Year 3 Week 18

October 15 to 21, 2006

Oliver, B.C.

Year 3 week 18

 

Sunday ; Oliver to Osoyoos and U.S. border & return

Today was cloudy and mild. It rained overnight and again a bit this evening.

Joanne walked downtown this morning to do a bit of grocery shopping. I did some online work, and listened to Stuart McLean's Vinyl Café on CBC. I like his story telling. It took me a long time, and a lot of fine print reading, to determine that my investment company's web site, with access to my investment accounts, won't work properly with Internet Explorer version 7 which I downloaded a few days ago. I had to delete version 7, and restore version 6 to be able to access my investment accounts online.

This afternoon we drove to Osoyoos to explore. Osoyoos is about 15 minutes south of Oliver on Hwy. 97. We drove through Osoyoos, finding the Bank Of Montreal, and checking out other stores and services. When we live in Keremeos, our shopping and service centres will be Penticton and Osoyoos. Just on the edge of town, we drove onto the Nk'Mip ( pronounced Inkameep ) band lands. Nk'Mip is the Osoyoos Indian Band name. We drove through the very nice Nk'Mip RV Campground. This past summer we had thought that it was going to be where we spent the month of October, until we changed our minds and decided to stay at Desert Gem RV Resort at Oliver. We drove up the mountain past the Nk'Mip Resort and Spa, the Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre, and stopped at Nk'Mip Cellars, the only Native owned winery in North America. We walked around their wine tasting and gift shop, admiring the Native art exhibited within.

We drove back down the mountain off the Indian lands, back through town, and drove south on Hwy. 97 to the U.S. border crossing to Oroville, Washington, 5 km. / 3 mi. from Osoyoos. We turned around, headed back to and through Osoyoos, and back towards Oliver. We stopped at a produce stand to buy some fruit. We sampled, and bought some apples. There are so many types of apples available locally, neither of us can remember the name of the type of apples we bought today. I walked across the highway from the produce stand to see the harvesting of grapes. The harvesters were all East Indians / Sikhs. East Indians / Sikhs seem to dominate the local orchard and vineyard businesses. The harvesters snip the bunches of grapes from the vines, and drop them into huge plastic pails ( about 20 gallons ? ) that they tote along with themselves as they harvest. It takes them about 2 hours to fill each pail with grapes, and they get paid $50 a pail. $200 a day / $1000 a week. Good money ! Joanne surmises that maybe all the scruffy Quebecois kids that we are seeing around here might be here to harvest grapes and / or apples, before heading off to the ski resorts in B.C. to work for the winter.

 

Monday ; Today was raining all day.

We spent a lazy day because of the weather. We went shopping for a few groceries, and some hardware I needed. I fabricated a new waste tank valve handle extension, as a spare. I downloaded and processed some photos I took yesterday. I read and napped. We watched TV.

 

Tuesday ; Today was sunny but cool. It looks like the warm summer temperatures are now over, and the cooler fall weather has arrived here in the Okanagan.

Today was another slow day. I spent much of the day making phone calls, doing Internet research, and sending e-mails about the RV utility power pedestal and pre-cast concrete pedestal and sewer inlet base that I want to buy for our lot at Riverside RV Park Resort. Some companies are so easy to do business with ( like Valid Manufacturing in Salmon Arm ) and some companies are impossibly difficult to do business with (like Oliver Redi Mix ) !

 

Wednesday : Oliver to Penticton & return

Today was partially cloudy and cool.

We drove to Penticton this morning. First stop was Parker's Chrysler. I had Lanoire's loose radio antenna mount tightened, and the under hood sound & heat insulation liner replaced. It was slightly burned by the heat of the turbocharger. When towing a heavy trailer, for long periods non-stop, on hot summer days, up and down mountains, the turbocharger apparently gets hot enough to burn the insulation liner under the hood. The same thing happened on Dee-Dee, but it's such a minor problem that it's not worth bothering with, on a vehicle that's beyond warranty. I guess that I will periodically replace the under hood insulation liner on Lanoire until the warranty expires.

I went next door to Bling Performance and ordered a set of chrome door handles, to replace the one that I broke during installation. I had to order a set of two, for a regular cab truck, but at least I didn't have to pay for another set of four. We went for lunch, and stopped into an Edward Jones office. We made an appointment for later this month, to discuss our future needs to have an investment broker here in B.C. when we "move" to Keremeos. We shopped at Wal-Mart, then Real Canadian Warehouse, then Safeway. We drove downtown to the Bank Of Montreal and ordered some U.S. dollar traveller's cheques. Finally, we headed back towards Oliver.

On the way back to Oliver, we stopped at a business called Tickleberry's, at Okanagan Falls. We knew about Tickleberry's, having purchased their chocolate covered berry products at the Ottawa Christmas Craft Shows in the past. Tickleberry's at Okanagan Falls wasn't exactly what we expected, having bought at their booths at the Ottawa Christmas Craft Shows. They were a small tourist and gift shop filled with what we consider to be trivial junk items, like the Pine Ridge Hollow store near Bird's Hill Park that my sister likes so much. Chacun à son goû t.

Back at the trailer, we discovered that the trailer's furnace wouldn't work. It was working fine yesterday. I wasn't able to determine the cause of the problem. Of course, what I know about RV furnaces would fit on the head of a pin. Tomorrow I'll have to phone a local mobile RV service company to come over and take a look at it.

