Today was the day! St. Stephen and Karen were leaving the Island today and heading over to Pacific Border RV camp near the Canada/USA border, south of Vancouver, B.C.. We wish them well on their travels on the mainland and as they head home to Nova Scotia, driving across Canada before us. It’s hard to believe that we have only 17 days until we leave the Island. The time sure is flying by quickly now that we are on the home stretch for leaving.
We had a very early morning today. I felt like I was back at work having to get up to catch the GO train when I was commuting to downtown Toronto! UGH! Up before 6am this morning and on the road at 6:30am to go to strength training in Courtenay. The temperature was a balmy -2C in Fanny Bay and by the time we got to Courtenay, the temperature had dropped to -4C! Neither one of us had very good sleeps last night. I think we were worried about that alarm clock going off and the sea lions were sure honking up a storm to keep us awake too!
I don’t think losing an hour of sleep on the weekend helped matters either!
I’m finished my 4th session of my most recent strength training program, so the next time I go to visit Paul, next week, I will have a tougher program to do. I’m so glad I started this strength training or I wouldn’t have the mobility I have now In my leg. Even Josh, my son said to me on the weekend “Mom, you aren’t limping anymore!” I know I still limp when I get started walking, after I’ve been sitting for awhile, but at least I’m improving and that is good progress!
While I don’t have these muscles, I certainly am stronger!
We headed back to Newman after strength training for 2 hours to rest and recharge before heading into Comox for my osteopathy session with Abbie.
My osteopath’s office overlooks the mountains in the distance, and the water. Such great views from this very welcoming space!
While I was getting my treatment, Richard ran some errands in Comox. We ran out of Blue Dawn dish detergent which we use with Boraxo in our black tank (septic), so we don’t get any nasty smells! We also buy the septic friendly toilet paper from Dollarama, and since the dollar store is next to the Osteopath’s, Richard was able to get both items bought at the same time.
Richard also picked up our lunch today while I was being treated. We headed down the street to the Comox Harbour to eat our lunch overlooking the Comox glacier. The sun was shining and it was 6C while we had our lunch.
Fresh veggie sushi for me.
Dynamite sushi for Richard. Our favorite sushi spot in Comox is ‘Sushi Kobo’, but some of the locals say ‘Sushi Wara’ is better, but it is awkward to get to in the lobby of a hotel and not within walking distance of downtown Comox. That is one of the reasons we prefer Sushi Kobo. Sushi is such an inexpensive lunch for us too and that Is another reason we like it, since we are always out exploring around lunchtime.
As we were finishing up our lunch we saw a few musicians gathering on the boardwalk of the yacht club. Now that B.C.’s new gathering rules under Covid19 allow up to 10 people to gather outdoors, I guess this Dixieland band decided to ‘meet up’ to have a practise session outside. I will put a video of them playing on Facebook. They were very good and obviously had played together for a long time, because they just all joined in without anyone counting them in. When I told Richard I used to play in a Dixieland band many moons ago, he said, “Now that you’re retired, maybe you will get back to playing trombone again!” That’s actually a good idea! Maybe I will dig out that trombone when I get back home to Fort Erie and try and get my ‘chops’ back in shape for playing!
Dixieland band playing. The guy on the far left was playing an ‘washtub’ bass or ‘gut bucket’. The washtub bass has a single string attached to a pole, and uses the wash tub as the resonator. I think the only other time I may have seen a washtub bass being played was in New Orleans during Mardis Gras. That was a trip and a half let me tell you! The crazy stunts we got up to on a business trip would make your eyes roll! And the music was amazing in N’awlins!
After lunch we decided to take a drive around downtown Comox to look at a few listings which had just come up and didn’t we discover a nice little parkette down by the beach on Beach Drive. We had never driven south of Comox Avenue in the little enclave near the Comox hospital before, and we were surprised at how beautiful the location was!
Comox glacier to the left of the photo.
Stunning day with the sun hitting the water in the Comox Harbour.
Comox Harbour with more beautiful mountain views!
