And we’re off!

In the BC Ferries line up

Our original plans were to leave for our second snowbird trip in early October.  Basically as soon as we’d stayed the minimum 153 days in the calendar year to keep our British Columbia provincial medical coverage.  Technically we could leave as early as October 7th.  But then we learned about a warranty fix for an ongoing door issue our year and model of RV has been having (2020 37K Entegra Accolade).  The issue is at highway speeds the top of the door rattles and can make a fair amount of noise.  The door has never opened on us, it just sounds and sometimes looks as if it might.  For those of you who read this blog who may also have a Jayco Seneca or Entergra Accolade, click on this link for more info.   

We reached out to Jayco to request the part on Oct 7.  With Jayco confirming the part would be en-route via courier the next day we waited around hoping it wouldn’t delay our departure too much.  It wasn’t so bad, given the gorgeous weather we continued to have right into the middle of October.  After about a week we decided to check in with Jayco to see if they could tell us an ETA for delivery.  That’s when they told us the part wasn’t in stock.  Wonderful!  They had told us when we called originally that it would be couriered the next day.  I guess they didn’t figure they needed to give us that update - argh!  Learning there was no point in waiting around for the part we started to make our final preparations for our trip including purchasing our individual travel medical plans through BCAA, activating the US SIM card we purchased through Amazon and finishing stocking up the RV, loading the bikes, the kayak on the truck and the truck itself.  

We literally drive the equivalent of our entire house down the road!  We also move into the RV in the driveway with all our furry beasts a few nights before hit the road.  We do that for a few reasons.  To make sure we haven’t forgotten anything, that everything is working and so that the animals can start to get used to being in the RV again.  Our two bengal boys HoseHey and HeyZeus travel with us along with our big Rottweiler pup Heffay (aka “el jefe” as in “the boss”

) Our big orange tabby Lou stays back with Dan’s mom who lives with us and looks after the house.  It is hard to leave our big love bug Lou, and mom but they take care of each other while we’re gone  💞

Mom and Heffay

Lou and HeyZeus

HoseHey

HeyZeus

This year a snapped a few pics of Dan’s ingenious way of loading the kayak.  It’s a beast of a kayak, a Hobie Tandem Island.  The kayak itself weighs 140 lbs and the two side AKA’s add another 35 lbs each for a total weight of 210 lbs.  We load it on the roof of our Ford Ranger via a game hoist.  I told you it was ingenious!  

When we first bought it we searched for different ways to load this heavy beast on the internet and none of the options people had come up with looked very good.  They all still required a fair amount of heavy lifting and/or crazy contraptions.  Dan, as a hunter knew about game hoists which are used to lift game up into your truck.  They can lift up to 350 lbs and break down to lay in the back of the truck bed or even in the back seat.  Using a heavy duty tow strap he attaches the kayak to the hoist and voila! Next to no manual labour required!  Dan is always the first to say “if you want to know the easiest way to do something, ask a one legged guy”!

Setting up the hoist

Securing the tow strap - finding the balance point

Dan cranking it up off the ground

No human lifting effort required at all - just crank and guide!

Ready to shift onto the roof racks

My turn, unhooking the straps so we can slide it up onto the roof racks

Basically the only muscle effort required - sliding it up onto the roof racks

Kayak up - now to add the AKA’s and AMA’s

Voila! Ready to lay the sail on top and strap it down

Our last step was to get our reservation on the ferry taking us from Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, BC over to the mainland.  After an unexpected cancellation due to mechanical issues, we secured a spot on the 3:15 ferry.  We left the house just before 2pm and made our way to the terminal. The skies were super smoky with an air quality statement in effect.  I caught a glimpse of the fire hazard sign as we hit the highway, which still read “high risk”.  Crazy for mid October! It felt odd leaving to escape winter with such warm temperatures. 

Smoky skies leaving Nanaimo

You can just barely make out the downtown Nanaimo skyline in the distance through the heavy smoke. 

After a 2 hour ferry ride, we made our way to the Peace Arch border crossing.  We arrived at the border at around 6:15 p.m. and by 6:30 we were on our way.  This crossing was quite a bit different than last year.  Last year was so easy it made us do a double take - the border agent basically asked us where we were going, for how long and then waved us on with a smile and “have a nice trip”. This year, we got the stereotypical border crossing agent - Mr. Serious…and boy was he serious!  He asked us the usual questions where are you going, for how long etc then asked “what do you have in your RV and trailer”.  That threw us off.  We don’t have a trailer, we trailer a truck though so Dan clarified that we were towing a truck.  Silly us, we forgot you can never correct a border crossing agent even if you think you are being helpful.  Let’s just say his mood didn’t lighten any.  So he asked again “what do you have”.  How broad of a question is that?  We literally have just about everything you have in your house in our RV.  A bit flustered and not really sure where to start, we started to rattle off some things.  Then he asked specifically about food and fruit, vegetables and poultry.  We told him we had lots of food but no fresh fruit, vegetables or any poultry.  He then walked down the length of the RV, looked through the windows in the truck and then waved us on.  We were more than happy to move on.  I mean seriously…what do you have? Sheesh!  I still don’t know how I’d begin to answer that question if asked again.  Where would we start?  Maybe with “everything from our house”. LOL!

Peace Arch border crossing in British Columbia, Canada.

By just after 7 pm we were at our final stop for the night, the [link] Silver Reef Casino Resort in Ferndale, WA.   We had stayed there on our trip south last year too.  It has a nice big back parking lot where RV’s are allowed.  I didn’t snap a pic this year.  This year was much warmer than last and much busier with a good 8-10 RV’s/truck campers parked for the night.  Here too it was very very smoky.

That marked the end of day one of our 2022/23 Snowbird adventure.  

Nanaimo, BC Canada to Silver Reef Casino Resort, WA

Temp at departure - 19 ºC (66 ºF)

Temp at arrival - 10 ºC

Ferry cost - approx $430 Cdn (63 feet long)

Fuel - $311 US ($430 Cdn) - 57 gallons diesel @ $5.459/gal (equivalent to $1.44/litre Cdn)

Distance travelled - 261 miles (163 km)

Distance driven - 60 miles (37.5 km)