Month: January 2009

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Like March, Only Wetter

We were treated to brilliant sunshine and BLUE sky  yesterday afternoon and this morning I was awoken by SUN. It doesn’t last, though. It’s started to rain again, but the weather is sooooo mild. It’s such a joy to be able to dash out to the laundry in just a sweater and slippers instead of having to throw on a heavy coat and boots!

Some parts of Surrey and the Fraser Valley are severely flooded right now, but I’m still safe and relatively dry where I am. I don’t see water pooling anywhere in the park. I am keeping watch on conditions in case there are evacuations, but it seems like this is a good place to ride out the inclement weather.

A lot of roads into this area are closed because of avalanche risks, including the road I took from Oliver. I really got out of there in the nick of time!

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Mail Improvements

Until I got here, all the parks I’d stayed at preferred that mail not be sent directly to them (courrier deliveries okay, though). So, I’ve been having my mail sent general delivery. This worked out fine until I got to Oliver. The post office there was really bad. Canada Post’s services are notoriously poor, but these guys were the champions of bad service. They misplaced some of my mail, didn’t lift a finger to find it even though I was able to prove that the mail go to their office, and tried to blame me for the error when the package was finally located. I wound up having my mail forwarded directly to the resort by UPS at 30$ a pop!

At Pacific Border, mail can simply be sent to your attention. There are bins at the front desk where mail is sorted alphabetically and guests can go through the appropriate bin to find mail they’re waiting for. Sure, it’s not the most secure method, but, really, how secure is your mail when it’s sitting in a box on your porch anyway?

I continue to be pleased with the service I’m getting from the clerk at the UPS store in Gatineau where I rented a box. Several weeks ago, I emailed him to ask if some mail I was expecting had arrived and if so to please send me all my mail to Oliver, otherwise I would try again in a week. He replied that the letter hadn’t arrived. Two days later, he sent me another email telling me that he’d spotted my letter and my mail was on its way. This is a busy store so talk about service!

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Venturing West

I spent the bulk of the day with my aunt and uncle who live in Maillardville, a neighbourhood of Coquitlam. Maillardville is the largest French-Canadian enclave west of Winnipeg. It is not nearly as francophone as Saint-Boniface nowadays as it was in its heyday, but boy was it nice to see French street signs and to spend six whole hours speaking French! I don’t see this set of relatives very often as it’s rare for our trips to Montreal (theirs much, much rarer than mine!) to coincide. So, we had a lot of catching up to do! My aunt drove me around her neighbourhood a bit, showing off the sites including the location of the home she and my uncle lived in for forty-four years! I can’t imagine living that long in one place, but they’ve been in Maillardville just about all their life. My uncle came in 1941 and my aunt in 1962. There is a part of me that envies people who can firmly root themselves in one place and then there is the part of me that screams “But there’s so much out there to see!” The nomad always wins. 🙂 I forgot to bring my camera, so next time I go visit, I’ll take pictures as Maillardville is quite quaint.

It was confirmed that going into Vancouver is not a good idea until all this snow goes away, so I’m going to stop pressing the issue, enjoy life at home, and continue my job hunt. Thankfully, I don’t feel cooped up in Miranda in the least and I do make it a point to go out once a day for exercise, even if it’s ‘just’ to the pool. 🙂

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How NOT to Get My Business

When I was researching parks in the area, it came down to deciding between here and another park I won’t name. I waited for them to get back with a quote for me for monthly sites and they never did, so I came here. Speaking with the camphost, she said that the other park would have been a huge mistake, but I took that with a grain of salt. Until today. The other park just emailed me with the following message:

Hi
Sorry I am slow as we have been busy.
You would need to call XXX.
He takes care of all monthly sites.
I do not know if he has room so call and deal with him.
Thank you

What?! The proper reaction on the person’s part would have been to call XXX and get the information for me.

I’ve started to look at other parks in the area and I have yet to see one I’d be willing to move to, even if the rent would be a lot cheaper. Here, I feel safe and secure, never mind the amenities, while the other parks I visited seemed run down and in poor parts of town. I’m highly motivated to stay here.

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Water Quality (Or Lack Thereof)

Blech!

One thing I really miss about Oliver was how good the tap water was there! I use a Brita pitcher to filter my drinking water. My first day here, I filled up my pitcher and took a gulp of the water, then promptly spit it out, discovering that I was long overdue to change the filter! The water here is highly chlorinated and has an off-taste reminiscent of old socks (a flavour attribute I only appreciate in my cheese, thank you kindly).  I made the mistake this morning of making my coffee with water from the tap rather than the pitcher and I got a lovely caffeinated cup of chlorinated old sock sludge. Yum!

The filter is not able to full rid the water of its nasty flavour properties, so I’m going to have to get water in jugs for drinking and beverage making purposes. *sighs*