Campbell River

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North Island

What a difference three months makes… Back in January I was feeling blue about not doing any traveling or renovating this winter and here I sit in my nearly ready to go rig with a new layout and I have been from one end of the Island back, as well as across it. I have just returned from Port Hardy, the northernmost community on Vancouver Island.

I’ve been through every single Vancouver Island community highlighted on that map!

The point of today’s road trip was to pick up my friend’s daughter at the Port McNeill ferry terminal. We arrived there at 11:30 only to find out her daughter missed her ferry and that we would need to kill two hours. So, we turned back south to see the absolutely tiny community of Telegraph Cove and when we saw that we still had plenty of time on the clock we headed north 50km from Port McNeill to Port Hardy just so I could say that I’d been from one end of the Island to the other. I made sure to thank my daughter’s friend for missing the ferry. 😀

We had just had two beautiful sunny and hot days, so of course today was rainy, cold, and generally miserable, but it sure gave a lot of atmosphere to my pictures!

Sayward is a way's off the highway, but I thought the sign was pretty enough to photograph.

Sayward is a way’s off the highway, but I thought the sign was pretty enough to photograph.

Port McNeill: home of NHLer Willie Mitchell. (who?)

Port McNeill: home of NHLer Willie Mitchell. (who?)

the prettier Port McNeill sign

the prettier Port McNeill sign

rhododendrons outside the ferry terminal in Port McNeill

rhododendrons outside the ferry terminal in Port McNeill

the port of Port McNeill :)

the port of Port McNeill 🙂

Telegraph Cove general store (closed for the season)

Telegraph Cove general store (closed for the season)

close up of the sign

close up of the sign

Telegraph Cove

Telegraph Cove

overlooking Bear Cove (on the way from Telegraph Cove back to highway 19)

overlooking Bear Cove (on the way from Telegraph Cove back to highway 19)

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Bear Cove

Leaving Bear Cove we saw all this eagle activity in the sky! They were LOUD!

Leaving Bear Cove we saw all this eagle activity in the sky! They were LOUD!

eagles

eagles

entering Port Hardy

entering Port Hardy

Bear Cove Park in Port Hardy

Bear Cove Park in Port Hardy

Port Hardy (Bear Cove Park)

Port Hardy (Bear Cove Park)

Port Hardy, near the ferry terminal

Port Hardy, near the ferry terminal

sign downtown

sign downtown

Port Hardy is an important destination for Alaska-bound travelers as it is from this community that the Inside Passage ferry departs. I would have loved to have taken the ferry from there to Prince Rupert, but the total trip cost would have been double.

I really didn’t do much tourism today since the conditions weren’t right for it, but there really wasn’t anything to see and do at this time of year. I am satisfied with simply having gone and back. It gives me a sense of closure to my Vancouver Island winter, at least from a tourism point of view.

Tomorrow, I will continue to work on trim and finish my fight with the sawdust in the workshop to bring the renovating portion of the winter to a close.

I leave Campbell River a week from tomorrow. Where has the winter gone?!

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Study Window Coverings

The study has been in dire need of new window coverings since day one. It has pull down opaque roller shades. Great for a bedroom, not so great for a room where you want privacy and light. The shades were getting to be very brittle and the two on the side windows ripped, with the one on the passenger side being too far gone to salvage.

I really want blinds for this room, but they would have to be custom sized and would therefore be much too expensive for my current budget. I decided that I’d have to go with curtains for the time being. I thought of securing them to the bottom half of the window and having the top part attached with snaps or similar fasteners so I could fold it down. Not a bad idea, just needed to find fabric that would work with my design plans well enough for me to be able to live with the curtains as long as possible, but also be very cheap.

Which is how I found myself hauling home a load of really cheap stiff polyester sheets from Zellers today:

Not the nicest material in the universe, but the colours definitely work with my paint choices and the design is also suitably ‘cottagey.’

I brought home three double sheets and one twin sheet, all flat, all costing $4 each. I may exchange one package for a twin fitted to cover the ‘sofa.’ It’s not the best material for a sofa cover, but it would at least make things look unified enough until I get around to the decorating portion of the makeover.

