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The sponge is full!

Writer's picture: Ruth McbrideRuth Mcbride

Well here we are in the midst of the first of 3 storms which are hitting B.C’s West coast. The first storm I told you about yesterday with wind gusts from 70-90km/hr is happening right now. We both woke up in the middle of the night listening to the rain and the wind pushing Newman around. This current storm is expected to peter out by tomorrow morning, with the next storm due to hit on Saturday of all days! Saturday is the day we pack up camp here and head down to Victoria for the night. The worst part about RVing is packing up or setting up in the rain! Luckily we are expected to miss the worst storm (I mean how much worse can this get???) which is to hit the West coast next Tuesday. By next Tuesday we should be leaving Seattle, and heading south, if things go according to plan.





The weather forecaster on the local Victoria CTV station said it best last evening when he said: “The sponge is full in B.C. and there is no where for the rain to go!”




This article was from today’s news. I mean we are already had a ton of rain overnight and all day today, but B.C. Is still telling residents that the worst is yet to come! Oh my…take my advice….NEVER COME TO B.C. in the month of November! If flights are cheap…there is a reason they are cheap…it is not a nice place to come visit in November. I remember I flew out to Vancouver twice in the month of November for two OEM dealer meetings. The meetings were two weeks apart and I always looked forward to flying out to Vancouver. There is something about seeing the majestic Coastal mountains and the beautiful Pacific ocean, when you’re from Ontario. The mystique of the beautiful West coast, and the beauty of the City of Vancouver was a trip I always enjoyed making. I flew out for the first OEM dealer meeting trip and I didn’t see the mountains once, because it rained the entire 3 days I was in Vancouver. I thought, better luck next time. Two weeks later I flew out to Vancouver, and yup, you guessed it…I didn’t see the mountains because it rained the entire time I was in Vancouver. I thought that maybe these two trips were anomalies, but after having lived on Vancouver Island for 25 days now, I’d say my two business trips out to Vancouver in November, should have prepared me for living on the Island during rainy season. Of course this year with ’pineapple expresses’, ’atmospheric rivers’ and ‘weather bombs’ I’ve learned a few new weather terms for my vocabulary!



Ok, enough about the weather. Guess what?



Yup! Not hard to guess is it?!! Newman’s roof is leaking again!



Newman’s carpet is wet again at Richard’s drivers seat.



That is a river of water coming down the windshield in Newman. We think the water is leaking at the front driver’s mirror, which attaches to the front of Newman, which is then leaking onto the carpet .


So how do we fix the leaks? You guessed it…we’re so predictable by now aren‘t we?



We just tipped Newman from front to back, so the rain rolls off the back. We are barely on our front wheels at this point, to get the rain to roll off the back of Newman. OMG!


The countdown has started…we’ll be out of this wet stuff soon enough!



Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers! We are not having turkey today to celebrate, but I did find a very cool Trader Joe’s frozen turkey dish last night when I was online and looking at their inventory of very cool products. Trader Joe’s can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t go online first and look at all of their products to know what you want, before you get there. Trader Joe’s even has an online shopping list feature so if you see something you like on line, you can bookmark it and then when you go shopping, you just pull up the list on your phone. Very smart and convenient! Anyway, Trader Joe’s have a turkey dish, which is turkey breast, wrapped in stuffing and then wrapped in puff pastry. A turkey dish much like a beef Wellington! At $15.99 the turkey dish comes with gravy and cranberry sauce. I think I’ve found our perfect two person, no fuss, no muss, Christmas dinner!


Trader Joe’s Turkey & stuffing En Croute…and it comes with cranberry sauce and gravy too!


Today we headed up to Courtenay to visit my hair stylist on the Island. Christy was waiting for me at the entrance to ‘Extreme Ends’, hair salon, downtown Courtenay. It was so nice to see her again. She even remembered I had a son in Victoria!



Getting those roots taken care of and a few highlights too. Christy did a very tiny trim on my ends, and after 2 hours, I was good to go again for a few months.


Richard in the meantime had a grocery shopping list from me and also had to go to Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up my prescription. Of course the prescription wasn’t ready, and it hadn’t even been received from 2 days ago! Its a good thing I’m married to a Trip Director, because this was a problem Richard could easily solve. He phoned up dedicated care at Medcan where my doctor is located, and he got the dedicated care person to send the prescription over to Shopper’s in Courtenay immediately. Once Shopper’s had the prescription he still had to wait 30 minutes for it to be ready, but at least he was able to get things resolved for me, without me having to get involved. An excellent Trip Director he is, even if its just being my trip director!




The best part about finishing up at the hair salon at lunch time, is that its right next door to ‘The Butcher’s Block’ butcher shop!



When Richard saw that the daily sandwich special at The Butcher’s Block was ‘Smoked Beef Brisket’, he had to have that for lunch! I wanted the soup of the day to warm me up on this rainy, grey day!



Looking for my soup, which I would eat in Kramer, the Kona.



Now that’s a deli sandwich! Hot brisket, with pickles and jalapeños, grainy mustard and some kind of secret sauce, served hot on marble rye bread!


When we went into the butcher shop to buy our lunch, another guy standing next to us in line said that he gets the brisket sandwich every week. After we paid for our order, we waited outside for the sandwich, where they have a small window, to pass the sandwich through, once the sandwich is ready. There were quite a few people standing around outside in the rain, waiting for their brisket sandwiches to go! I had a bite of the sandwich and it was delicious! We’ll miss this butcher shop! We also picked up a couple of their pre-cooked meat pies to heat up on the road for a quick meal.


Next stop…Walmart! I wanted to get some Christmas decorations up in Newman, since we are almost December 1st, and everyone else is in the spirit of Christmas, so why shouldn’t Newman be decorated too?


Now all I need is some Christmas music on the blue tooth JBL speaker from the Christmas channels on Sirius satellite radio. I think I’ll drive Richard crazy on our drive to Florida if I have the Christmas music tuned in every day on our drive!


As we were driving home in the rain, I asked Richard to pull into the Ship’s Point area of Fanny Bay. The last time we were at Ship’s Point there was a blue truck harvesting oysters on the shallow beach.


Fanny Bay, March 4, 2021. Notice how clear the view is over to Denman Island and Chrome Island in the middle of the photo?



A similar shot today. The tide was in, so there was no blue truck harvesting oysters.



A very stormy grey day at Ship’s Point Park, Fanny Bay, Vancouver Island, B.C.



Lighthouse R.V. Park where we are staying with Newman, is at the end of the land in the far distance. The wind was howling and the rain was coming down sideways, but the temperature was +8C.


Tonight we are treating ourselves to wings from FBI. St. Stephen knows where FBI is! FBI, for those of you who don’t know is The FANNY BAY INN! FBI used to have a wing night special, but they haven’t advertised their wing night special since we’ve been here, but we still feel like having their wings tonight for dinner. I hope they are as good as we remember them to be! Richard will go and get us takeout, so we can enjoy the wings at home. Maybe I’ll even put the Christmas music on and we’ll try to enjoy our second last night in Fanny Bay!








It can snow, but only after we leave here! That sponge is pretty full here in B.C. and we’re not sure where all the water is going to go, with the amount of rainfall (50-80mm) we’ve received since last evening. The same amount of rain is expected on Saturday. I just hope the repairs that were done in Lantzville and on the Malahat hold up ok and we don’t have any road washouts or sinkholes on the Island, as we make our way to Victoria on Saturday. I never would have believed road wash outs could happen, but with record amounts of rain in one month, anything is possible. Let’s hope things go our way, so we can leave the Island without any more mis-adventures!








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