Western Columbine at L.L. Stub Stewart

(+7 insets!) (this update is another doorstop...coffee will be necessary to make it through to the end! :D)

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well, I miss everyone a lot. I really miss my "normal" routine of cruising around everyone's streams and dropping off comments for all of your latest pictures. However, I have had to change my priorities from my usual photography/ipernity/chores/etc. to trip preparation in all regards. I'm the sort of person that can't have the distraction of a favorite pastime interfering with important tasks. If I try to spend a small amount of time with something like photography or ipernity, I end up becoming totally absorbed and procrastinating away hours of time. I just can't seem to balance that one so the best option is just to stay away from these activities until I have my priorities under control.

Trip Planning
So, I'm still working on our Vancouver Island trip itinerary and also doing zillions of prep tasks, etc…six weeks is a lot for planning and coordination, let me tell you! We were able to find a person in the area who's an expert with snakes and frogs and he will be caring for Snakey McSnakerton and our two ancient, 18-year old frogs while we are away. We've arranged for a house-sitter. Pumpkin is microchipped and paperwork is in order. Steve's got all of our trip reservations--including our ferry crossings--finalized. I now know that we can bring most of our food across the border both ways--but no eggs or fruit!

Oh, and by the way, did you know that a sing freshwater fishing license is just $37 for a Canadian and a whopping $84 for a non-native? In other words, we'll be spending $168 just for the chance to fish! Sound the general alarm, that's CRAZY!! And yet, we'll pay the price because we're going to be on the island for five weeks. Did you notice the part where I mentioned "fresh water"? We WON'T be fishing in the ocean/shore/bay pier. That would be another $125 EACH to try that. (And, just for funzies I looked into boat charters of any sort…AHHHH!!! It's a minimum of $600-$700 to go out on a boat for two people…as much as I would dearly LOVE to have a guided trip for fishing, we just can't afford such extravagances.)

RV/Truck Maintenance…
When we were at our last RV destination, Diamond Lake, we noticed that one of the trailer wheels wasn't behaving quite right--it didn't turn freely when we backed the trailer up, pushing into the gravel instead of rolling over it (but seemed ok going forward). This was strange because we'd had the bearings repacked and the whole rig checked out by a local shop. But when we got home, Steve checked each of the wheels and discovered that three of the four wheel's hubs were cool to the touch as they should be, but the one we were concerned about was very hot--a bad sign that the bearings aren't moving easily. So, right away Steve got the trailer into the shop. Turned out to be such a strange situation that the shop admitted never seeing it before in the 20 years they've been servicing RVs! In fact, parts of the bearings assembly disintegrated into the wheel and it was a total mess--it was lucky we got home, actually. Because of Steve's diligence to check for problems, he discovered this blow-out accident waiting to happen. Happily, the repair didn't cost us a cent because it was the shop's error--although to be fair, it was a manufacturer's error--not theirs--because they'd done everything right except for putting in a bearing assembly that was defective.

Steve also took the truck in for an inspection by our local mechanic. We really should have done this before we began our RV adventures but the timing didn't work out until now. As it turned out, we learned that to get our truck up to snuff, we needed to sink nearly $5k into engine repairs. That's on top of the transmission we had rebuilt. Holy money pit Batman, at that point you really need to stop and think about cost vs. value. Steve and Huck, our mechanic, talked about the truck for a while and if these costs were worth it. But, just like our transmission mechanic, Huck didn't hesitate with the same opinion: these trucks will last forever with routine care, and this truck is unquestionably worth more than we paid for it, despite the transmission and maintenance costs. And, with these repairs out of the way, we won't need any work done on the truck for 100k miles or more. Ah well, it's just money and more importantly, we have peace of mind. The truck did make odd sounds sometimes which made us wonder. Now Steve knows what they meant. It's all good.

RV Upgrades, also known as, "STEVE IS AMAZING!!!"
Meanwhile, Steve has been working on making our RV better and better! His most important project when we got home was to fix the wonky, defective kitchen drawers and then to BUILD four new drawers--a pair that would go under the dinette seats and two under the master bed.

First he fixed the kitchen drawers. The idiot things didn't open/close properly and the slides were partially broken…what a nightmare! He replaced the cheap-crappy slide mechanisms with new ones that have a soft-close feature which pulls the drawer shut at the last inch. While he was fixing the drawer, he also added 6" to the length/depth of the drawer! MORE ROOM IS MORE!!! YAYYYYY!!!

What a difference!! When he was done we stood there like silly little kids taking turns opening and closing the drawers! HOORAY!!! *happy dance* The thing is--we use those drawers dozens of times every day and every time we had to fight with the drawers to some degree. By the time we got home from our last trip, we were both raving lunatics, and that's why he had those drawers fixed the day after we got back! HUZZAH!

After the kitchen drawers he attacked the dinette! The seats have cushions that can be removed, exposing a crappy piece of plywood that covers storage space below. Potentially useful? ABSOLUTELY! Realistically useful? NOT! So Steve set to work building a pair of drawers that should have been there to begin with. It was a challenge to figure out the drawer faces but his solution of using stained wood faces in a black frame works just super. We are beside ourselves with happiness at how amazing these drawers turned out. (Did I mention the fact that Steve's never built drawers like this before from scratch?) Now we'll have a proper place for our pots and pans and plenty of other stuff. All easily accessible by opening a drawer! Steve's AMAZING!!!

Finally, he's in the last stages of building drawers into the bed frame so we have proper places to put our clothes. We've been making due with the pair of closets at either side of the bed but the spaces are too small and require us to pile our clothes up and squish them into place. Trying to pull out an item of clothing at the bottom of a pile is a guaranteed disaster with clothes falling onto the floor, tipping over, and making a huge mess. Neither of us made a peep about it on our last trip because there was nothing we could do about the situation but we totally hit the wall. It would be a big project but the effort would really pay off. As he expected, the horrendous lack of building skill in the trailer's construction made it very challenging in regards to dealing with so many lopsided angles but he's been able to come up with clever solutions for every problem. He's almost done now and we are so excited to put these new spaces into use! YAY FOR MY CLEVER MAN!!! :)

Today's Pictures
Today's main picture and inset are a pair of the many lovely wild Columbine blossoms that Steve and I saw when we were staying at L.L. Stub Stewart State Park. Using a flash really make them explode in fiery color, especially against a dark background. I also have an inset which shows a Columbine in natural lighting. Incredible flowers, aren't they? I was so happy I got to see them in bloom, as I'd missed their bloom time here at home.

I'm also including insets that show the drawer work that Steve's done! What fun it is to show off Steve's handiwork! :)

Pam, I'm hoping that you've been doing as well as can be expected! Miss you mucho my dear! *MANY HUGS* and thank you so much for the comments on my picture! :)

Explored on 7/19/19; highest placement, #7.