5C's Que Pasa

Wake up in a Casino lot @ 8AM…rush to feed the zoo and get a move on.  Today we are moving to an rv park and doing a real set up.  Four days of no moving the rv….yeah. We headed north to St. Albert to the new Kinsmen RV Park.  After fighting rush hour traffic, checking in, paying and unhooking the car I ask about the wifi pass code.  No wifi despite advertising they had it, just never got around to it.  Family conference, I have no cell and need to have some communication with our business so Colin reconnects the car, I get a refund & make some calls.  It’s off to Glowing Embers RV Park in SW Edmonton (my family is in NE Edmonton)! Meanwhile time is moving on and Colin had to cancel his first meeting of the day.  Finally settled into a lovely site and had our first meal of the day at 1:30PM.  Colin was then off to take photos while I relaxed and rested.  Poor Colin was so tired that he fell asleep on the sofa in the display home  he was photographing, only to be woken by the cleaning lady!!!   He got the job finished and we had dinner at 10:30PM.

The guys t-shirt reads 'I have a hummer'. Gee we almost didn't notice you parked next to us here!

Our appointment is for 7:30AM.  Due to this and that our RV is finally getting into a Cummins service bay at 8:45AM.  By now the entire zoo is packed into the car with food for the day.  We ‘hope’ to get our house back tonight but no guaranties.  Colin drops me and the zoo off at my parents about 10ish.  Off he goes to work, all I want to do is sleep!!!!  Not to be.  Long story short….no wifi signals (they don’t have a computer) to steal so  my day is reduced to walking the dogs, chasing the bird around Mom’s place..oh yeah…they have a cat..and reading, eating and stuff.

Mom feeding Cheikka some of her lasagna

About 9PM we find out that there is a good chance our RV might be ready by midnite.  Colin picks us all up about 10:30PM.  Yup the rv is ready…it really had a problem..the exhaust manifold was leaking and had all welded together so they had to drill the bolts out.  We have no idea but indications are that this had probably started in March on our return from Mazatlan.  Mucho corrosion due to humidity and salt air.  We are very fortunate that we did not have a fire.  All is well to the tune of $2800.00 CAD, not pesos!!!  So now at midnite we are looking for a place to sleep.  Find a Casino just a few miles down the road.  Tired yet again.  The zoo is holding up well.  Oh, I forgot to mention how dirty the RV was from being in the shop…major cleaning at 1AM!!!!

Tags: pets, repairs

The plan was for my sister to join Dad for a coffee @ 9:30AM the morning of his 80th.  Then Colin and I would appear 2 minutes later….surprise!!!  That gave us an hour to decorate and prepare for the two hour open house…also allowing the parents time to get dressed up, etc.

We rang the buzzer, no answer, over and over, no answer.  Finally someone let us into the condo with all the balloons, banners, decorations and food.  My sister Lise knocked on the door, no answer, she called them on her cell, no answer….then we panicked, what if something was wrong.  Someone checked the garage…their vehicle was gone!!!  Was someone sick!!  A neighbor offered to drive down to the medi centre to check if the parents where there.  Meanwhile we started to decorate the entrance, the elevator, the 3rd floor and their front door. Not sure what to do but at the same time we aware that we have invited guests arriving in less then 30 minutes!!!  Big sigh!!!  Actually panic!!  Where were they??  Suddenly Dad appeared, strolling off the elevator with his walker…he’d been to the bank!!

What are you doing here?

What the heck was going on here!  Well Dad, surprise, Happy 80th and by the way where is Mom?  In bed!!!!  Well you have about 10 minutes to get ready for  your drop in coffee and donut party!!!  And so it went, rush to decorate the suite, get the food sorted out and get Mom up, dressed and well prepared!!!  In essence it was not only a celebration of Dad’s 80th but his career as one of Edmonton”s first police officers (more details on that another day).

Three sisters, oldest to youngest, Contessa, Denise, Lise & her daughter Kisa

Good old Wally! One of Dad's police buddies.

These two are ready to retire in 5 years, hard to believe.

It was a lovely 2 hours that stretched into 3 hours.  The parents were exhausted so off we went so they could relax.

We returned at 5PM with appetizers, cards, gifts, dinner and cake.  This was just for the immediate family and we had a wonderful time.  Both Dad and Mom laughed at the gag gifts.

The' bullshit' megaphone..too funny!

He's got hair!

Family photo...where's Colin?

Three of the four kids were there (our brother was too tired to come….) and part of the fun was each of us recalling our earliest memories with Dad.  It was a blast!  We had a great dinner and then Dad’s favorite Black Forest cake for dessert.  In all honesty Dad’s best gift was the letter he received the day prior giving him a July 5th date for an appointment to discuss and set a date for his double hip replacement surgery.  It was a great day but because both the parents were tired, weak and in constant pain we all left by 8:30PM.

