Rain rain go away

After two soggy days at Barkerville, we were happy to get back into the balmy south Cariboo section of BC today. We enjoyed being in the old town, but the thunder, lightning, conatant heavy rain , gullywashers, and lack of CELL/INTERNET service was killing us. We hafta have our Internet fix, and don't want to be out of touch with our realtor right now for any length of time. So after shopping our hearts out and finding some great cowboy treasures (hatpin, gloves, handmade slippers, and a bright red union suit), we stowed our sodden lawnchairs and patio mat and enjoyed a warm dry drive to Clinton today. A fellow camper at the RV seminar in Kelowna last week had recommended this campground to us, and it's very comfortable and reasonable ($17) for full services.

Stopped at 83-mile house this afternoon for a fascinating tour through a lifetime collector's collections. This 80-year-old ex-farmer collects EVERYTHING. He has farm implements, carousel horses, horse-drawn carriages, weigh scales, milking machines, victrolas, lanterns, rope-making machines,and on and on. I told him he was lucky to have found a wife who would put up with his hobby, since it took up most of their property. They have the original 1866 stables, lodging house, and teamsters house as well as many other sheds. And he's his own tour guide. Quite a guy.

We are heading gradually southward (seeking warmer weather and sunshine) and will likely make it back home by early next week.

so hot! kamloops must be a desert or something!

We've had a beautiful weekend (since last Wednesday) here in the Kamloops area. Weather was almost perfect except for last Thursday which was windy and rainy and cold. OK - the weather stunk last Thursday. But otherwise, it's been great. Slim (Delgado, my partner) came in fourth in his category at the match, shooting against some very stiff competition. He was pretty happy with his ranking. The shoot's final event this morning was marred by a sad accident (not related to guns, thank goodness). One of the shooters was riding his horse between events and was thrown, suffering head injuries. The ambulance arrived about half an hour later to bring him to Kamloops, but luckily many of the shooters had first aid and rescue experience. Hope all is well, although I'm sure he'll have a serious headache tomorrow.

We're learning how to live in the motorhome with the cowboy paraphernalia (boots, costumes, holsters, hats, carts,  various sizes of firearms and their requisite tools) and still be comfortable. It seems like the best way is to hide it all in the basement bays, so I don't have to look at it. You know what they say: if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

The scenery couldn't be beat at the Heffley Creek range - up in a lovely green treed gulch high above the South Thompson river. No services, but our new rig easily handled five days of dry-camping and probably could have made it a couple more days. WE were ready to enjoy a few more amenities and have found ourselves a campsite just east of Kamloops with full hookups. Did the laundry, bought some groceries, and found time to stop in at Staples to email and fax our acceptance of the offer on the house. Yes, after two months on the market, we found a buyer. The offer is conditional until July 16th at the latest, so as soon as we hear that the conditions have been lifted, we're heading home. This deal is going to be a bit stressful, because the possession date is August 8th. Yes, three weeks after conditions are lifted. AND we have a shoot in Alberta on the August long weekend, so will have to leave on July 27th. Anybody want to buy a Smart Car? Furniture? Dishes? Garage full of stuff? Whew.

So here we are in July and I haven't posted in a week. Not much has happened! We left Kelowna on Tuesday and drove all the way north to Vernon (about 30 miles) and found a fancy RV park for the night. Right on Swan Lake in a large landscaped fancy site. Nice looking place, but the people staying there didn't seem too happy and weren't friendly, which is very unusual for RVers. Wednesday we drove up to Kamloops to find a spot to camp till Monday. Lovely drive cross-country through ranching country. Land here is sure a lot cheaper than on the Island! We are parked at the Heffley Creek Gun Range, about 10 miles north of Kamloops. It's leased Crown land, so very pretty. Nice quiet isolated area up a gulch so lots of shooters have brought their dogs and horses. All well-behaved friendly animals.

Thursday some of the ladies drove back into Kamloops to hit the thrift stores looking for costumes and fabrics. Turns out that this is a non-competitive team sport, and a lot of fun. We came back exhausted and loaded with parcels many hours later, fired up and ready to get dressed up! Wayne stayed in camp and cleaned guns. What fun!

Some friends arrived later from our home range on Vancouver Island, and not all the wives are shooters, so I have somebody to play with. At night our neighbor has a nice wood fire in the stove outside his outfitters tent, so we all sit around and tell tall tales. Temperature today is supposed to hit 30C, so we're looking for shade during the day. Gets cold pretty quickly at night though! We are camping in the lap of luxury compared to most of our neighbors here, and our furnaces and hot running water are mighty pleasant.

Another lovely day in the Okanagan. Mostly cloudy today but warm and humid. Quite comfortable. We finished our three days of classes and enjoyed it so much that we plan to come back next year.

Had a nice Greek supper tonight wih several other "students" and now it's off to the campfire. We're all camping in a big parking lot at the college but somebody has a little propane campfire-in-a-can, so we gather every night. It's a lot of fun.

We're off tomorrow heading to Kamloops for a shoot at Heffley Creek (about 10 miles north of town)which starts on Thursday, so we have a couple of days to recharge our batteries, fill with water, dump our tanks, and fill the fuel tanks. Then we start boondocking again (camping with no hookups). This motorhome is great and we can make it at least four days before we have to recharge everything.

Once the shoot is over (next Monday) we have a month to kill before the next shoot, in Rocky Mountain House. Oops, that doesn't sound good, does it? No killing is involved.

We'll see how dedicated I am with this blog. It's easy to do as long as I have Internet connections, but I'm not sure how it will be at the range. Stay tuned!

Kelowna Seminar

Day two of the RV seminar in Kelowna - weather's warming up, the seminar is invaluable, fellow RVers are great, and we're on a great start to our summer. Saw the new Woody Allen movie last night in beautiful downtown Kelowna (what a pretty town) - well worthwhile.

I am sitting beside well-known RV blogger Julianne Crane  from Spokane who publishes RVWheelLife.com which is a website about recreational vehicle and camping lifestyles, people and destinations.