Hitting the road in 2021! (Or, how I dug the camper out of a snowbank!)

 Both the truck camper and the 5th wheel are looking a bit sad this winter.  It is quite depressing get up on the roofs - to shovel off the snow!

 

We've been watching the weather and the forecasts, and wondering when this winter is going to break a bit.  Actually, it was not that bad at all - till February.  Then the long cold snap arrived with temps here down to -38C.  That's nippy.  With an unknown amount of snow still on the way, the time finally came to dig the camper out of the snowbank, before the bank was too deep!

It was easier than I was anticipating.  I thought I might get stuck a few times getting to the camper, but the big GM didn't even slow down.

 

 

With that taken care of, the next question was where to go, and when.  Nice to see that the fridge, the heater, the furnace started right up.  Just no water allowed yet, as most nights and some days were still well below the freezing mark.

For the first run of 2021 we headed a few hours to the south east, and visited the area around Drumheller.  The sun was out most of the time, but it was still pretty cool, though still nice to be on the road.

 

 

While we were prepared for more than one night, we'd seen about everything we wanted to, and it was still not that enjoyable to be walking around outside - in the cold breezes.  So, after a single night it was back home to come up with a better. longer term plan. 

Well it didn't take long to come up with a plan to head to Vancouver Island, where winters aren't that cold and spring seems to arrive there first.  The only problem was waiting till the roads between here and there were going to be in decent conditions to drive.

Both Roger's Pass and the Coquihalla summit had plenty of snow, but the worst conditions we had was wet pavement and a few small sections of slush.

 

After an overnight spot on a windy, cold lake shore south of Kamloops, the coast was within reach and we were on the ferry to the island!

 

 

Once on the island, it did not take long to find us a nice, ocean view of the strait of Juan de Fuca, with Washington's Olympic peninsula in the background.

 

 

A nice free spot in an old cutover - no traffic, no hassles, and great views of all the shipping traffic to and from Seattle, Wa and Vancouver BC!

 

For the first time in months, Hailey was able to get out and do some proper hunting without having to worry about snowmen coming!

 

It took a couple of days to discover that we were camped right above a nice little isolated beach on the Juan de Fuca Marine trail.

 

And as for blogging - the area allows me to finally get some use of my US data account with AT&T, that I pay for but haven't really been able to use for almost a year.  It's high speed, and unlimited, so it's lots better than I have at home.

 

A couple of ships outbound, and with my  ship tracking app, I can find out the name of the ship, it's course, speed, and usually it's destination, and see some close-up photos of the craft.

 

Not sure how long we'll be out here, but wherever we end up, it's sure to be a good time!

Hold your hats, it's a new blog post (if Google cooperates)!

 Well, it's been a long time since the last post, but we have reached the longest night of the year, so I hope everything starts to look up from this point on?  At least we can see the start of the tunnel,with a faint hint of light at the far end!

Somehow, the last camping trip of the summer season back in October seems to have missed the earlier blog posts, so here's a taste of that trip eastward into Saskatchewan, and Prince Albert National Park. It was very quiet at that time of the year, so we had it mostly to ourselves, which is just fine.

On the way home, the snow geese, not having gotten the Covid memo about the border, were preparing to flaunt their freedom and head south for the winter!

 

 I noticed that some of the farmers along the way have gone high tech, with these cool wireless weather stations in random places around their fields.

 When I got home in early October my old water bomber buddies were still racing to put out some persistent fires to the south west further into the foothills.  Luckily, they got them knocked down before the first snow came on October 12th, when I drained the fresh water in the truck camper.  Of course, I didn't bother to winterize it, which was a mistake and even the daytime temps were not climbing above the freezing mark.  It took quite a few hours with heaters going and the furnace on before I could sadly winterize it.  Meanwhile, the 5th wheel is still sitting, where I parked it and winterized it back in April.  I left it's solar panel out - which is doing a good job of keeping the batteries topped off - as long as I clean the snow off the panel!

Woke up to a temperature of -27C (-16.6F) on the 25th of October for crying out loud!  Here we are near the end of December, and we have yet to exceed that foolishness.  My truck started OK, but having spent only one previous winter in the north, I could tell it was ready to hook up and leave!

Hailey's vets had her on some special food (for allergies?).  Picked up a case at the local vet for $94 CAN.  Checked with the company online and it sells for $38.50 US down south, but they won't ship retail to Canada.  Someone is making a killing along the way!

On November 2nd, it was +15C (59F) first thing in the morning!  Obviously, a chinook doing it's thing.

Around the end of November it was becoming clear that we were going to be marooned up here in the land of cold and snow, so emergency measures had to be taken.  First, I started to build me a skating rink to give me something to do.  I think I average about 6 hours flooding and clearing for every hour skating. Mission accomplished.  My hockey skills are coming back.

 

On the other end of the spectrum, I decided it was time to re-enter the world of hot tubs, having hauled my old one to the dump when I made the last move.  I only wanted a small one this time (110V), but everyone is having the same idea, and most were back-ordered till well into the spring.  Finally, a small one became available, so I can now thaw out at will.

 

Wow, this blogger editor is a piece of work.  And I don't mean that in a nice way.  Awkward, stupid, counter-intuitive.  Can't move the photos where I want, but finally got the text kind of in the right spot. But now the formatting is not available!!

 

What I was trying to say is that unlike Al's feeders in Bayfield, mine were getting swamped with birds back in the late fall, but now there is only a few chickadees visiting mine.  And, one squirrel! There were a few Blue Jays, a Hairy Woodpecker earlier, but they all seem to have moved on.

Speaking of Al ...  I think the builders of his Tim's and my local Esso & McD's are having a race! The Esso has been open selling gas for a while, but the restaurant has not opened yet.

 

The photo is from before they opened.

Got buzzed by this crop spraying plane one day while out driving around.

Nice work on that text formatting (above) Blogger!!!  Then, it 'disappeared' the text and I had to re-type it.  No doubt it will show up double in the final version!

 

 

Sent these photos of a local road to the county to warm them that it will almost for sure wash out in the spring even with normal river flows.  They replied that they are starting the planning and permitting process next year to do the repairs.  Pretty sure they are just going to wait till it washes out, then go for emergency authorization!

 

 When not skating or soaking, we've been fighting off the blues with various slide shows or videos on the big screen TV of some of our favourite warm southern places, as below.

 I've also downloaded a lot of RV travel vlogs, and watch them on the big screen ...

 

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, and I think we all need a much better year in 2021.  Stay safe everyone.