5C's Que Pasa

Well it appears that I never got that poll up and running.  Looks like it will take a few days or a week. I have spent some time this past weekend working on the new blog. Much still will be done but at least it is working perfectly for me to be able to communicate with you as we travel to Mexico.

I am back to doing my kinesiology exercises twice per day but is has not been easy. The break because of loading and travel has not been my friend. I know now that I really have to push thru at least once per day. Now that I am more rested it should all come together.

However the black tank Commando treatment did not work. Yes Dee we have done this before ( but not using the Commando tab ) using two bags of ice cubes. Did not make a difference just like it did not the past two days. We will try it again in March on our way home – thanks for reminding me to put it on my to do list. Consider it done.

The girls are in training. We have been leaving them alone in the RV while we took first a 5 minute walk then slowly progressed to a 20 minute walk. No barking.Today we took the car and were supposed to only be gone an hour max. However traffic in Las Vegas dictates your travel time. Colin had set up the nanny cam and I checked it every 20 minutes or so. They only started barking as we were returning. They did really well and we were suprised to see that someone had pulled in and set up in front of us. Turns out that they were barking at a large dog walking past. They were inside with closed windows and the A/C on. Nice to see 80F today. I actually sat in the sun doing nothing but loving one or the other puppy soaking up the rays for about 40 minutes. But once the sun dips it gets chilly fairly quickly.

We did another wine pick up today, this time for us to drink here and on the road. The other wine is for consumption on the Isla. I also did a quick grocery shop. Is the Kroger butter good? I scored two pounds at $3.69 each at Smiths!

When you travel to Mexico one needs to purchase special Mexican Travel Insurance for both the RV and your vehicle. For over twenty years we were insured through Mexico Bob / San Xavier. Now that our 2001 motorhome is over 20 years of age most Mexican insurance companies will not insure for collision. Thanks to a very special blog reader and friend ( dirt surfer ) whom we have met in both the US and in Mexico ( on the Isla ) it was suggested to us to try Lewis and Lewis. Thank you dear friend. We now have collision on the RV. For the first time in 20years years we have used this company and it appears that they are a good broker to use. So glad to get that out of the way. Normally we get this sorted out in September but as we were not certain that the RV was going to be repaired we held back.

Can you believe that I did two loads of laundry yesterday and forgot to put the soap in 😳 Yikes, sometimes I about wonder about myself. Today Colin asked for my phone and I handed him my camera 🙁

I also forgot to mention that one of our favourite Pinot Grigio’s is Bella Sara, that is the one we discovered in Venice that I mentioned yesterday but did not name. So I have been calling Ciela “Ciela Bella” and sometimes “Ciela Bella Sera”. She responds to them all.

The new TV that Colin got for the RV is a Smart TV and it also has a USB to play videos. We love it, yes it is small but the colour is great.

However the greatest news of all is that we no longer need to spend $2000.00 CAD to purchase a new RV Tow Brake System. Because the Blue Ox was no longer functioning and was out of warranty ( despite being only 5 years old Blue Ox no longer services our model and have no parts ) Colin decided to take it apart. Inside he found wires that were connected to various areas. So he disconnected them all, blew on them and then re -plugged them in. Colin then charged the unit for a day and lo and behold it worked 😀  Pretty darn amazing.

In other good news we seem to have almost found all the stink bugs that had invaded the RV while loading. We were ever so careful to keep the door closed. I also think the RV repair shop in Armstrong likely left the door open as they went in and out to do what they had to do to get our motorhome working. We have been catching them every day since we left. Only one yesterday and one today. I hope that we have them all. I remember bringing them all the way to the Isla a few times.

Yesterday we did a Commando treatment to the black tank. We were going to do it in Ely and then drive for a bit before dumping. So instead it sat for 24 hours but the 1/3 sensor is still showing on when the tank is empty. We will try it again the we coming north end of March.

Stay tuned over the next few days, I will be asking your opinion on the header photo for this new blog.

 

 

 

 

 

So we are here in Las Vegas, Mother Nature’s antics are over and we are getting settled. Getting settled means having your wits about you. Why don’t we have our lovely coconut oil bath soap bars? I forgot, I may have mentioned this earlier but I am now an official old codger so I don’t remember. But I got some new Dove soap bars and they smell horrid but we will use them up.