Once back at the RV (still parked at Lise’s) Colin decides that we should pack up right now and head out to Cummins rather then early in the morning.  Really!!!  Okay!  So by 11:30PM we are setting up house in the parking lot at Cummins.  Exhausted!!!!

Between the vocal birds and the sun coming in the window at 4AM we knew we were in Edmonton.  It was cold!

Today Colin was photographing homes.  He left over 13 hours ago and is still hard at it.  In addition to dealing with the zoo, setting up our comfy home on wheels, I worked the phone with my sister tying up loose ends for Dad’s 80th.  We shopped for the final grocery items including the cake.  I had already purchased a good deal of items in Kelowna. When my nieces (14 & 15) came home from school they and their mom went to bring the balloons in so they would be filled with helium early in the morning and ready for a 9:00AM pick up.  The appetizers have been prepared for the evening part of the party, the food for the morning ‘drop in’ has been confirmed, posters have been made, lists have been checked and rechecked.  The plan is for my sister to go see Dad & Mom for a birthday coffee at 9:30AM.  About two minutes after she goes in, Colin and I will come in and surprise them.  The big surprise will be that they have less than an hour to prepare themselves (which is major for them)  for an open house in Dad’s honor from 10:30AM to 12:30PM.  As Dad is one of Edmonton’s first policeman we have invited both retired and current police to come on in for what else, coffee & donuts!  Of course friends are also invited as well as everyone in their condo.  I just realized how much I still have to do tonite….

….here we are just in front of my sisters’ home.  The tall spruce on the right has grown from a tiny seedling I got in Grade 1, a few years back.

The day started out with Cheikka dumping her seeds all over the carpet not once, but twice!!!!  It took us a while but we did finally get going about 9:30Am.  It would have been nice to stay and enjoy the beauty of the area and do some hiking but we had to press on.

We had a wonderful drive through the Jasper area and were rewarded with sightings of deer, young moose, a coyote, mountain goats (with baby) and the bighorn sheep.  You can see in some of the photos that the animals are just now shedding their heavy winter coats.  I was ecstatic to see the big horn sheep so close up and have the time to watch them.  They were incredibly nimble on an extremely steep slope and to see a few of the teenagers play fighting and scampering about made me very happy.  This was a big one on my wish list.

We finally left all the beauty behind as we kept heading East.  While Colin drove I manned the cell phone trying to coordinate some of Colin’s photo shoots for Tuesday. Voice mail is truly an awful thing especially when people don’t reply.  A pet peeve….you ask if so and so is actually in the office and the receptionist says yes and transfers to to voicemail!!!!  You have to call back and say you NEED to speak with a person and so on and so on.

As we drove Colin realized that the sound he had heard when we first left Kelowna was still with us.  He was able to contact our mechanic guru in Vancouver who promptly made a diagnosis and urged us to stop in Hinton ASAP at Cummins.  They couldn’t see us, not could the Cummins people in Edson.  Meanwhile we are playing the voicemail/real person game over and over.  Finally I got a real live one on the line and we lost cell phone coverage!  Closer to the next town we called again and insisted on a real person.  Fine they agreed to see us about 4:30PM in Edmonton.  Meanwhile Colin asks me if I could hear that noise….you know the ‘new’ noise, the other noise?  You bet I could.  As we are slowly becoming experts we diagnosed an airbag leak.  Now this is different than yesterday mornings’ airbag problem which was that it would not fill.  Now full, it was leaking and we were riding low.  As soon as he found a safe spot Colin pulled over and did the under the RV repair trick. Forty minutes later we were on the road and finally arrived at Cummins about 4:50PM.  We left there about 6:30PM depressed.  Basically after much driving and running alongside to listen to the engine it was decided to check the actual engine.  For those not in the know, the engine in a diesel pusher is under the bed. When we travel we use the bed as storage so all that stuff had to be moved and then we had to manipulate the mattress off the bed and put it on end, remove the screws and voila the engine. This was all done with the slides in and the toad still hooked up.   Bottom line, looks like something wrong with the exhaust ?? and probably damage to the manifold.  Cost estimate $3000.00.  It was decided we could safely drive it to my sister’s house and back in for repairs on Thursday.  So we do Dad’s party Wednesday AM & PM and have to have the RV back to other side of  Edmonton @ 7:30AM Thursday, where they may work on it till midnite. What will we do all day….stay tuned.

Thank goodness Edmonton is so far north, it stays light late.  We got to my sisters about 7:30PM and set up in the cul de sac. Colin had photoshop work to do and I went to bed.  Too tired to eat.