Week One of "Mexico, the Long Way Round"

We were a little late getting started this morning. Due in part to a barbecue last night at the neighbours we were a tad late getting to bed!

Hopes (dreams?) of rolling by ten or eleven soon gave way to reality; we pulled out of the drive a few minutes after 2:00 PM! Rather than negotiate the winding Mark Lane with attendant risk of on coming traffic forcing us to stop, unhook, backup etc, Gillian set off in the tracker, Art in the rig, meeting at the top to hook up. As we climbed back tothe motorhome, finally really on the road, someone exclaimed "Damn! My purse in on the dresser!" As we didn't have a dresser in the motorhome Art quickly realised that this wasn't good news!

Unhook, Gillian went back the 6Km or so to the house in the tracker. Returning, we hooked up the tow car again and set off--at 3:ooPM

We made a quick stop at Cassidy to meet up with niece Angela who had a pair of boots that one of Art's sisters had left behind. We arrived at the Light House RV Park at Fanny Bay at 5:540 and got set up, Art filling the water tank while Gillian walked the dog.

Art noticed spots and traces of oil on the hood of the tow car, which on inspection, proved to have come from under the hood of the car and not, fortunately, from the rear engined motorhome!
We had had a service and oil change on the car last week; the dip stick wasn't firmly seated and it apppears that the low air pressure area behind the motorhome had sucked some oil out!

A quick wipe with paper towels and we were ready to head off to deliver the boots and spend an enjoyable dinner and evening with Art's sister and family who live just up the road. We remembered to return the boots! Had had visions of them accompanying us on our trip!

Back at the rig we soon went to bed--sleeping in until almost nine next morning! There had been rain over night but it was all over by the time we got up, the day promising to be quite pleasant.

There is wireless internet here,hence the quick postings. We will spend part of today (and many others!) sorting out "stuff" that didn't have a place but we wanted to take; one large box and a couple of grocery bags of, among other things, various chargers, papers, tools, etc etc.




Art also took the opportunity to wash the oil off the car. Later that afternoon all the Island siblings arrived for a visit with us at Light House RV Park at Fanny Bay so we were able to spend some time together before we leave the Island for 10 months.

On the 14^th we proceeded to Butle Lake in Strathcona Park for a three day rally of the Vancouver Islanders, a chapter of Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) The evening was rainy in fact down right soggy. However we had an enjoyable time, barbecuing steaks, with baked potato and salad to compliment them.

The morning dawned bright and sunny. Dinner tonight was to be a potluck so all we had to do today was a casserole. Gillian made a sweet potato and cranberry casserole which we had sampled for the first time last week and had begged the recipe with this in mind. Trekker was ecstatic with the proximity of the lakes and his own personal bay and gravel spit to play in and on!



The 16^th was also a nice day, spent relaxing and visiting. Dinner was spaghetti with sauce, salad, garlic bread supplied by the organizers and followed by a dessert contest:

Desserts were to be cooked by an “alternate” method—anything but using a stove was acceptable. There was everything from home made solar ovens to home made cardboard and aluminum foil BBQs! Gillian's fruit pizza cooked on our regular BBQ won a prize.

The solar panels and controller are performing well, the batteries fully charged by end of the day even with high mountains and tall trees. The sun is not over the mountains until 8:30 and is behind the trees by 3:00PM—still several amps going into the batteries at that time.

Then we back tracked to Comox to visit an old friend who we haven't seen in many years. Here we took the time and opportunity to do some laundry and have a luxurious shower without worrying about water and let the dogs run around in the yard with Tawny, a geriatric Malamute cross. Then we stopped off at an off leash dog park where Trekker and Tawney chased a tennis ball for a while before being confined to the cars while we went out for dinner.

Now our trip started in earnest. We turned north again enroute to Port Hardy, to catch the ferry to Prince Rupert. First however we stopped off at London Drug to buy a few items--including a new camera. This to replace the Cannon that disappeared a few weeks ago. The last time Art saw it was when he piled a handfull of stuff on the roof of the car when he needed a free hand to open the door. He remembered packing other things away but doesn't remember the camera!

The new Nikon is 14 megapix with a 26 X optical zoom and will take a while to get used to. At the sight of the 200 page manual Gillian commented “This looks ominous!” and started with the “quick start guide” as we set off, hoping to at least get down the basics.

We arrived in Port Hardy in plenty of time for a look around town, looking for, in particular, a car wash. None to be had in town! South again to the ferry terminal at Bear Cove we stopped at the turn off at the Welcome to Port Hardy sign for a photo of AbqL.

Photo of Art holding AbqL in front of the Port Hardy sign. (Click the photo to enlarge)

Now I guess would be a good time to explain "AbqL"

Back in Albuquerque, at the FMCA South West Convention, the North West Area had a booth advertising their up coming North West Area Rally in August of 2011 (yes, next year). They had a basket of rocks displayed with Abq written on one side. (ABQ is the international aviation identifier for Albuquerque Airport and Abq a common abbreviation for Albuquerque.) We signed up and were the 50th to do so, so we chose a rock from the pile, the number 50 written on the other side and AbqL was born. (50 being L in Roman numerals)

The idea is to photograph your rock on your travels, e-mail in the photos and location, and at the Rally in 2011 the most traveled rock will win a prize!

We arrived at the ferry terminal by 5:00 PM, checked in and paid $20.00 to park over night in the lineup! Loading starts at 6:00 AM so Gillian set her alarm for 5:30. Having seen Gillian's morning start-up speed Art was a bit worried but hoped for the best.

We had un-hooked for loading in the morning so the Tracker was parked a few lanes over. Soon a truck towing a large boat arrived, the drive bought his tickets then un-hooked the boat and took the truck to town in search of dinner. Art had a close look at the boat and was very tempted! (click the photo!)

Since the batteries were full we fired up the inverter and set the satellite dish to searching for the StarChoice satellite and within a few minutes we were watching the 6 O'clock News from home. At seven we shut it down and took the dogs out, had some appies and a drink then thought about something for dinner—the last of the Mazatlan prawns with pasta and red peppers and the last of Art's “Margarita Salchichas” as the sauce.

Sometime around here a small mink made an appearance near the garbage bins and in spite of our best efforts with our new camera we managed only one picture of the little thing from the back and a closeup of the bottom of the garbage bin!

Since we had to be up so early in the morning we had planned to get an early night. Those plans were put off when the incoming ferry made it's appearance some time after nine. By the time it had finally docked and unloaded any chance of an early night was long gone—we finally made “lights out” at 11:30!