Oh no, we have no kettle. That one is on Colin. Sometime in May ( because the RV was in the shop in Kamloops before that ) Colin put away our regular kettle and brought the smaller one in from the RV. “No worries Contessa I will put it back”  🙄 Nada. So we just bought one and it is bright red and we both love it. Next day Colin recalls that he had forgotten to bring the vacuum cleaner 😥  Well we now have a new one which is actually really great with fabulous suction. It is also red. I can’t remember in the twenty plus years that we have been travelling to Mexico that we forgot things like that. So that must mean that we are old codgers.

This past Monday, once the wind died down a bit we made a quick grocery shop at Smiths and picked up some wine and a few groceries. Sadly they no longer carry our favourite. We then stopped at Trader Joes to pick up a few bottles of two buck Chuck. We wanted to see if they were any good this year. Well first off they are now four buck Chuck. The first bottle I opened was like vinegar. They did refund me the money but we have moved on.

So many of my readers have been telling me that we need to shop at Total Wine here in Las Vegas. We have always been short of time. This season we have time. One of our favourite Pinot Grigio’s is from Venice, Italy and I could not find it anywhere. So I googled who sold it and Total Wine came up.  Walmart had none on the shelf but it is priced at $12.98 online. I can get a 1.5L bottle for $9.89 at Total Wine. I also discovered that another of our favourites could be purchased for $8.09 per 1.5 L. Wow!  I should have checked into this years ago. So I put in an order and saved ever so much 🙂

Yesterday ( Wednesday ) we went to Costco where Colin picked up three cases of his favourite Pinot Grigio. We also picked up a wine order from Total Wine. Love how the bottles are sealed in boxes. Perfect for travelling.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I resumed my kinesiology lessons this past Monday. We are using an online video method not Facebook. I really did not do well in the two weeks since I saw Lise in person. She changed a number of my exercises and gave me so many new ones. OUCH! So back to a twice daily routine.

Our days are full but there is a great deal of time to hug and love our girls.

Here are a few photos of some windstorm damage which I got off the internet.

Las Vegas is back to normal and so is Isla de la Piedra and Mazatlan. Time for all of us to move on and continue to enjoy each day to the fullest.

Thanks to the help we got in Wells on Friday Colin was finally able to sort out our smelly water problems.

 

Back to Friday, October 21st.

This was supposed to be our original arrival day in Las Vegas but instead because of the delay of the RV part, we were destined to spend the night in Ely Nevada. We have not had a drop of rain since leaving home nor have we seen any wildlife.I had mentioned the other day that we have had a few problems since leaving home.

This first one to manifest was that our tow braking system was no longer working. Colin tried everything he could but finally we had to call Blue Ox ( our supplemental tow brake  set up is with them ) and we discovered that we had been had. This system was purchased and then installed for a good deal of additional money back in 2015. What we just found out is that our tow brake is a 2012 model that had been sitting on someones shelf for a few years before they sold it to us. You need one of these supplemental bake systems based on the weight of your tow vehicle. In fact it is the law. So in full disclosure we did the Pendleton Pass with no tow brake. Actually this was the second time, the first was the year we had purchased the system and it would not work at all!! We had to send it back from Mexico to get repaired. I think we had used it one day.

The second issue was that our water smelt like sulphur and was running brown at times. Total yuck 😡 Colin normally flushes our water system before we leave. Of course this year we were unbelievably short of time. It was very apparent that we needed a new anode rod. Colin had a new one as well as all he needed to install it. Except he could not get the screw undone. We even asked for help in Mountain Home. It seemed that the screw was there permanently.

If we had left home on our original D Day of October 18th we would have missed the snow in Ely and the wind storm as we would already be settled in the Vegas RV Park and missed all the stress that came with it.

It was as were coming in Ely that I discovered the massive wind storm approaching Las Vegas the next morning. With a bit of research ( so glad that I have extra data ) we decided that the safest thing to do was to drive to Alamo. As you know from the last post we arrived safely but tired and were so happy to get the last open site. We slept well and were up early to try and get to Las Vegas before the storm hit at 11AM ( seriously, who decided that time, rather than between 10 and 11 )?

 

Back to Saturday October 22nd

We were driving at 7:25AM and Colin drove 65MPH. We never go over 60MPH as that is the safe maximum for the Jeep. But we were in a battle of time with Mother Nature. Soon we could only drive 40 mph. We noticed the wind begin to pick up as we neared I15 and Las Vegas. We were within site of Love’s when the gusts began. We were forced out of our lane twice, possibly three times. Colin lost control at those moments. Fortunately there was little traffic.

 

I am going to stop here tonight. I need to shower and make dinner.

