October 8, 2005

October 8, 2005

Abbotsford to Sunshine Village / Hope & return, B.C.

YEAR 2 DAY 112

 

Today was cloudy and cool, with occasional light rain.

I believe we have likely found the piece of property we would like to purchase as our summer home base.

This morning after regular morning routines and preventive maintenance we set off for Sunshine Village, a recreational property development about 10 miles east of Hope. We drove down Sumas Mountain, onto Hwy. 11 through Abbotsford to TCH 1, then east towards Hope. At Hope we got onto Hwy. 3, the Crowsnest Hwy. that we have now driven in both directions, east last spring, and west just recently. Somehow we missed noticing Sunshine Village both times. Sunshine Village is a 400 site recreational property development. It has been in existence about 27 years. Prior to that the property was a working ranch, and before that it was a Japanese interment camp during the Second World War. A rather ugly piece of B.C.'s and Canada's history. Most of the 400 sites have cabins on them, but there a small number of RV sites in one section of the village. We arrived at Sunshine Village, met with the sales agent that I had made an appointment with, and reviewed what was for sale in the village. We went with him to see 2 RV sites, and 1 cabin. The first site we looked at was a regular size RV lot, all natural, in the forest, fully serviced, a small storage shed on the lot, a comfort station with washrooms and laundry room beside this lot on one side, a small cabin beside this lot on the other side. So ... no neighbours on one side, and a cabin as a neighbour on the other side. Very, very nice lot. Next we went to see a small log cabin. I liked it. An A frame design with a loft bedroom. Joanne didn't like the extremely steep stairway to the loft. Arrangements could be made to park our trailer in their maintenance equipment yard for the summer if we were to purchase the log cabin. The second RV lot we went to see was huge for an RV lot, about 3/4 of an acre, again all natural, in the forest. A long curving driveway up a slope led to the serviced RV parking area. There was a small shed on the lot. Most of the lot was rugged, natural forest, with a fairly large portion of it fenced as a dog run, with wire cattle fencing. It's a stupendous piece of property, thick with moss covered large cedar and fir trees. The adjacent sites are also similar sizes, so neighbours are not visible. We spent quite some time discussing the merits of both of the RV lots before going on a tour of the village common area with the salesman. There is a community building with a library, games room, and community meeting room, with kitchen, where community meetings and social activities take place. There is a swimming pool, with a hot tub in the swimming pool change room building. Everything is over 25 years old, so it's not as modern and luxurious as some of the other parks we've seen, but then again, the prices are a half to a quarter of what they are elsewhere ! Plus, the newer parks are much more "civilized" and "sterile". We really like this park's rugged, wilderness, forest settings. Especially so on the 3/4 acre lot, although we're leaning towards the smaller lot. Joanne doesn't want the log cabin.

We returned to the sales office with the salesman, and he gave us some documentation to read at our leisure. Community rules and regulations, etc.. We drove back to Hope, and went to the lovely city park to have a very late picnic lunch. We were at Sunshine Village much longer than we had expected to be. After lunch we went to the Tourist Information Centre to get more information on Hope and area, then we stopped at one of Hope's two grocery stores to buy a few groceries, and for Joanne to assess whether she could be happy with this small town grocery store. Some small town grocery stores aren't much more than a convenience store. This one was smaller than a large city grocery store, but had everything a large city grocery store would have, just in a slightly smaller building. We headed out of Hope, west on TCH 1 towards Abbotsford. We stopped at Chilliwack to check with 2 auto wreckers if they had a used driver's seat for our truck. Neither did. While driving back to Abbotsford Joanne made some phone calls to restaurants trying to find somewhere to take us for Thanksgiving dinner / my birthday dinner. She found what she was looking for, near Mission.

When we got back to the trailer, I resumed working on the computer file backup problem. I finally got the problem solved. Joanne barbecued supper. We continued discussing the Sunshine Village RV lots over dinner. I did today's accounting and journal entry. After I walked the dog and put away the barbecue we spent the rest of the evening reading today's newspaper.

DSK