5C's Que Pasa

It was 15 years ago about the 29th of May that we took possession of our brand new 2001 RoseAir RV made by Rexhall.  It was only our second RV, the first being a 35 foot Fleetwood with no slides which we bought in September of 1999.

Our first RV, photo taken in Newport, Oregon. Likely the spring of 2000.

We purchased both vehicles brand new and had never even camped together.  We took to RVing very fast.  We would have been happy in the smaller Pace Arrow but our family increased with the addition of two dogs, Cloii and Channel and the extra space was nice to have.  Plus Colin really wanted a diesel pusher.  We have been in many many places in our 40 footer that many would not even dream of trying.

What our RoseAir looked like when we purchased it in 2001.

About six years ago I started this blog.  I was tired of sending out what I called travelogue emails and attaching dozens of photos and then having the computer system crash in whatever  RV park we were in and having to start all over again. Those were the early days of emailing from Mexico.  Back in the spring of 2010 I met Larry who writes the Amazing Vanstones .  At that same time I also met George of  Our Awesome Travels .  We were all spending our first winter season on the Isla de la Piedra/Stone Island just across the shipping channel from Mazatlan, Mexico @ Tres Amigos RV Park.  I can’t remember when they arrived but we had  towards the end of October 2009.  It was a first time in Mexico for both of them but Colin and I had already been traveling Mexico in an RV for 7 years. Our first trip was to the Baja in January of  2003.  After that we traveled a great deal of  mainland Mexico, both coasts as well as inland.  It was through Larry and George that I discovered what blogging was all about and here I am 6 years later.

Here we are in Acapulco in 2008 the year we had the new paint job done at Precision Painting in Elkhart, Indiana.

My first post was May 28th, 2010.  On May 31st, 2010 we had visitors who also had their first winter in Mexico that year and who still RV there and still have the same two pups, well older dogs now.  And so this blog was born.  I worked very hard at publishing each day but life got in the way such as a car wreck, two new hips for me at different times and the death of first my mother and then my father.  I just could not keep up the daily push.  I was relieved when I mentally was able to let it go and just publish at will.

I am proud to say that in the last 6 years, exactly, I have managed to post 1705 posts which averages out to about 284 posts per year.  Last May 27th I posted about Carmeh becoming paralyzed.  This blog has become a diary of our lives over the past six years.  Now when I want to know what date such and such occurred I simply use my blog search to find the information.

Before the blog everything was and actually still is documented in longhand.  I have every memory of each day captured in these diaries since our very first trip in December of 1999. Today as we travel I write information in longhand such as the time we started driving on a particular day, our stops, our total mileage, where we fueled and where we spent the night.  My blog is written from that information along with the photos I took that day.  In fact those diaries are what helped me find the actual dates mentioned above.

Who knows what the future holds, but I believe that I will keep posting for as long as I can.  I don’t see myself posting everyday but I will when I have something to share with you or simply something I want to document for the 5C’s.

The storm that passed through yesterday was pretty wicked.  This was taken on Okanagan Lake, not our lake.

So nice to wake up to blue sky and sun.  As soon as she got up this morning Carmeh headed over to the sofa to lay on her pile of pillows and blankets to sunbathe.

Caeli started out the morning laying under the bench on the left in the green dog bed but moved to the fireplace which was not turned on but she still was getting warm from the sun.

We were all happy to see the sun today, even Colin who got to head out and do some photography 😎

It rained most of the weekend and when it wasn’t we were outside on Saturday power washing.

Colin power washed all the siding on the four sides of our home as well as scrubbed it with soap. Nice to get all the cobwebs off.  It looks wonderful.

My job was to clean the driveway.

Today we worked inside doing a basic house clean with lots of extras thrown in as well.  The house is ready for visitors including the Queen 😀 Finally we were done, the laundry was done and it was time to take a walk with the girls.  We hadn’t been back more than five minutes when the rain came down in full force with fierce winds.

Rain was literally bouncing off the lake.

The rain chain was working overtime.

The girls are shaking side by side on the bed, poor things.  Colin has gone across the road to help a neighbor and is still stuck over there.  Meanwhile I am putting this post together.  Time for some vino blanco and a cuddle with the girls.  I assume that Colin will get back home eventually, he doesn’t even have a jacket with him.  Likely he will wait out the storm.