Thank you all for your comments, it really helped us get through yet another dramatic adventure in our life.

 

 

 

 

We left Alamo, Nevada at 7:25AM ( yes Ken I kept to the plan ). The winds started up as as we neared Las Vegas. Coming down HWY 93 just before Love’s we were blown out of our lane a few times. Fortunately being a Sunday there was much less traffic but we both held our breathe as we negotiated the narrow single land curving overpass from I15 to I515. As we turned onto I15 we saw a semi with its nose in the sandy ditch. How did that happen, photo another day.

Checked in at 9:15AM. We were told at the gatehouse that if our site was still ( check out 11AM ) occupied we would have to leave and come back. Our site was empty, yeah for us. Parked and set up a bit, the girls got three walks today, on the last one Colin said he was worried they would blow away. The winds have becomes stronger since it got dark.

To be honest we are both exhausted. We only got the RV home about 7PM Monday and not stopped since. My body is so sore that I can hardly move. We have both been pushing ourselves. Naps were had by all four of us this afternoon. I kept feeling the RV rock a bit.

I am so very sorry but I might need a day or two to get back to normal. I simply cannot push myself to create a blog post. Tonight I am going to sit with a lovely wine and enjoy a shrimp penne with Alfredo sauce.

The blog might be back tomorrow but the next day at the latest. Thanks for hanging in.

 

PS

We are very concerned about this next hurricane which is now a Cat 4. Supposed to make landfall between a Cat 2 – 4 and near San Blas. Again like the last one a few weeks ago, Mazatlan is on the northern edge regarding rain and wind.

It is much more that tropical storm being a Cat 4 ( the photo was not updated ), Puerto Vallarta is in its path.

Let the adventure begin. You know how we always have drama in our lives.

Today we did not stop in Ely, Nevada for the night where we had a reservation. Someone made an error and gave away our reservation ( that I made 10 days ago ) to another RVer. All the pull through sites were booked. So even if we wanted to, we could not stay. We took that as a sign of Divine intervention. Ely is expecting their first big snow storm of the season tomorrow.

Just before we pulled into Ely this afternoon I received an alert re a severe windstorm in the Las Vegas area 🙁 As in such high winds that trees will be uprooted and it is not advised to travel in the area, especially in a high profile vehicle.  Of course it all depends on the direction and strength of the winds.

We looked up how much wind it would take to flip a Class A and it is anywhere from 40 -50 mph. Of course it all depends on the direction of the wind, etc. The warning is pretty specific,

So we pushed ourselves and drove another 2.5 hours late this afternoon. We arrived in the dark at the RV park in Alamo. I called and was able to book the last pull through site but talk about pushing ourselves. Not counting any bathroom or fuel breaks we drive a solid 8.5 hours today. I think that explains why we are all so tired.

The plan is to leave at 7:30AM at the latest and drive the two hours to Las Vegas and wait out the storm in the RV Park that we paid for last August. We really need to be settled in one place for several days.

Of course should the windstorm alert worsen or the start time changes we will spend another night here in Alamo. No way do we want to be driving in that kind of wind.

And then there is the possibility of another hurricane heading towards Mazatlan.

So this is a quick blog post. Photos and details of today will be forth coming. Thank you all for checking in.

 

We started in Washington state, drove through Oregon and are now at the Walmart in Mountain Home, Idaho. Tomorrow we will enter Nevada. This morning it was only 37F when we woke up,the forecast low for tonight is only 42F. It does feel warmer. Last night we had a very tasty Subway for dinner and tonight we are having lox and creme cheese on a croissant.

We drove for a few hours this morning before stopping for coffee and to feed the girls. Colin went across the street to Denny’s and picked me up a cup of fresh decaf. When I opened the lid I was shocked that the coffee was cooler than tepid. I took a sip and it had no taste and looked more like brown water. That coffee cost us $3.90 USD/ 5.60CAD 😡 SO much for my special treat today. We topped up the diesel today @ 5.599 per US gallon today. My coffee cost as much as a gallon of fuel.

Once we crossed into Idaho the time switched to MST but we stayed with our PST. No sense changing our timing cycle because tomorrow we will go back to PST. So when we were in rush hour traffic driving though Boise we suddenly realized that we were an hour behind the local time.

We have had a few RV issues since we left but I will share those another day. It is already 10:30PM and I really need to get to bed. Tomorrow will be a bit busier for us.

