Year 3 Week 49

May 20 to 26, 2007

Keremeos, B.C.

Year 3 week 49

 

Sunday ; Today was sunny and mild, a bit windy.

This morning we trimmed Teddy's and Bo's nails. Ooooops ... hit the quick in one of Bo's nails again. Sorry, Bo. I spent much of the morning washing out the box of the truck. When we bought a load of soil, I tried to have it dumped onto a tarp in the back of the truck, but the man operating the front end loader missed the tarp when he dumped the soil into the truck. There was soil all over the inside of the truck box, including all over the fifth wheel hitch, and underneath the Rubbermaid tote and the aluminum storage chest < sigh >. It was tough to clean out. I even had to remove the fifth wheel hitch out of the truck, then reinstall it after cleaning out the truck box.

This afternoon we went to the Keremeos Rodeo. It was the first time we've been to a rodeo. It was great ! We watched women's barrel racing ( my favourite event ), the kids' calf scramble, team roping, and bull riding. After the rodeo, we drove from the rodeo grounds into town, to the Elks Barbecue at Memorial Park.

We spent the evening watching Bob & Doug Mackenzie's movie, Strange Brew, followed by their Two Four Anniversary Special. HA HA HA !

 

Monday ; Today was sunny, mild, and windy.

This morning we headed into Keremeos for the annual Victoria Day parade. Bo hasn't been getting much "drivey" time in the 3 weeks that we've been here, so we took him along. For a small village, Keremeos put on a pretty decent parade. We sat on a bench in Memorial Park to watch the parade. We were about 50 feet behind the crowd on the sidewalk. Bo's a bit too exuberant for us to stand right at the edge of the street, in a crowd, watching a parade, with horses prancing by a few feet in front of his nose.

As soon as the parade was over, we jumped in the truck and followed the crowd, which was pretty much the entire population of Keremeos and area, over to the fairgrounds, for the ... wait for it ... annual Victoria Day lawnmower races. HA HA HA ! We weren't sure what to expect. We didn't think lawnmowers travelled fast enough to make lawnmower races interesting. We were very wrong. These hillbilly boys out here sure do know how to "soup up" their lawnmowers ! We spent the afternoon sitting up in the bleachers, watching lawnmowers race around the dirt track that was the rodeo grounds yesterday. The highlight of Bo's day came when the wind knocked over the little cardboard tray of french fries of the teenaged girl sitting beside us. ZOOOOOM ... SCARF ! Good fries, eh, Bo ? HA HA HA !

I spent some time late this afternoon dozing on the swing with Teddy. He's become very fond of our new yard swing. I spent the evening finishing up our income tax returns, which I've been working on intermittently for the last couple of weeks. I'll only be a month late filing our income taxes, which is the earliest I've filed them in 20 years. HA HA HA !

 

Tuesday ; Another sunny, warm day.

We headed to Penticton this morning for another long, tiring day of running errands. On the way back we stopped in Keremeos for still more errands. I went to Similkameen Insurance Agency to get some information on registering and insuring the truck and trailer in British Columbia. It seems as if B.C.'s vehicle insurance premiums will be much more than we've been paying in Manitoba.

After supper we filled out more government forms < sigh > for new residents of B.C., and I reconciled the MasterCard statements. Our new driver's licenses arrived in the mail today. My goodness, what horrible photos !

 

Wednesday ; Another sunny, warm day.

This morning our good RV'ing friends Tom & Ruth-Anne Huggard, and their Scottish Terrier Emma Lynn arrived for a visit. We met Tom and Ruth-Anne just when we were starting to full time RV 3 years ago, at an Ontario Escapees Chapter 18 rally. Since then we have visited with them in Lorette, Manitoba while "living" in my sister's yard in the summer of 2004, at West Hawk Lake when we were campground hosts in the summer of 2005, at their new home in Northern Alberta in the fall of 2005, at Oliver, B.C. near here again in the fall of 2005, and we missed them by 2 hours at the Escapees Park near Knoxville, Tennessee in the spring of 2006.

Around noon Glenn the China Creek service technician arrived to install and configure my new wireless router. When he finished that, he and I both assumed it would then be a simple matter to configure my Vonage Wi-Fi VoIP phone to operate. WRONG ! I spent the rest of the day alternating between visiting with Tom and Ruth-Anne, and trying to get the Vonage phone to work. I was very frustrated. I sent Glenn 3 e-mails asking for help, each one more desperate. I even drove into town and phoned him on our Manitoba cell phone, and left a desperate message asking for help. Finally, late in the day, and completely inadvertently and serendipitously, I got the phone working. WOO-HOO ! All's well that ends well, I guess. I'd like to take credit for being an electronics wizard, but ... I can't. Sometimes it's just better to be lucky than good.

