into our freezer in our real house as the RV freezer was already full.  When I went there a few days ago I did turn on our fridge again.  When we were evacuated we had emptied it all into the RV fridge, turned it off and opened the doors for air circulation.

The Good Faerie had visited.

It turns out that Walter, our lawn guy, had manged to find a few hours in which to clean up our lawn ( as well as cut it ) and our patio.  He even manged to get rid of all the goose poop.  We were so surprised to see the difference.  Still a lot of crud in the lawn and the patio requires a very intense power wash.  However to be realistic I’m sure that the geese and ducks have made a new mess by now but at least it is almost 100% better since the flooding.

Compared to my Thursday photos we can see that the lake has dropped almost an inch. Good news as that will give the melting snow pack somewhere to go.

Lots of tiny pieces of debris embedded in the lawn but I will get those out over time.  There also appears to be a section of lawn that had sunk under the weight of the water but that is easily fixed, eventually that is.

The water did go under the house, both front and back. But only for a few feet.

The wood pilings that the house sits on at each end, front and back,  got wet about 4 inches up.  The centre pilings are fine.  Those are our kayaks in these last two photos.  We had to leave them in the basement or they would have floated away.  Everything will dry out and as the wood in those areas has been treated there should be no long term problems.

On our way back to the RV we were chatting away and trying to decide when a good day might be to move back to the beach.  We think we will wait a full week to see how the snow melt progresses over the next few days.  It would be wonderful to go back right how but we are being practical.  Besides who wants to evacuate twice 🙄

So we got back to the RV and I was rushing about put things back in place and dealing with the mail we had picked up.  I neglected to pay attention to all of the camera equipment that Colin had brought in.  He claims that it was in the same place that it had been before he had gone to Vancouver.  I just happened to have had the last two days to walk back and forth from the kitchen ( my stand up desk ) to the flat dash which I am using as a filing area/large desk top with a variety of files piled here and there with nothing in my path, when suddenly I hit an obstacle on the floor with my right foot and went flying.

I went down hard, face first.  Colin says that I hit with a very loud bang and that I actually bounced up off the floor.  My eyeglasses were twisted but not broken and I have a very sore nose.  Fortunately I have a second pair that I can use until my favorites are repaired. I hit my left knee full force and it took  a very long time for me to sit up, never mind get up off the floor.  Colin insisted on heading to the hospital right away.  Instead I had a glass of wine and tried to assess the damage but the pain kept moving around from here to there to there.  800mg of ibuprofen started to help along with a second glass of wine.  My left leg was elevated and I iced for a good hour off and on.  Finally I was able to probe the area and as I wasn’t screaming I figured I didn’t need to go to the ER.  Colin actually remembered that he had my cane from the hip replacements in the RV basement and that did help me hobble around.  I iced for several hours before heading to bed.

So first thing this morning we went to see the chiropractor, the very same one we saw last Saturday who helped us both after we pushed ourselves loading the RV last week.  She found about four areas in which I was very out and many smaller areas that required attention.  I suspected that I had twisted myself as I fell and so I had.  So now today is more icing followed by heat and repeat over and over for a few days.   I was so upset with myself as I have been feeling really good with no aches nor pains for the last week and I so hoped to continue that way.  Hopefully in another week I will be back to what I call my normal.  But why do these things have to happen to me 👿  It was a horrible end to our day of surprises yesterday.  All I can say is that some days there is just not enough wine 😉

Late yesterday, probably the same time that I was doing yesterday’s two photo posts, our evacuation order was rescinded.  The flood evacuation was over but we were cautioned to be aware of increasing lake levels due to the impeding snow melt.  That snow melt by the way is 147% above the normal 100%.  We had been officially evacuated for ten nights and late yesterday we were expected to go home.

Every year by mid to end of June our lake rises at least half way up to our patio or more, often closer to the patio level.  This is the natural spring run off which has not even commenced yet.  We are in no hurry to rush home.  I have no intention of being evacuated twice.