A very long day indeed but we have ended up in Moses Lake, Washington, our destination. Today was the latest departure we have ever done. We left the park at 11:45AM and arrived at the local Walmart at 6:30PM. The plumber who blew out the lines in the house for the winter was almost two hours late.  But honestly his delayed arrival did not affect us. It takes us three full days to load the RV and we did it in two. Obviously there were many last minute things to attend to this morning. We each had a list that we went over and over and each did a walk through the house. Finally we locked the house up and off we went.

First stop was to fill the RV propane tank as it was surprisingly low. Next stop was the Canada US international border where we hit a major delay. The regular car/RV crossing was closed off and there as quite the line to go through the truck crossing. It was close to thirty minutes before it was our turn. The usual questions including about how much wine we had on board. We told him the truth. He asked it we were going to select in the US. Ah no, personal consumption. He did not ask us to pay the 21 cents duty per bottle.I asked and was told that they had staff shortages right now hence the delays. We did have another thirty minute wait for the agricultural officer to do her check. There were two RV’s ahead of us.

She was very young and asked us to all leave the RV while she did her inspection. Never had that happen before, at the end I asked her why. Mostly because she just wanted her own space to look around. I could hear drawers being opened as well as the fridge and freezer and even the overhead cabinets in the living room area, She came running to the door asking if we had a rifle 😯 It was one of Colin’s travel guitars ( sitting on the bed ) that folds in half. Before she began her private search she asked what I had to declare re veggies, fruits, meats, tomatoes, eggs and perhaps a few other things, Once I told her about the 3 very ripe bananas and the one cucumber that was sealed in cellophane she asked it there was anything else that I wanted to declare before she searched. We had nothing to hide, I did mention to her that we did not eat meat but the she would find things in the freezer that were like veggie ground round, etc. Two minutes into her search she came to the door saying that I had lied and we had pepperoni in the freezer. I asked her to look at the label again, veggie pepperoni for our pizzas. The good thing about the length of the stop was that Colin was able to walk the dogs on the lovely grass area next to the RV.

So we drove and drove and drove. You know the expression “let sleeping dogs lie” and so we did. They had a late breakfast and slept through lunch so we kept going until almost an hour before we stopped for the night. They got a later but larger lunch and we got cheese and crackers to nibble on. I also enjoyed some wine with mine.

It has been an extremely long day, I did 13 hours with a few breaks. Colin went nonstop for at least 15-16 hours. About noon I did not think that we would get it done. So we made a plan to do what needed to be done before dark and what could easily be accomplished when it was dark. So here I sit at 10:30PM having a lovely hot meal ( thanks to the  microwave ). However I am sitting with my heating pad at my back and it feels so wonderful.

We woke up to 0C/32F, yet the high today was 18C/64F. We had a heater on as well as the furnace and fireplace. Colin decided last night that the girls could sleep with us. They will be with us again tonight as their crate is now in the RV. They were much much happier today. It seems that they have figured out that the RV loading means that we are going somewhere. They actually spent most of the day in the RV so that they could supervise everything. First in many days that I have seen their tails wagging so much.

I forgot to mention that yesterday I could not find our passports. Finally found them slid under other things. Then Colin remembered that the Jeep insurance expired on November 12th. Thank goodness he did and it is now on the to do master list to get it done before we leave.

Today I made my annual fall huge Amazon.com purchase and even that did not ( for the first time ever ) go well, however by mid afternoon all had been ordered.

Oh, the shop that did the RV repair has not called with the invoice yet. We will call them in the next day or so.

I would guess that we are 98% done. Today we had a plumber booked to blow out the lines in the house. Of course we are still here and yesterday he agreed to come tomorrow morning. He contacted us this afternoon and said it would have to at 7:15AM. At least he is still coming.

One other thing that happened today was that we were told that because our RV is twenty years old we can no longer get collision insurance for our travels in Mexico. So I have reached out to a few people, hoping that we can get some suggestions.

Despite all the set backs, we will be leaving in the morning, just one day late. I called the RV Park in Las Vegas to let them know that we would be one day late in arriving due to a mechanical issue. Even though we had prepaid for our entire stay I was happily surprised to see a refund for the one night.

You may have noticed that I had the header photo changed, again this will not be the final. You will see changes here and there over the next few weeks. One thing that has changed is that when you make a comment you have the choice to get my reply sent back to you or not. Obviously at the moment I have had little to no time to make replies. Let me know what you think about this option.

At this point I have not had anytime to figure out how to change the photo size and likely will not for a week. If the photos look normal you can thank my Fairy Godmother 😀

11:30PM and I need to get to bed.