wegenering

Rob:
Kelowna to us is about 20 miles of toned down but still bright and shiny Las Vegas Strip. We stayed in a Best Western with a water slide built in.
We only stopped there to pick up the new RV and transfer the other one to our insurance.
Very fine service at the RV place: good intro to the new RV and they washed the old one too.
The rest of the town is just a long run through many shopping centers and roof farms. I'm sure lots of folks enjoy visiting or living there but it is not my "cup of tea". Now that we have picked up the new RV they should build a bypass as far as I'm concerned.
Pulled out uphill from my aunt's place and both RVs made the hill.
Slush, snow and sand on the main line made for some white knuckle driving for a while. Received one rock chip in the windshield and it was hopeless to keep the mirrors clean.
There were a number of accidents on the "Coke" (Highway #5 South) but decent clear conditions. We ran well below the speed limit and traffic was fairly sensible after three or four ditched cars and one wrecked Semi were passed.

From my last blog:
"Hi Ylee:
We have a couple more hours to wait for a two hour ferry ride back to our island.
Missed the last one by about 10 minutes.
The new to us RV is fun and easy to drive. Temperature was just below freezing last night and we had rhe furnace on for a bit and slept comfortably.
Got only a few photos which I'll check out when I'm back to the computer.
There is probably a way to upload directly but I don't know how yet."

Good morning Rob:
Got in at about 2300 hr., lit the furnace, uploaded photos and browsed the blogs.
It was a bit startling to see the RV looming beside Tloml's little Versa this morning.
Wind and rain at about 3C.
Today will be: clean up the RV inside and out and warm up the house.

Hi there BriarCraft:
We were amazingly lucky to travel yesterday. The morning snow was slippery on the upsloping driveway and both drivers were piloting vehicles they had little experience with. The roads had been plowed and sanded but the last slushy mixture in the passing lane was deeper in the passing lane. We were moving slower than some of the transport trucks - there were a lot - wished to travel. So quite often we were almost blind as the wipers could not keep up with the mess on the windshield.
The sun came out near Kamloops and the slush was pretty well gone soon. Strangely enough the clearer road was where we got the chip in the new windshield.
We stopped at a Truck Scale and asked some of the drivers if we should route down the "Coke":
http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/coquihalla/index.htm
or stay on #1.
One guy said there was a multi vehicle crash so we could not go south on #5. We checked with the Officers tending the Scale and they radioed ahead to find "single lane" at the site of the accident.
I'll post a photo taken from the Scale.
Weather could not have been better so we figured "single lane" was good enough and went to #5.
There was one small car that had just lost it but the people were upright though stuck and Tow trucks were everywhere. Passed through the major accident site and the last transport truck was on the hook of a large tow truck.
Fairly good conditions from there but whenever you drove in shadows the road was still covered with the frozen stuff the plows can not clear. I think that has a lot to do with the accidents we saw: twenty miles of wet road punctuated with half mile stretches of frozen surface. Guess where we saw cars in the ditch.
However if we had postponed the drive till today we would not have been able to catch a ferry till late because all ferry crossings were cancelled this morning due to winds.

Ylee:
I was reading your blog and checking the cams and I see you have finished work and gone home already.
Yes - both RVs are built on Mercedes Chassis. Interiors are finished by the same outfit in Kelowna. For some reason our little one is officially a Dodge though.
Funny thing is: last spring we borrowed a smaller Dodge RV and toured a bit with the couple who bought the new one above and passed along the one now sitting in the yard. Back then the four of us would gather in the larger RV and Tloml and I would marvel at the extra room.
Guess what? Now that we have that "extra room" we still visited the new RV and marvelled at the "extra room" during this trip.
Much as I appreciate being able to stand without hunching in the new one I don't want anything bigger to herd around parking lots.

I apologize for the blurry quality of the latest picture but it might have something to do with stepping out on to a wet sundeck in socks.
I did not get the outside of the RV cleaned but since it rained most of yesterday a lot of the mud has drooled off.

