Repairs done, and back in Canada!

We spent yesterday morning at the mechanic shop in Oroville, Washington. Arrived at 9:00am, and they went right to work changing Sherman's right lower ball joint and control arm assembly. We stayed in the waiting room for the entire 3 hours it took to perform the operation.

The patient came though it all successfully, but he still needs a wheel alignment.

A short hike is better than no hike at all!

First thing yesterday morning, we drove into town from our camping spot out at Palmer Lake. No traffic on the road at all, except for one border patrol vehicle that passed us.

Got ourselves parked up in our usual spot behind the public library in Oroville. We've been here in the Oroville area since September 4th now! On that day, I said "No worries, we have lots of time and can wait here a week if we have to."

Our package appears to be on its way this afternoon

We dropped off the part to be returned at the Fedex outlet near Oroville, WA. In the meantime, I was keeping an eye on the tracking details for the shipment we are waiting for.

The part had shipped from Seattle... so you would think it would not take long to get to Oroville! However... they shipped it to Oakland, California first! Then, it flew from Oakland to Spokane, where it is now awaiting delivery by truck to Oroville... scheduled to arrive before 4:30pm this afternoon!

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Change of scenery

I spent much of yesterday morning getting our part sorted out for Sherman. That part is now on it's way from Seattle, but likely won't arrive until tomorrow. And, of course we still have to get the incorrect part returned to the supplier who sold it to us. They sent us a shipping label, and we have to take the part to the Fedex pickup location here in Oroville this morning in order to return it and receive credit.

We went over to the park where our friend Tioga George is still patiently awaiting the possible return of his pet Boid.

Stuck in Oroville, Washington.

Which is not too bad, really. It's better than being stuck in Tuk!

But, we really had no intention on being in the U.S. quite this long. It was supposed to be two to three days, and now we're going on six days and it will probably be three more! All because of a mis-packaged part!

Rattlesnake!

Yesterday morning, we did a nice bike ride along the Similkameen River. It's an old railway line that's been turned into a horse/walk/bike trail. So far, it's only 4 miles (7 kms) long, so 8 miles (14 kms) return. But there are plans to extend it, and based on how they've done it so far, it's a fairly expensive trail!

It was another beautiful day, and the temperatures have cooled off a bit. High of about 75F (24C).

It's a good thing we like it here!

Because it looks like we're staying a few more days.

We had Sherman at the mechanic's for 9:00am, as agreed. We got the bikes off the back, and left Sherman to have his lower control arms installed, as well as the new bell crank for the driver's side that I had bought in the spring and never had installed.

We rode our bikes from the mechanic's to the park where our friend Tioga George was looking for his missing Boid.

August Expenses

Well, I had better stop procrastinating on this!

August was another expensive month. In fact, 2018 is ramping up to be our most expensive year ever since we embarked on this travel based lifestyle in 2007!

Mostly, related to motorhome expenses. Sherman treated us really well the first ten years, with only minimal basic maintenance type of expenses. And, it helped that I was able to perform a lot of the repairs myself. But this year there has been a lot of stuff, starting with the break down we had in Mexico.

Meeting Tioga George!

They were calling for a warm day, so we got a fairly early start on our hike up Whistler's Canyon. Plus, we had made plans to meet a special visitor after lunch, so we didn't want to be too late returning from our hike.

I had sort of figured that it was about a 6 mile (10 km) hike, but as we got into it I realized that it would be a little longer than that!

Everything ran perfectly!

We left our fantastic free overnight spot at the trailhead and drove the short distance into town and parked up behind the library to use their fast free wifi internet. One of the things I had to do was to track down what happened to the other control arm we were waiting on for Sherman.

Long story short, it turned out that it had to be shipped from a different warehouse, and that warehouse was located in Indiana. Even though I had ordered it through Amazon, it was a 3rd party supplier and they made an error by only sending one tracking number.

Into the United States for a few days

Wow... we loved this area between Greenwood and Osoyoos, British Columbia. Just gorgeous scenery.

We stayed in the supposedly $10 a night municipal campground in Greenwood. The sign said that someone would be by to collect the fee... but nobody ever showed up. So we left. Don't feel too guilty about it though... we donated $10 to their library for some used books. And really, if you're not going to come and collect the money, then we don't have a lot of sympathy for your loss! It was just dry camping anyhow... no hookups, so we didn't cost them anything by staying there.

Movin' on down the road...

We said goodbye to friends Betty and Jim yesterday morning, after Betty made us delicious omelettes for breakfast! They sure looked after us... thanks guys!

Again, we did not drive far. Our destination was the "smallest city in British Columbia"... Greenwood, population 708.

There were still bugs from the Yukon plastered on there!

We had breakfast together at Jim and Betty's place. Ruth made some pancakes and we brought over a jug of our coveted real Canadian maple syrup to share with them.

Then, we had a walking tour of their 10 acre property here beside the Kettle River and then set out in their car to have a look at some of the sites to see in the Christina Lake area.

Arrived in time for happy hour!

We woke up to a bit of a smoky day in Castlegar, but we decided to go to a park and get a bike ride in. Not much to see in the downtown area, but we did enjoy the riverfront path and a visit to Zuckerberg Island.

After lunch, we drove to the Christina Lake area, still heading west on highway 3 towards Osoyoos.