April 29, 2005

April 29, 2005

Princeton to Rock Creek, B.C.

DAY 316

 

Today was sunny and warm in the valleys, sunny and cool up high in the mountains.

After my regular morning preventive maintenance routine, I worked on replacing the license plate light bulb socket. It didn't go quite as easily as I would have liked. Does it ever ? By the time I was finished, and we were all hitched up and ready to go, there wasn't much of the morning left. We headed east on Hwy. 3. We stopped in Keremeos to buy some groceries and to have lunch. As we were leaving Keremeos, Eric Pryor, our accountant in Ottawa phoned to discuss the preparation of our personal income tax returns. I had to pull over to the side of the road, and talk to Eric. Shortly after, Joanne's oncologist in Ottawa phoned. She has been trying to get the Ottawa Regional Cancer Centre to make arrangements for her to have some tests done soon in either Winnipeg or Kenora. She hasn't had any of her regular post cancer screening since last September. She has spoken to the oncologist's assistant a couple of times in recent days. To make a long story short, they are either unwilling or unable to assist her. She's on her own ! I'm not impressed ! ! ! We also missed a call this morning from Allen Bindle, the Park Ranger at West Hawk Lake. He was to phone us with some last minute details about our Campground Host job this summer. We returned his call, but just ended up playing telephone tag.

We stopped in Osoyoos, at an RV dealer, to shop for some parts I would like to replace on the water heater. The dealer didn’t have what I need. Maybe I’ll just wait until we’re back in Winnipeg in a couple of weeks. The parts I need aren’t urgent. The long climb out of the valley that Osoyoos is situated in ( the Okanagan Valley, actually ) over the mountains to the east was the longest and most difficult climb yet for Dee-Dee and Harvey. Dee-Dee’s temperature gauge was higher than it’s ever been. I turned off the air conditioning, opened the windows, and turned the heater on its highest setting, in an attempt to dissipate some of the engine coolant’s heat. It worked, I guess. The coolant temperature gauge finally stopped rising, but it stayed at that extremely high temperature level until we were finally over the summit of the mountain, and on our way back down. I was really concerned that Dee-Dee would blow a hose.

We stopped for the night at Kettle River RV Park, in Rock Creek. It’s a nice park, and like most of the campgrounds we’ve been to in B.C., it’s quite empty. It’s a bit early in the year for regular vacationers to be travelling, so there’s not too much RV traffic on the B.C. roads at this time of the year. Plus, we’re on Hwy. 3, the least popular route of the 3 highways heading east across B.C. to Alberta. We want to stay on Hwy. 3 into Alberta, to be close to Pincher Creek, where we want to visit Escapee friends. After setting up in the campground, we took Bo for an obedience training session, then hiked leisurely over to the Kettle River a short distance behind the campground. B.C.’s rivers are all so fast flowing, especially at this time of the year, with the spring melt run off out of the mountains.

We drained the fresh water tank, then refilled it with a strong bleach solution. It's time for our quarterly water system disinfection / purification. I barbecued supper again, as I am doing most evenings now that the days are longer and the weather is dry. We watched a movie on CBC. We can get 2 channels here, using the antenna on top of the trailer. Both are CBC. One is an okay picture with poor sound. One is a poor picture with okay sound. At least that's better than the cell phone, which indicates no signal / service.

I spent the late part of the evening trying to decipher the Revenue Canada Pensionable and Insurable Earnings Report ( PIER ) that our company just received, indicating that Joanne and I both have a CPP remittance deficiency, as does our company, for 2004, and asking for another $700 please.  HUH ? ? ? I wrote a long e-mail to our accountant. Maybe he can translate it from "government speak" into English for me.

DSK