Before I forget:
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-dea th/

Spent the day taking the RV to our daughters' and having them drive it about. They are probably more excited than I am about the prospects.
I have no intention of parking another toy in my yard but I'll be happy to book the RV for a trip now and then. They are already making plans for trips and overnight visits. While here the RV can also serve as comfortable accommodation for visitors who would rather not drive home.
It occurred to me when I had the boat in the shop here: even if it is just a power outage one can use the systems on board in an emergency large or small. Both the boat and the RV have heavy duty batteries and lights, water (not in freeze conditions) and reasonable sleeping kit.
The RV has a propane heater and stove, generator, radio, TV, Coffee maker and microwave (the last couple require land line electricity or the gen set).
So in some ways it could serve as a "Grab and Go" bag.

Missed you again Ylee:
Heavy wet snow mixed with rain knocked out the power last night and it just came on half an hour ago: about 0945.
Luckily we had the RV sitting there with a propane stove, full kettle (we lose water pressure as well) and some ground coffee.

Rob:
I was using one of the Shepherd's music videos to listen to Marley.
"Every little thing is gonna be alright!"
Dunno why it seems wet - just the way it is around here.
I eventually got decent rain gear and adjusted to moisture on everything including covered spaces. Mushrooms like it that way.
Used to get really bored with spongy damp for a month or more till I fired up the ancient "Aqualung".
Just kidding: Every now and then the sun comes out here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hadfield
He takes his guitar in to orbit soon.

My pick of BBC this morning:
"Visual artist Nam June Paik predicted internet age"

I have nothing to add to this:
http://www.monbiot.com

Good morning Tony:
We did take a drive through the old home town and stopped in a small park that abutted the property.
I don't remember whether I took a picture of the house on the hill which is now operating a dog kennel and numerous cargo containers are set up for the dogs in the field.
I had stayed up pretty well all the night before catching up with stories with my ~80 year old aunt.
I can not remember the last time I stayed up through the night but that would probably have been a long night in airplanes and airports.

1. ycd0108 8:29 AM PST on December 20, 2012 +0
Good morning Tony:
You had me puzzled this morning.
The list of Member Blogs said there was a new comment on my blog an hour old but when I checked there the latest comment was mine from last night.
Finally checked the earlier blog and there was your comment.
So your new device is Android too. I don't try to do much with the SamGal beyond reading the blogs and email, taking and uploading photos and if I'm away from the desktop I'll peck out a reply on the little screen.
Otherwise I do use the clock and alarm, calculator, GPS, maps, Gmail and sometimes I use the screen for a flashlight. Apparently I could probably run a starship with the other built in functions but I came to this technology - or it came to me - too late in life.
I can not imagine what those dreamy kids like I once was will do with these tools.

Evening BriarCraft:
It's always good to know someone actually bothers to read what we write, eh.
Funny how we chose which blog to comment on, which to read and which to pass over.
We are learning as we speak.

Shoreacres:
Life's been interesting so far and looks to get more so with time.
T'other night I was designated videographer for my grand daughter's performance of Cohen's (she followed Rufus Wainright's take) "Hallelujah".
I watched the video later and realized I had not seen the performance.

Rob:
All is well here (as far as I know). You sounded a bit flustered on your blog so I'll come over and see if I can sprinkle some Pixxy dust there without offending the Alphas that hang about.

Afternoon Tony:
So far so good here but I read somewhere that the "end" might be scheded for Sunday.
Seems to me that "EOTWAWKI" (end of the world as we know it) happened back in the late '60s when I went to the Big Smoke from a small town.
Obviously I did not really know the world then anyway and I still find it puzzling.
Samuel R. Delaney had some visions when I used to read books:
The children of now will converse with LUMP (Linguistic Ubiquitous Multi Plex) in an organic space ship.

Hey Ylee:
"Teach your children well"

Ylee: as parent and grand parent I was expecting more questions but cet la vie - they are all well ahead of me in the modern whirl.
I tend to ramble on as the kids noticed some while ago. Meantime they can Google up anything Grandpa might have some knowledge of and inform me.
That practical experience is still available to them

Late evening BareFoot:
794 looking good all dressed up.
At some point I saw a massive "Canadian Pacific" Locomotive parked where the newer high rises grew up in Vancouver - some derivative real estate outfit was showing our class of architecture students the (then) plan to develop the yards in to what we have today.
Now I wonder what or where that Engine is today.