 

Thursday ; Today was sunny and warm again. How nice !

This morning Ruth-Anne and Joanne went into Keremeos to do a bit of grocery shopping. Ruth-Anne wanted to look around Keremeos. As Ruth-Anne drove their truck out of our lot, she bumped the park bench I positioned at the corner of our lot, and she broke it. Oh ... well ... shit happens ! Tom and Ruth-Anne will go to Penticton tomorrow and get us a new park bench. At least their truck wasn't scratched.

Tom and I spent much of the day working on building a picnic table. Well, Tom did most of the work. He started before I was even aware of it. And he worked on it by himself for an hour while I had a telephone conversation with a couple from Bracebridge, Ontario, who are seriously contemplating purchasing a lot in this park. They found out I was a new owner here when they did a Google search on the name of this park, and one of the links that popped up was my blog. Isn't Google wonderful ? ! Their phone call was the first call I received on my new Vonage VoIP Wi-Fi phone.

Some work needs to be done on the park's trailer storage area. The few trailers that are in the storage area needed to be moved. One of our neighbours asked me to move their fifth wheel trailer, because they don't have a truck with a fifth wheel hitch. They had the trailer moved here from Alberta by a commercial hauler. I moved their trailer from the storage area to an empty lot while the storage area is being worked on. When the work is completed, I expect they'll ask me to move their trailer back.

Late in the afternoon, Wayne, the developer of the park, showed up with a B.C. provincial electrical inspector who wanted to inspect the electrical installation on our lot. The electrical inspector's position was that it was unacceptable to him that we have a ( standard ) RV pedestal configuration of a 50 amp outlet, a30 amp outlet, and a 15 amp duplex outlet. He instructed me to remove the 50 amp outlet, and replace it with another 30 amp outlet, for a configuration of two 30 amp outlets, and a 15 amp duplex outlet.

Let me get this straight. You, a total stranger, walk onto my property, produce no identification or documentation, and want me to remove an outlet from a standard configuration RV pedestal and replace it with a lower power outlet, because you said so ? ? ? ? ? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ... I don't think so ! **** off, get off my land, and come back when you have the correct document, on Province of B.C. letterhead, signed by someone with a lot more authority than you, instructing me to change it, and explaining why. I'll forward that document to my lawyer, and discussions will start, at that point !

You know, I've had a lot more hassles in 3 weeks as a land owner, than I did in 3 years as a homeless, unemployed vagabond.

 

Friday ; Today was sunny and warm.

Tom and I continued working on building a picnic table again today, but unfortunately were unable to finish. For the second time on this picnic table project, I had purchased the wrong size of screws. We spent most of the day visiting with Tom and Ruth-Anne. Around 4:00 P.M. we loaded 4 people and 3 dogs into Lanoire and headed for town, for the Music Under the K annual music festival. The "K" is K Mountain, which serves as a backdrop for the village of Keremeos. I dropped everybody off at Memorial Park, then went to Keremeos Building Supplies to exchange the wrong screws for the right ones.

We weren't planning to spend as much time at Music Under The K as we did, but it was so enjoyable, we were there from 4:30 until the end of the day's performances at 9:00 P.M.. We watched a local classic rock band, a jazz band from Penticton, a Celtic rock and blues band from Toronto, and a variety of high school bands. The highlight was a superb performance by a rhythm and blues big band and choir from a high school in West Vancouver.

 

Saturday ; Today was sunny and very warm. My face looks a little sun burned from sitting in the bright sun at "Music Under the K" this afternoon.

This morning I got up early to visit with Tom and Ruth-Anne ( early risers ) for awhile before they departed. After they left, and we had an early lunch we drove into Keremeos to catch the opening act of the day at Music Under the K. It was the Sentinel High School Rhythm & Blues Band from West Vancouver. We enjoyed their performance so much last night we wanted to see their performance again today. After watching them start the afternoon's performances, we stayed for a couple of hours watching a variety of performers.

Buppy our visitor dog is fretting much less today. He even managed to wag his tail a few times today.

 

DSK