That got your attention! My apologies for not writing more frequently, but when you’re retired, time seems to slip by like sands through the hourglass….so go they days of our lives, but I digress. Since I last brought you up to date we are still in the pacific northwest as our repair saga continues. More on that in a moment. The weather has been spectacular up until this past week when fall has finally fell. We have been enjoying mid 70’s and plenty of sunshine as the days get shorter and shorter. So sit back and as Josh would say, ‘crack open a Baptist Beer’ and relax as I catch you up.
We are still in the Pacific Northwest waiting for parts and shop time. It took two trips to the shop to get the diagnosis and the parts ordered as well as the blessings from the warranty company. Essentially we have three more repairs to be done. 1. Replacing the ice maker in the fridge. Shouldn’t be difficult and finished in a day. 2. Replacing the rear air conditioner/heat pump which died on our trip up here. That’s going to be the challenge as there is wiring issues and our original thermostat is no longer made. Soooooooooo we are going to have two separate thermostats installed, one for the front module and one for the back. 3. The full wall slide is misaligned so they are going to replace a motor and resynchronize the tracks and we’ll be down the road. Blade RV has scheduled 2 days of work, which thankfully they will allow us to pick it up in the evening and bring it in the next day as they complete repairs. This way we avoid having to find a pet friendly hotel with the girls.
We have been bouncing between Bow and LaConnor 1000 trails as we await our appointment which has allowed us time to spend with family and friends. Last Friday we had wonderful time north of the Border with our great friends Ron and Sharlene Monk and Shar’s sister Cathy and her husband John. We met them in Surrey at a Tim Horton’s where we enjoyed coffee, conversation and breakfast sandwiches. While continuously chatting about our experiences since we last encountered each other, we rode with Ron and Shar to White Rock where we walked on the longest pier in Canada. We then enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the Boat House restaurant and took advantage of exchange rate with a wonderful seafood lunch for $50. We also used the exchange rate to load up on tins of Timmy’s Coffee. As we walked out of Tim Horton’s we looked like we looted the place with 3 big cans of coffee. It was so good seeing Shar and Ron and hopefully we can meet them in Palm Spring or AZ in a few weeks.
We did spend a day with Frank, took him to breakfast and then brought him back to the rig for a bit of different scenery. We then drove into La Connor and took advantage of the still sunny and warm weather for some local clam chowder and fish and chips as we watched the boats pass through the Swinomish channel.
I also got to spend a male bonding evening with Josh at the Angel of the Winds sports book. We bet on the Ravens-Bengals game and I had the chance of winning $60 on a $10 bet as I picked Cincinatti and the under. I was good until Jason Tucker &*^%$## it up with a last second game winning field goal. May all of his kicks go wide right for the rest of the season!!!! Even so, it was a great evening and spending time with my son is always time well spent. Vicki has an estrogen filled Saturday coming up with Elizabeth this Saturday so that will be a good time for them. I will be at Oliver’s playoff football game, taking in the testosterone.
We are looking to leave the PNW around the 7th of November with an arrival in Brownsville around the end of the month. We are going to have to take the California then east route as the eastern route out of Washington has been closed by forest fires and snow. Speaking of forest fires, Vicki has really been hammered with the excess smoke we’ve had in the Skagit Valley. AQI was over 200 for several days and Vicki suffered with bronchitis. So much so she had to use albuterol just to breath. Almost had to make a trip to the ER, but the steroids kicked in and all was good. We did limit ourselves to walking the dogs only with masks and only three times a day. They too suffered with the lack of clean air to breath. It was a toss up as to what was worse, smoke or covid.
Speaking of Covid, this past week we got jabbed twice, once with flu vaccine, and just Wednesday with our Covid booster. Are you vaccinated? Still waiting on insurance to cover the shingles vaccine so have put that on the back burner for now. We finally got rain this week and discovered a leak by the driver’s side door. A gutter piece had broken off. So that meant a trip to camping world and new gutter extender. If you’re not familiar with RV roofs and gutters, it will be meaningless to you, but those in the know understand the implications. Good thing I have a ladder and made the necessary repairs. So we are good to go with no more waterfall on the driver’s side inside of the coach.
That about catches you up with our goings on. Love your comments either here on the blog or at facebook. And by the way, did I mention we are still loving retirement!?!
