North America

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Last Night in Stettler

I’m leaving for BC in the morning. It has been a great stay in Stettler. Donna and Ken always make me comfortable, but I have a full bathroom of my own in the new house, which makes a difference. I’m enjoying the shower!

The huge kitchen is also fun to cook in. Donna is working late tonight and came home for dinner, so I had dinner ready.

I never did get anything done while I was here since I got swamped with work and the weather has cooperated. This afternoon, I finally went out to organize the back of the truck, but gave up on the idea of properly cleaning it out due to lack of time. I really wish I’d made it more of a priority since rain or humidity got in and some of the wooden cases have mould. They need a vinegar rinse and time in the sun.

I managed to squeeze my Blue Boy in behind the front seat since I’ll be moving a lot of my bags to the back to make them more accessible while I’m camping. I have a ton of stuff to load into the truck in the morning. I used to travel light before I got used to having all my stuff with me all the time!

It’s going to be a long day tomorrow, so I’m off to bed. The goal is to pass the national parks (and maybe even do a little sightseeing) and then pull over around Revelstoke for the night. That said, it’s supposed to pour and if my truck bed is leaking, I may find myself needing to get further. I’ll post when I can.

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Love Sushi Restaurant, Stettler

To my immense delight, Stettler has a brand new, well reviewed sushi restaurant AND Donna was interested in expanding her palate! So we headed out to Love Sushi for brunch this morning.

The food was exquisite, very fresh and flavourful. This was a sushi meal that satisfied the itch fully.

We shared:

-miso soup (too salty, but still tasty)

-unagi (eel) roll (so good that when we were done with everything else we ordered another!)

-tobiko (fish egg) nigiri

-spicy tuna roll (Donna loved it, wasn’t quite spicy enough for me, amusingly enough)

-California roll (crab and avocado; pretty sure this was real crab, quite yum)

-yam roll (very indulgent tastiness)

-rainbow (tuna, shrimp, salmon, avocado) roll (very good but a bit bland for Donna’s palate)

It was such a joy to see Donna savouring everything as much as I did. She’s very handy with the chopsticks!

Having to drive 300KM round trip for sushi is probably the biggest downside to my property. 🙂 Donna is so lucky to have such a yummy sushi place minutes from her new home!

Oh, and with the tip, our meal came to $18.77 each, a bargain!

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Stettler Weekend

It’s been a lovely weekend with Ken and Donna!

Saturday, Donna and I headed to their RV property to finish emptying and cleaning ‘the trailer’ as the Ark 2.0 is now being called. It was a full day of hauling and cleaning, with the goal being to make the place sale ready ASAP. I was rewarded with a Blue Boy, a foot rest for my patio, and a good metal spatula. 🙂

We got home feeling rather knackered, so we put together a quick dinner then settled down with Ken to watch a few movies. Their new dog, Roxy, and I bonded and spent some time cuddling. She’s a sweet but neurotic/skittish girl.

I wound up accepting quite a bit of work for the week (why can’t it pour like this at times when I’m at home twiddling my thumbs?), so I started on that this morning because Donna was going to church in the morning and Ken was having a down day since he has a cold. I put in about three hours then quit since Donna is working the next couple of days and we wanted to spend more time together.

We lounged around for the rest of the afternoon, then I cobbled together dinner with the meagre offerings in the pantry and some leftovers. Ken is going grocery shopping tomorrow. 🙂

I’m hoping to put in a full day tomorrow and get the project done so I can finish preparing the seminar on Tuesday and also get the truck ready. I’m not really in any hurry to leave Wednesday, so it’s okay if some prep leaks over from Tuesday. I just want to get some mileage under me so I don’t get to Kelowna too late on Thursday.

Visiting Donna and Ken is just like being at home, except there’s dogs and a gentleman makes my morning toast and coffee. 🙂 I look forward to a time when I will be set up to reciprocate their warm hospitality.

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A Long Good Drive

I went to sleep around midnight to the sound of pouring rain and awoke at 5:00 this morning to the same. I managed to squeeze in another fitful hour and a half of shut eye before giving up.

The rain varied between torrential and drizzling during the half hour or so it took to finish packing and load up the truck. I pulled out just past 7:00 with an ETA of 5:00 pm.

I got fuel and coffee in Assiniboia, then headed west on high 13. Just shy of Cadillac I got my sign that I really wasn’t meant to make this journey with Miranda. A truck in the opposing lane marked oversize load approached me waving madly that I needed to pull over. There was no shoulder and I made it to a country lane as a house wider than the road bore down on me. I have no idea how I would have gotten Miranda out of that lane way without having to back her onto the highway to turn around.

