5C's Que Pasa

Boy have we been inundated with workers.  If not for the beach site but for the house we have sold.  Plus everyone in the park just has to walk or drive by to check things out…makes for a very busy area.  Tuesday was a huge day with 5 ‘trades’ coming in.

I have learnt to be dressed and ready by 7:30AM ( I wasn't yesterday and had a Telus guy in here with me in my nightie!...no he wasn't in my nightie, I was....sigh) !!! Well if that doesn't get you hanging onto the rope nothing will:) In the photo we have 3 trades at the beach site by 7:45AM.

Walter & Mike ( firefighters in disguise ) got to working on a new irrigation install first thing. I should mention here that Holiday Park Resort sent out thank you letters to all who helped with the fire last Friday including these two.

Frank who lives here at Holiday Park made us a new water box cover.....he must be over 80 and still does carpentry stuff every day. Great guy.

Next to arrive was Dave from Mobile RV Repairs. He determined that our inverter/charger died and that we need a new one. Finally found the only one in Canada......in Calgary, close to $2000.00 BEFORE shipping, install, etc. Just hope it comes soon. Good thing we are use to boondocking. Meanwhile Carmeh was checking that we had no mice under the bed.

By 9:00 AM our cleaning lady came to put in a solid 6.5 hours in cleaning the house for the new owners.  Finally S & K cement guys showed up……with my third load of crush for the front of my cedars.  The day prior they arrived with huge pieces of rock, I said “no”!  I had ordered on May 10th what I wanted and had provided a sample.  The truck driver looked at me with daggers but came back an hour later with miniscule bits of nothing sitting in a powder dust.  I said “no”!!  The cement crew and the delivery guy were not happy with me….well I was not happy with them.  Off he went.  So when the third truck arrived Tuesday morning I was happy to see it was what I had ordered and what I was paying for!!  Dad you would have been so proud of me!!  I also at that point, told them it was not enough.  An hour later they had to go back and get another yard……I am not just a dumb blonde!

So while the cement guys talked on their phones I worked!!

Robert helped Colin move the big pieces into the shed so we could finally move from the house shed to this new shed before the rain started.

It has been an incredible amount of planning and work to get this far in such a short amount of time, but we are almost there!!!

Yesterday, Wednesday the 30th, we were to have only one trade in and ended up with four…..I just might be disappointed next week to have no one come calling!!  Fear not it will then be back to choosing toilets and door knobs and such…

Tags: 319

…things have settled just a tiny bit, a few hiccups but mostly things I can cope with.  So just to catch you up to date in the cement pour.

This fellow spent most of the last two days on the phone!!! Sorta reminded me of our cement pour in Mazatlan where the one fella just watched the activity. Colin is up on the RV roof, trying to tape plastic to the rig, as they advised us that the cement might fly and spatter the RV!!!

Finally after lots of fiddling about things got going. Yes it is coloured cement! We have learnt too much about cement this past week....this will dry to a lighter colour...thank goodness.

This is what they call magic dust. It is a second colour applied over the wet cement.

The magic dust is then stamped over the wet cement forming a pattern ( in this case matching our existing slate patio ). However, in this case the colour is a wee bit pink for me! Hmmmm. They say it will lighten over the next month.

After several hours the dust is power washed off and a seal is applied. Then we wait 28 days for the next steps.

Can you see how pink the grass is, this is not a water soluble product!! I now have pink shoes as does Colin and the girls are sporting pink toes!!  In the last few days we are seeing some lightening of colour and hopefully it will turn out just as we wanted.  Our existing slate stone patio is more of a terra cotta colour and we are trying to blend the two tones.  Now you know more about cement that you really wanted to.

Tags: 319, colored & stamped cement

I reached the end of my rope last night ( Sunday ).  After two extremely crazy and intense days of moving, cleaning, etc. I was finally making us dinner about 8:40PM when I smelled fire!  I grabbed an extinguisher and Colin unplugged us and we searched and we searched and sniffed…finally nailed it down to the inverter under the bed.  Something in there had burnt up, horrid electrical fire smell.

So we are now living with two 15Amp extension cords running out the windows.  Fortunately we were able to get an RV tech to come out tomorrow, Tuesday morning.

Saturday Colin came home from his 15 hour day to work in the yard a bit.

