Where Did The Year Go!?

I just checked my blog and realized I hadn’t written in a year!  My deepest apologies to the person(s) who watched and waited in vain.  I know it’s been hard!  On the plus side, you’re now going to have a year’s worth of reading to do.  How much fun is that!?  Maybe you should buy a case of beer first.

Where to start?

Well, after last year’s summer of mud, I left for BC on September 12^th which, amazingly, is the day that the gods suddenly remembered that Ontario hadn’t had a summer yet.  I don’t think it’s any big coincidence that I am, without a doubt, the cause of bad weather.  When I show up, the temps drop by 10 degrees and it starts to rain or worse.  I’ve seriously thought of renting myself out to those people who have major forest fires.  I could just show up and the weather gods would take care of the problem. Last year was a bit excessive, though, even for the rain gods.

All this time, I was waiting to take possession on the new RV I bought in June 2017 to replace the poor old Beast, which ended its travels by taking out a tree at the Pinery.  Here’s a word of advice:  NEVER buy a vehicle outside your home province!  It’s a nightmare.  Before they would register it, ICBC had to see the RV.  They wouldn’t accept my photos or even the dealer’s description and photos – nope they had to see it live and in person.  So, I arranged for the unit to be driven from Ontario to Cranbrook, BC, which was the closest town to the Alberta border.  After only 5 days of travel, 2000 miles, several hundred dollars worth of gas, and $600 dollars for my own flight to Cranbrook (oh yeah…they had to see me too), it arrived in the parking lot of the insurance company.  The ICBC rep went out to see it and confirmed that yes, by god, it was an RV.  It took all of 3 minutes and that included the walk across the parking lot.

But there was more.  It turns out the dealer hadn’t sent the correct paperwork.  After only 8 hours of trying to figure out how to insure the RV, we had to give up and wait for the correct paperwork to be sent.  I flew back to Vancouver to await delivery and, 4 days later, flew back to Cranbook for round 2.  The ICBC rep had to go back out to the RV to confirm that yes, by god, it was still an RV but now it had to be weighed!  Why, is anyboby’s guess since the weight of it was clearly written on the door panel.  But the guys found a place that would weigh it and got that out of the way but only because the insurance agent knew the guy weighing it and agreed with his assessment that it was, by god, an RV.  After only 4 hours, the RV was registered and insured and the guys were ready to leave except for one little problem:  the weather gods figured out where I was and closed the one and only highway out of town by dumping several inches of snow all over it.  But eventually the highway was reopened and the guys brought my RV back to Ontario, all safe and sound.

Meanwhile, back in BC, my brother, Rusty Lugnuts and his wife, Lulu Lugnuts, and I decided to spend an afternoon idly looking at RVs.  Turns out it wasn’t so idle.  They bought a gorgeous 38 foot Holiday Rambler they nicknamed “Billy” (as in Billy Holiday).  It seems that there’s going to be a Prieur convoy starting in 2018!