I may even have enough blackout material to cover the bottom third of each curtain; I’ll need to dig it out and do some measuring.

This will probably end up being a summer project, but the fabric was too good a deal to pass up!

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Still Sorting It Out

Today, I’m working at making the study travel ready and decided that I might as well make one pass through all my storage boxes in the overhead cabinets. While they were all very neat and well labeled, I had a feeling that the contents wouldn’t be that useful. I was right. For example, I found lots of neat things in the box marked ‘hardware’ that I really don’t need in a motorhome like solder and incandescent 120V light bulbs!

I also found a box marked ‘decor’ that is filled with small pictures I aimed to frame and put up. I need to go find some frames! One particularly special picture was already framed and I wanted to give myself a huge kick for leaving it in a box so long:

This is my dad circa the mid to late 1950’s. I’ve put him up on the pop out wall in the study so he can look down on me while I work.

I also had a large basket filled with music cds that I inherited from him and which I have ‘been meaning to go through.’ It’s been three years (!), for pete’s sake, and I’ve already transferred over the stuff I know I like. So, the basket was added to my pile slated for donation. Done and dealt with, whee!

My friend was promised a grand tour tomorrow, so I’d better get back to work!

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Securing the Cloth Dresser

I’m not enamoured with the cloth dresser, but I do believe it is a good solution for the space. Today’s project was to finish securing it for travel.

The Gorilla Glue I used on the dresser frame did the trick so the next step was to secure the frame to the wall. Since I don’t expect the cloth dresser to have a very long lifespan, I wanted to make as little damage to Miranda as possible. I therefore used eye-bolts and tie-wraps to keep the dresser from tipping over:

I used one eye-bolt each for the the bottom and top part of the frame.

Once the bottom dresser was secured to the wall it was time to insert the body portion. How it works is that the top has stiff cardboard that theoretically keeps the body from slipping through the top of the frame. Once you add any weight to the drawers, however, the body slips through most annoyingly. So, I decided to secure the body to the frame using tie-wraps after strengthening the holes with grommets:

I used one grommet and one tie-wrap in each corner.

Once the bottom dresser was installed, I secured the top one in the same way:

I’m not worried about the drawers shooting out since they do not slide easily, so I’m considering this project done pending a travel test. I may cave and secure the bottom to the floor with a couple of eye-bolts, but I’m optimistic that this will do.

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Thirty-Three Hours

I have four shifts left at the gas station, for a total of thirty-three hours. I am beyond excited to get out of there, but grateful that the job turned out much better than I would have thought.

While I am off the next four days, I aim to be just about ready to go by Thursday night. This means that I have a minimum amount of stuff left to pack and only exterior things, like flushing the fresh water system, left to do, and that the workshop and house are ready for Croft and Norma’s imminent return!

Friday, I am taking a road trip north Island with a friend from work. We’re not going to the northernmost community, Port Hardy, but almost since we will be going to the ferry terminal in Port McNeill. I’ll have managed to see a lot more of Vancouver Island this winter than I would have expected!

Departure is still slated for May 1st, next Saturday! I had thought it would be nice to sneak out a day earlier than that, but don’t want to get ensnared in Friday night Vancouver rush hour, even if Saturday afternoon probably won’t be much better. I’d like to catch the 10:30 ferry from Nanaimo, meaning that I will need to leave Campbell River no later than 7:30 after dumping. It’ll be an early morning! That would put me in Vancouver around 12:30 and in Chilliwack by mid-afternoon after running an errand for a friend in Coquitlam. By the time I take on gas and propane in Chilliwack, it’ll be a reasonable time to hunker down and crash at the Walmart!

Last night, I planned my trip to Dawson to see what is the minimum number of days I’d need to get there safely and enjoyably: nine. That would give me six days flex time in case of weather issues. I do plan to spend two days in Prince George but would otherwise be thrilled to get to Whitehorse on schedule since that would give me extra time to putter around the Yukon before shooting up to Dawson. It’ll really depend on the weather.