 

Thursday ; Today was sunny and cool. The weather has definitely changed from t-shirt weather to long sleeved shirt weather. Could be worse !

This morning we took Bo for an obedience walk in the vacant lot next to our RV park. Joanne felt that we should both take him today, and give him a more challenging session than he's been getting lately. While he was in a "sit stay", and holding it quite nicely as we walked quite far away from him, a quail ran across the vacant lot, between Bo and us. THINK ... THINK ... THINK ... ZOOOOOM ! BO ... STOP ! So an errant quail somewhat broke his concentration, and contributed to what happened next.

We got him refocused, then while I stayed with him, Joanne went around a corner, behind a fence, and commanded him to come. He ran around the corner towards where Joanne was hidden, looked across the road at the airport, saw birds on the airport field, dashed across the road, squirmed under the fence, and took off as fast as his scrunty little legs could take him, across the field, and runway, chasing birds ! Bad dog, Bo ! Joanne and I ran across the road, calling to him. He ignored us for a minute or two, and then ran back to us, just as I was contemplating climbing over the airport security fence to chase after him. Good dog, Bo ! He sure can cover a lot of ground in just a very short period of time !

This afternoon the mobile RV repair service man came by. I helped him remove the furnace. It wasn’t easy, even for someone who knows what he’s doing. He took it back to his shop to inspect and, hopefully, repair it.

The Dow Jones closed above 12,000 today. WOO-HOO ! That warrants a little celebration.

 

Friday ; Today was sunny, mild, and windy.

This morning the mobile RV service man came by to advise me that Harvey's furnace needs a new blower motor. He ordered one, and should be ready to reinstall the furnace on Monday. This will be a fairly costly repair, but overall, we have not had many expensive repairs on the trailer in the 3 years we've owned it. Harvey the trailer has been much more satisfactory than Dee-Dee the truck was.

We reviewed and changed our plans to travel south starting on November 1. We had planned to cross into Washington, turn east and cross over the Rockies, through Idaho and into Montana, then head south, on the east side of the Rockies, through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. Joanne really wants to visit Colorado. But we've changed our minds. We've come to realize that the weather on the east side of the Rockies, in the fall, is much worse than it is on the west side of the Rockies. Two years in a row now, we've encountered winter blizzard conditions on the Alberta side of the Rockies, in the Banff and Jasper regions, in September. Travelling down through Colorado, in November, is likely to be too cold for our tastes. We've decided to return in the spring, up the east side of the Rockies, through Colorado.

This fall, we'll head straight south through Osoyoos into Washington, then across Washington to the Columbia River corridor, which is the Washington / Oregon border. Maybe we'll visit Mount St. Helen's. We'll definitely stop at the Escapee park in Oregon, the only one of the 19 Escapee parks that we have not yet been to. We want to stay far enough inland to avoid the fall rainy season of the Pacific Northwest coast, but far enough west to avoid the cold of the Rockies.

For the last few days I have been having a 3 way discussion by e-mail, with the RV power pedestal manufacturer in Salmon Arm, and a concrete company in Kelowna that may or may not be able to pre-cast a concrete pedestal and sewer inlet base to mate with the RV power pedestal. It's a slow, slightly frustrating process, to have a 3 way discussion by e-mail, including the exchange of shop drawings and photographs.

 

Saturday ; Oliver to Osoyoos to Keremeos & return

Today was sunny and mild. We like the weather here !

This morning I watched a tow plane towing gliders up over the nearby mountains and releasing them to glide on the thermals. The local Air Cadets have a tow plane and a couple of gliders at the Oliver Airport across the street from our RV park.

We had an early lunch, then drove to Osoyoos to look at a used fifth wheel stabilizer tripod that was advertised in the local Bargain Hunter. Joanne picked up a copy of the Bargain Hunter yesterday to verify that our ad for the sofa bed was in it. She noticed an ad for a fifth wheel stabilizer tripod. I've never really thought that one was necessary, particularly because of our constant travelling, but it might be useful to have when we're parked for 6 months at a time in one place, as we will be starting next spring. Anyways, I didn't like what was being sold, and didn't buy it.

We drove to Keremeos, then to Riverside RV Park Resort. We met with Ben Nendick, the contractor I have hired to do most of the preparation of our lot next spring. He will do everything except the electrical work. He will excavate trenches, install the sewer, water, and phone lines, backfill the trenches, haul in 4 truckloads of ¾" shale and dump it on the site, then level and compact the site. After our meeting with Ben, we met with Mitch Netterfield, the Sales Agent, who wanted our opinions on dog selection. He and his wife are going to look at a litter of Lhasa Apso puppies tomorrow, and will probably get one.

We drove back to the Village of Keremeos, and bought some fruit. It's pretty difficult to drive through "The Fruit Stand Capital Of Canada" and not buy some fresh fruit. After buying fruit we went to Victory Hall where the annual "Taste Of Our Valley" event was being held today. Around the perimeter of the hall were tasting tables set up by local wineries, orchards, and restaurants. We ate, drank, ate, drank, ate, drank ... and so on. I chatted briefly with the wife of the local veterinarian. Too bad he's retiring at the end of the month. Hopefully, there will be a new vet in Keremeos by next spring.

Our friend Jennifer from Vancouver introduced us to the wonderful local apples known as Ambrosia. What we didn't know until tonight's Taste Of Our Valley was that the Ambrosia apple was developed / invented right here in Keremeos in 1997. It's truly a local product, and they are GREAT !

DSK