October 22, 2005

October 22, 2005

Nanaimo, B.C.

YEAR 2 DAY 127

 

Today was mostly cloudy, and warm. It rained all evening.

This morning after regular morning routines and preventive maintenance, I sat down on the floor beside the dinette table and chairs to try to figure out how to restrain the dinette chairs during travel. I contemplated the application of Velcro, in a number of different ways, then decided to experiment with bungee cords. I came up with an idea using bungee cords, and will try it out. I would prefer not to use Velcro on this job. The only workable way to use Velcro would require the application of Velcro to finished wood on the table, and upholstery on the chairs. I reconciled the bank statements I downloaded the other day, both the Canadian dollar account and the U.S. dollar account. I took Bo for an obedience training walk. He did well.

We had lunch. I lay down to read and take a nap, but before I fell asleep, Pamela Ramsay, my friend in Union Bay, an hour north of here, returned my phone call from yesterday. She and her husband, Hein, are quite busy this weekend, so we'll arrange for a visit next weekend.

We decided to go out and explore the downtown area and harbour / waterfront area. We drove downtown, and explored a bit by driving around, then found a parking spot. We explored more by walking around. Joanne wanted to see a large native art gallery downtown. It had great stuff. If we still had a house, I'd have been buying stuff. I'm really fond of native art. We walked around some more, exploring another art gallery / gift shop. We walked down to the harbour. While we were standing on a dock, looking around, a harbour seal, or sea otter, or something like that surfaced right behind us, and blew air. It startled me ! We walked around the docks, looking at fishing boats, and watching float planes land and take off in the harbour. Nanaimo harbour was filled with fishing and working boats. Most urban harbours are filled with pleasure craft, but this one was obviously a "blue collar" working harbour. We left the harbour and downtown area, and drove out to the suburban shopping mall area. We stopped at a couple of different grocery stores, and replenished supplies. Just before we got back to the trailer, I remembered that today was Saturday, so we stopped at a convenience store near the RV park, and I bought a newspaper. By the time we got back to the trailer, it was late afternoon, and I was feeling quite tired.

We had a snack, then I began to work on today's journal entry. I felt so tired that I lay down and had a brief nap. I did today's accounting. I reconciled the MasterCard statement. Some months, like this one, that's quite a large job. This month's MasterCard statement was 3 full pages. First I reconciled the statement to the transaction slips. Then I reconciled the statement to my computer records.

After supper we went down to the club house for a short musical concert by a pair of South American Incas ( natives ) from Ecuador playing a variety of different sizes of pan flutes. A lovely, relaxing recital. Too bad it only lasted a little more than half an hour. And too bad that the audience started out as 8 people, and grew to only 15. When the concert was finished, Joanne did some laundry, and I did some work online, until I lost the Wi-Fi signal. I worked on this journal entry, hoping to recover the Wi-Fi signal, but no such luck. When Joanne was finished with the laundry, we returned to the trailer to read the newspaper and watch The Sopranos.

DSK