Colin was off this morning to Vancouver for two days work so I decided to head back home to evaluate the situation.  We had heard that the lake had been slowly receding.  Most folks are encouraged but we are realistic.  Besides once Colin gets back from Vancouver he has a full day shoot at Silver Star on Sunday and yet another full day shoot in Kelowna on Tuesday.  We really don’t have time to pack up, head home and take two days to unload.

The forecast for the next several days is heat which means melting.  We are being cautioned to be on alert in case of rising water.  Much better for us to remain where we are for another week and to assess the situation day by day and then decide when or if  to move back.

The only road to our park is now heavily sandbagged but I noticed that the lake was level to the road with just a tiny bit of water seeping under the sand bags.

On the bulletin board just as you enter our park.

A sign at the entrance to our street. When we left I had asked for some sort of restriction of traffic as the lookyloos were causing huge waves which were going under our home.

Apparently as I walked into our yard I frightened a pair of ducks and a pair of geese off our site.  The amount of their poop on our lawn and patio would fill a huge pail.

So yes the water has receded at least for now, but what a mess.

We even have large logs left on our site.

I took photos from a few angles and focused on various locations so that we could monitor the decline or rise of the water.

Yes that is an egg on our patio.

It appears to be a goose egg from what I gather.

The debris is made up of many different materials.

Bit by bit over the past few days the water has been receding.  As of today the lake level is lower than the patio by perhaps three inches.

Yesterday I did post the worst photos of the flood.  I had heard that the lake was receding but wanted a record here in my blog of what had happened and how high it had risen.

What a mess!  The lawn is also strewn with the poop of many fowl.

I think that we shall go back again on Saturday to further evaluate the situation.

As well we shall note whether the lake has risen or fallen.

I did not check under the house as I wanted Colin to be there for that moment. So right now we have no idea if we have any damage although it appears unlikely.

This was taped to the front of our door, a welcome home of sorts but really more of a warning in my opinion.  Boil drinking water, don’t move your sandbags  and if you don’t have any, get some, get an electrician to turn on your electricity.  It appears that ours was never shut off.

So when we do decide to return home we have a huge amount of work ahead of us.  First we have to unload the entire RV which includes our full office.  We of course have to clean off the lawn and patio.  Likely the basement will require power washing from one end to the other.

Then we have to go through all of the bins that Colin brought up from the basement, these are about half of what is in the house at the moment.  No sense putting them all back under the house if many of them are garbage.

So it is a big job to head back home and we refuse to do it if we decide that it is not safe.  Whether we return sooner or later, either way we have a good deal of work ahead of us.

There was serious concern that the only road to the RV park would be washed away as the water was coming up and over the embankment at the culvert.  Sand was quickly  being pushed into place and later layer after layer of sand bags were placed.

It is Monday, May 8th, evacuation day and the water continues to rise.

This is the level of the water on the street in front of our home just before Colin parked the RV in front.

Colin inverted some rolling trolleys that we use to put things under the basement to create a plank to walk onto to load the RV without getting too wet.

We did not evacuate Monday evening as we were having problems with the batteries which were arcing.  No one wants to move an RV sitting with four wheels in water with shooting sparks of electricity.  I did post about this earlier and an RV Tech resolved the situation at 8AM the next morning.

One of the first things I saw Tuesday morning, the 9th, were these geese floating just off our patio on this enormous log.

Quite the sight so early in morning.

I also noticed that our entire patio as well as our lawn was now underwater.

The hoops in the dog fence tell the story.  The lake was still rising.  The police who had come by Monday evening accepted that we could not move the RV but this morning it was time to move once the RV tech did his thing.

Facing the lake this was our neighbor to the left.  Did I tell you that I had to go buy some rubber boots the day prior ( Monday ), Colin already had some?

However, this day, Tuesday the 9th, as we left, I still got a boot full of lake water.

As you can see we really do live on Lake Lane.