I find it difficult to believe that we are supposed to hit  a high of 73F tomorrow with sunshine.  Tonight will be a low of 37F.  What happened to all that lovely weather we came home to 🙁  If the forecast of sun is correct I won’t see Colin for a few days.  Oh well, such is our life.  Now how many more sleeps till Mexico?

Well for starters it rained cats and dogs all day.  The plan today was for Colin to take my Z3 ( BMW ) into town for his meetings and then take it in to a local shop to have the speaker problem ( buzzing noise ) checked out.  Meanwhile I was to take the Mercedes to my medical appointment and then on to do errands.  My car would not start.  I told him to take his car while I would cancel all my appointments which is what I did.  It actually was nice to stay inside with the fireplace blazing.

Staying with the topic of repairs from the last post……half of our kitchen lights stopped working.  Colin did his best to trouble shoot but it is a complicated lighting system so we had to call in an electrician yesterday.  In this photo he is checking one of the two transformers we have.  The people who sold us this system told us it was likely a transformer as in $1000.00 to replace.  That was hard for us to believe as we have only lived here a short period of time and we are gone half the year so how could something like that wear out?  Hence the call into an electrician.

The actual problem turned out to be a bad contact from where the wiring reaches the rail track, just above his head in the photo.  Easy fix.  $126.00 with tax.  Yeah!

It turns out that others here in our park were also concerned about the census.  Just got word today that ‘they’ will be mailing all of us a census to complete.  No one cared about my concerns when I contacted the census people.  Guess I don’t have enough clout 🙁

This was taken May 2nd and that snow was 3/4 ‘s melted until today. All the rain today at higher elevations means snow.

Snow was falling most of the day today along the Okanagan Connector highway, the main route between here and Vancouver.  At the higher mountain passes about 4 cm/1.57 inches of snow was expected.  Pretty late in the season for snow.

Because of the higher temperatures this spring, we are expecting to buy local cherries sometime within the next 10 days.  I used to look forward to mid July to buy my cherries.  Guess I better hurry before they are all picked and gone this year.

When I buy the groceries it is fruit and veggies but when Colin shops……at least he bought a lottery ticket.

I have mentioned it before, Carmeh is Colin’s girl. When he is gone she paces from door to door, I get up from my desk over and over and open the door for her but she just sticks out her head to make sure he is not in the yard.  The other day she just lay on top of the pillows on his side of the bed.

She is so very special and we appreciate every moment we have with her.

It is a year ago today that she went paralyzed.  We are so very grateful to have had this extra year with her and that her recovery has been amazing.  She truly loves the Isla and the beach and we believe that it made all the difference to to her recovery.  This past week we have noticed her stumbling and falling over every now and then.  Nothing too serious but certainly the signs of fragility are there.  So we just love her all the more each and every day.

As to my car, a neighbor brought over his portable battery charger this afternoon and boosted the battery.  Colin ran it for about 90 minutes.  Tomorrow we will see if all is well or do I need a new battery.  Life changes direction each and every day.  Be sure to live each day of your life to the fullest.

Who doesn’t have repairs to do?  It seems to be one of the constants in life.  In fact one of my special friends was over her eyeballs with RV repairs the other day and none of it her fault, quite tragic indeed. However she persevered and things were worked out between her and the manufacturer 😀   Fortunately our repairs are of a minor nature.

The hood on my golf cart was not closing properly.  Can you believe that Colin even drove it up on mini ramps?  Wow great job mi amore.

Yeah, it closes perfectly. Can’t have a corvette around that needs repairs.  That is Caeli sitting on the seat in this photo and the one above.  Carmeh is never far from Colin’s side.

Next on the list was running some electrical cord.  Colin had to crawl underneath the house from one side to the other, about 22 feet.  All the while he was stapling that yellow cord along the underside of the floor in order to reach the only open electrical plug we have open.

Hard to see in the photo but that is one of the biggest spiders that Colin is holding, that either of us have ever seen.

The purpose of all the work under the house with the big bugs was to power up this outdoor light.  We don’t have much light going up our stairs and this is a real help.

The last repair this week was to balance our wind wheel. Colin did a good job and it turns even faster now.  Makes you kind of dizzy depending on how much vino you have consumed.