My favourite home today on Beach Drive! This home is not for sale, but we both loved the architectural details of the traditional ’beach cottage’. I’m also really partial to this light aqua colour too, so I naturally gravitate to this colour being a pisces.
After driving around a bit downtown Comox, I had a hankering for some gelato! It felt like spring was in the air today, and we knew just the place to get some gelato!
Patiently waiting for my gelato!
I had lemon and lime gelato. Delicious!
Mmmmm! Richard had the waffle cone with apple cinnamon and butter pecan gelato. Our first gelato on the Island and it was so nice to sit out and enjoy the gelato on a picnic table taking in the view of the mountains in the background.
We decided to drive north of Comox to look around at some other neighbourhoods and we kept stopping if we found a nice place to take some photographs, since it was such a beautiful, sunny day.
As we walked from Jerry to the beach near Kitty Coleman park area, Richard said to me ”Look to your left at 10 o’clock on the beach!”
A bald eagle hanging around on the beach! There were a ton of bald eagles today out looking for food today north of Comox!
This guy flew right over me as I was trying to pan him as he flew.
And Richard found another golf ball today as he was walking down to the beach! I couldn’t believe it. A Nike golf ball today.. It’s so crazy that he even looks for them, but to actually find a golf ball two days in a row on two different beaches? Nuts!
A pair of ducks took off from the sea as I was watching for more eagles flying by. The Coastal Mountains on the mainland were stunning today with the sun shining on them!
My bald eagle friend from the beach flew up to the tallest tree by the beach and just hung out, taking in his surroundings! It is so amazing to see so many bald eagles every day. We will miss seeing them when we go home. Some days the eagles are as common as sea gulls!
While we were on the beach north of Comox Richard got a text from our neighbour Jim (from Fernie, B.C.). He said we had new neighbours! The new neighbours were from Alberta and were driving a Prevost! Richard was very interested to get back home to see the Prevost parked next to Newman. For those of you who don’t follow RV’s, Prevost are what the ‘rich and famous’ would use as a tour bus on the road, with their band. In fact Bubba Watson, the golfer on the PGA tour has a Prevost. A new Prevost would cost $2.7million U.S.! When we arrived home and drove down the driveway of Lighthouse RV park, we saw this OLD 1991 Prevost - which still looked pretty nice, parked next to Newman.
The new neighbours recently retired in Calgary and are spending a month out here on the Island in their vintage Prevost. It still looks pretty good for an old bus!
Jim and Richard in their texting back and forth today had also agreed that when we arrived home, they would have a fire in front of Newman.
Enjoying the fire and a few ‘pops’ while catching up on their day.
As Jim and Richard caught up by the fire, I stayed inside to make our dinner. Hamburger soup was on the menu!
Hamburger soup with tons of veggies and of course grated Balderson cheddar cheese on top!
Tomorrow we have Viper Fuels coming to fill Newman up with propane again. Jim is going to cover for us if Viper comes in the afternoon, as we have a tee time at Crown Isle again tomorrow with Richard’s friend Mark at 1:22pm. It will be nice to play Crown Isle again and finally buy a souvenir from the pro shop to commemorate my hole in one.
When we get home from golf tomorrow we will be very busy packing for Tofino! We leave bright and early on Wednesday morning! We are both very excited about going to Tofino, despite the fairly gloomy weather forecast for the weekend.
We will miss St. Stephen and Karen on the Island. It has been fun to meet up with them at least once a week while we’ve been here. I know St. Stephen and Richard will continue to stay in touch by phone or text though so I’m not worried that our ‘lifeline’ or ‘phone a friend’ will be gone if we need him!. Our new neighbours we will barely have the chance to get to know and then we will be gone. We’re already thinking about another RV trip when we will visit Cranbrook another time to see our grandson Owen, and then we would head over to Fernie to golf with Jim and Danielle! That’s the nice thing about RV’ing. You end up with friends all over the place, with good excuses to visit them on another trip! We’ll be seeing St. Stephen this summer for Newman’s roof repair in Nova Scotia after we’ve had at least our first vaccination. We’re still not sure if Richard is going solo on that trip of not. We’ll see.....
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