The weather was still miserable when I made a pit stop in Swift Current, although I had seen a few promises of clearing.

I hit Medicine Hat at noon and was looking forward to a sushi lunch, only to discover the restaurant doesn’t open till 3:00 on Fridays. Oh, well. I’m sure I’ll have another chance for sushi on this trip.

Medicine Hat’s road planners must have been drunk as the city is a bear to get through as it has service roads and odd turns. I managed to rejoin highway one, but got off almost immediately to get gas and coffee.

Just past Brooks, a massive hail storm hit. All but one driver in a long column pulled over to let it pass. This was good hail, small enough not to be damaging, but big enough to really clean the truck!

Speaking of Moya, she hasn’t had a good leg stretch since we went to Mexico in February and she’s been cranky on our few runs to town. Not worrisomely, just showing signs of her advanced age. Once we got a few miles under our belt today, she started purring. I don’t thing I’ll ever get sick of doing long hauls with her.

The Badlands soon followed and were incredibly lush, not a word I would have associated with them!

I landed in Stettler at 5:00 and found Donna and Ken’s mansion without any trouble. Note that anything bigger than a 45′ class A motorhome with full slides counts as a mansion in my eyes now. 🙂

We gabbed for a bit, then Donna and I headed out to get supper fixings. I decided to pay for and make supper myself, which meant grilling prepared garlic bread, slicing a pre-roasted chicken, opening a bottle of dressing for a prepared salad, and then doing the dishes. 🙂

Donna and I gabbed till way too late and then I availed myself of the luxurious appointments of the guest bathroom.

It’s really late and we have a full day tomorrow so I’d better sign off. I’m just so glad I’m here.

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Another One About Cats and Connectivity

I must have been quite the picture an hour and a half ago. I had a small wheelbarrow piled high with Neelix’s litter box, bag of food, box of litter, litter scoop, and cushion. And then I had Neelix snuggled against my chest in a cloth bag with my arms through the loops, like wearing a backpack in front of me. He peered out curiously, but without any indication of wanting to jump out. Caroline laughed at me and said I could have borrowed a carrier, but for short distances like these, getting him into a bag is so much easier.

Charles helped me get Neelix settled while Caroline poured wine. Laura soon joined us. C&C are going out of town this weekend, so Laura will be feeding the cats. We had a good gab as the cats got to know each other.

Neelix and K.C. hissed at each other a bit, then Neelix started exploring the house. He eventually found a catnip-filled toy and went nuts playing with it. I have never seen my boy play before! It didn’t take long for him to be high as a kite and his initiation passed, K.C. and he started playing.

So in other words, I’m going to miss him more than he’s going to miss me. *sniffles*

In other news, I’ve discovered a hidden benefit of the Mifi.

One of the reasons I wanted an iPad was to get me out of the office in the evening and into the living room to surf and watch movies on the iPad. But to do that with my Telus stick or Verizon phone, I have to share their wifi connection through the Mac, which means leaving the power-hungry Mac on. And if I’m going to do that, I might as well surf in the office.

Yesterday, I finally drained the motorhome gas tank to the point where I wouldn’t even feel comfortable turning over the engine until I get more in there. So that left me with power concerns for today since it’s still cloudy and I had a ton of transcription to finish up.

By about 9:00 last night, the computer battery started to drain even though I was plugged in. I know that my house batteries aren’t really that low when this happens, even if I unplug and the rating is the 11s as they’ll come right back up overnight after resting a little. So I wasn’t concerned about house power, but rather having enough computer power for today. Forget charging the computer through the house batteries if there’s no sun out.

So I shut down the Mac and took it out to the truck to top up the battery so it would be fresh this morning.

Then, I came in and plugged the booster into a 12V outlet and went to the living room with the iPad and got caught up on my favourite sites before the connection decided it was time for me to go to bed. The connection is as good (or bad) in the living room as it is in the office.

I’ll be doing the same thing tonight, shutting down and packing up the office, and checking my email on my iPad before I leave in the morning.

It’ll be nice to be able to easy offer internet to my guests, crappy as it is. Perhaps I’ll have luck finding another antenna when hit civilization.

And with that, I’m off to pack for what appears to be the armageddon. I have to go grab the camp stove while it’s still light out!