The cement isn't finished, we have no irrigation and we only 15 AMP power but we do have modern art in our wind wheel!!

He was exhausted but after a 20 minute nap he had to go out again till dark!!

Sunday morning we realized that Colin has sustained a wee burn on his nose from a flying cinder during the fire.

Colin worked on the new shed while I did the final packing and cleaning at the house. We still have boxes to move and the old shed to move in here but need to finish the cement first.

It is now 6 PM Tuesday…I have been working on this blog for a few days!!!!  Must confess that I fell off my rope late Monday afternoon!!  The cement guys came with truck after truck of the wrong stuff to fill my extra parking area!  Can’t go into it now.  We finally moved our old shed to the new shed Monday PM as it started to rain:((

Had a late take out  ( expensive ) dinner !  Feel asleep on the sofa…again!!

This morning we had 5 work crews here starting at 7:30AM…..was going to do the blog BUT we had NO power.!!!

Came home about 4PM and was going to do the blog but we had NO internet….took 80 minutes on the phone to restore that!!!

So now at 6:30PM, Tuesday I am posting something.  I have fallen off the rope yet again….hopefully I will regain my balance sometime Wednesday!

Thank goodness I have wine in my life!!!  I am going to attempt to make food in the RV tonight, using only propane of course.  Stay tuned for the next saga……

….events may not be reported in chronological order…..can you blame me?

Tags: 319, emergency, Wine

About an hour into our move yesterday I looked down the road and was shocked to see a fire.  Fire in an RV park is extremely serious due to close proximity to each other and  propane tanks, lots of them!  Fortunately, Walter Bulten, recently retired from the local volunteer fire department was doing some work on our beach site, I screamed for him to go check the situation.  The wind had picked up and the sky was white with smoke and from here I could see flames.

As you can see we were very close to the fire.

Many of the neighbors used gardens hoses to wet down other homes and hedges to try and stop the spread of the fire. This is the back of the unit where the fire started. There are many fellows at the front using their garden hoses also. Walter made sure no one was in the RV unit then proceeded along with his helper Mike to shut down and if possible pull away propane tanks in the area. Mike found one BBQ on fire and managed to shut down the propane tank in the nick of time. These two fellows along with the residents of Holiday Park really saved the day. It was close to 35 minutes before the fire trucks arrived and the wind was pushing the flames over to the next block of homes.

It was horrifying to those watching the flames come their way. We did the best we could suggesting people water down their units, move their vehicles and golf carts. Colin managed to get a small burn on his nose from a flying cinder. Just as the wind started to die down the fire trucks showed up.

Unfortuantely it was too late for this beautiful 5th wheel. Two units behind it have been damaged and of course everyone has smoke in their homes.

So how did the fire start you might ask?  Well the stupid idiot homeowner was killing weeds with a blow torch!!!!!!!  It’s not like we have huge yards here to maintain.  The fellow who lives at #230 even has 90% rock cover in his yard.  What a way to learn a lesson!!

Holiday Park did all the right things, the power was shut down in this area, a huge tow truck was brought in to pull out any units that might be in the path of the fire and the residents banded together.  Needless to say there are many frazeled nerves.  One distraught lady was seen many hours later repeatedly hosing down her property on the next block, hour after hour.  She was and likely still is frightened.  The local Kelowna internet news has the story here plus at the bottom are 6 more photos of the after shots, just click on the numbers 1 – 6 for the photos.

So we completed our move while Walter drank my wine.  He was done working for the day.  We had a great sleep in the RV last night but the girls are confused and not sure where home is.  Hopefully we will be able to get into a routine soon which should help them.

We have blue sky and sunshine so Colin left about 7AM for a full day of photography, might not be back till dark!  Meanwhile I am awaiting Telus to come and give us telephone service.  For some strange reason I have internet so I was able to do the blog today.  I have lots to do both here and at the house so if I get tired of one place I can switch from unpacking to the final packing!!

Tags: 319, Fire, Holiday Park

Due to weather forecasts and photography jobs waiting, we have just decided to make today move day so Colin is free to go if he has to.  We are in the process of moving into the RV…….right now!  No time for last minute nostalgia, the last sleep in that bed, the last shower in a house for a year, you know, that kind of thing.  Maybe it’s better this way….gotta go!

Tags: 319