We had to wake up early this morning so we were showered, dressed and fed before Bill the appliance repair serviceman showed up to work on our Splendide 2100 Washer/Dryer combo.
While we were having breakfast Richard said, to me “Check out that sky over the mountains!”. I quickly grabbed my camera and went outside to shoot the colourful sky before it disappeared. A very stunning sunrise this morning over the Rocky Mountains!
One of the reasons we like being here at Fort Steele is the scenery and how quiet it is despite being just off the main road. In fact we have an Emu farm right in front of Newman!
Emu farm at Fort Steele.
Bill the appliance repair guy showed up promptly at 9am and there was no chit chat, he got right to work.
Thankfully Richard’s son Jonathan also showed up to help. Since Jonathan is also a heavy equipment mechanic, he was extremely handy to have on this repair. Jonathan brought with him a very large cooler to rest the washer/dryer machine on, so there would be no need to rest the machine on the carpet. Richard had emptied his side of the closet in the bedroom of his clothes because there is a little trap door opening from his side of the closet into the washer/dryer. Unfortunately the opening was not big enough to be able to work on the back of the machine, so the machine had to be unhooked and pulled out of the cabinet to rest on the cooler.
Once the washer/dryer machine was out of the closet, it was clear that the rubber belt on the back of the machine had come off, which is exactly what the Splendide Customer Service hotline had told Richard yesterday. Bill quickly put the belt back on the machine and checked all of the other connections on the machine to make sure there was nothing else wrong with it. While the machine was out of the closet, they also tested it to make sure that the machine would spin. It worked perfectly well during the test cycle and then the machine was loaded back into the cabinet. Jonathan was small enough to go into our closet to work through the small trap door opening and put the drain pipe back in place as well as hook up the metal vent hose for the dryer lint. The whole operation took about an hour for them to perform and we are very happy its fixed. $100 cash and Bill was on his way. We were so thankful that Bill was willing to stop by and fix our Splendide machine on his way into Cranbrook this morning. We didn’t have to wait around all day for the repair, and now we know we can leave Cranbrook tomorrow with a functioning washer & dryer! YEAH!! Our clothes that we had hung up at the front of Newman all dried overnight, so thanks to Jonathan and Christal and being able to use their washer and dryer, we are all caught up on our wash and ready to go!
After getting the Splendide machine fixed it was time to head into Cranbrook. We wanted to visit Walmart to pick up a few little cars for Owen who has a Fisher Price garage, but didn’t have any cars for his garage. While we were there though, we saw a Little Tykes car that my son Joshua used to have when he was little and we just had to buy it for Owen! An early Christmas gift, but one he will get a lot of use out of as he grows!
Daddy Jonathan will have some assembly to do before Owen can use it, but we think it will be a lot of fun!
We had a great lunch of leftover turkey sandwiches with homemade cranberry sauce at Jonathan and Christal’s home and then decided to go for a hike with Owen, Christal and Diesel their dog. Jonathan has to work this evening so we left him to nap before his shift.
I think someone is getting sleepy on the long 3km hike we took through the forest! The leaves at the front of the stroller are larch leaves.
It was nice to get our hiking legs going again. We’ve spent the summer walking golf courses, but hiking up and down different elevations is something we’ve missed.
It sure is a workout for Christal pushing that stroller on some of the hills! This was a flat area, but there are quite a few bumpy trails on this hike. We warmed up quickly hiking, even though the weather was a gloomy 9C today. It was supposed to rain all day today, so we were happy that held off for our hike.
The yellow trees in the photo are called ‘ Western Larch‘ trees and they are deciduous conifers. In fact the name ‘Larch‘ is the Latin name for ‘conifers‘ of genus Larix of the pine family. They grow from 20-45 metres tall and they are native to the cooler, temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands or high on mountains. Larches are the only Canadian deciduous conifers that turn golden and shed all of their leaves in the fall. The leaves are needle like, soft and borne in clusters on dwarf twigs. Last year when we drove through this area of B.C., the larches had already shed their leaves. It is so beautiful to look up into the mountains and see all of the golden colours of the larch trees among the other pine trees.
Beautiful golden Larch trees on Shadow Mountain Golf, in Cranbrook, B.C. The course closed on September 30th for the season unfortunately. We are never played here when it is open, but it sure looks like it would be a pretty stunning course to play!
We bid our farewell to Jonathan, Christal and Owen. It definitely was nice to spend some time with them on our journey to the Island!
So long Owen! We’re not sure when we will see you again, but I’m sure you will be talking, walking and have a lot of teeth by then!
We were so thankful to have Bill agree to come and fix our Splendide machine today. Trying to get anyone to work on anything RV related, that isn’t technically a mechanical part of the RV is difficult we are finding. Where is St. Stephen we we need him?
Tomorrow we head North and over to the Okanagan. We are taking Highway 1, which is a much better road for us, than the Southern route, with a more windy road, and more mountain passes. The weather looks to be good for our drive and no snow is in the forecast!
Newman is looking good at Fort Steele! A nice end unit spot that we can pull out of tomorrow after we hook Jerry back up to Newman. At least we only have one travel day and then we can rest again!
B.C. Wineries look out! Here we come!!
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