Kimler Adventure Pages (http://randsco.com)

Land of 1000 Fires

Red Bluff, California - Scott and "the Oop" took a 10-day road-trip down to California, to visit relatives. The trip was short-notice and Rachel couldn't go, because she had to work. It was Scott and Oop's Big Adventure!

They left early, bound for Victoria, took the Black Ball Ferry across to Port Angeles and drove down the Hood Canal. They made it as far as Cottage Grove, Oregon, where they camped at Schwartz Park. (The Oop was very excited to be tenting!)

They made it to Red Bluff by noon the day after and spent about 10 days there. Highlights include: daily swimming (worthy of a blog entry), dinner out at Kitty and Bill's house (which included 5-holes of "off-road golf"), Alex catching her first fish (rainbow trout caught at Nora Lake), Alex playing with Cammie and Hershey (6-month old yellow and brown Labrador retrievers), feeding geese, letting Alex drive through the walnut grove in an electric golf cart and relaxing with grandma and grandpa Kimler.

The return trip via Seattle, included a one-night stay with Kim Easthouse, Alex's "fairy" God-mother (what Alex calls her).

The day before Scott left California, a thunderstorm blew through northern California, sparking off fires - about 1000 - some of which are still burning. The morning Scott and Alex left, the sky was thick with acrid smoke and the sun rose red, there was so much smoke in the area. (Like last fall, a Martin Mars Water Bomber, from Sproat Lake, not far from where we live on Vancouver Island, has been deployed to help fight the fires).

It was a good trip, but meant that Scott was away from the computer for most of the month (hence the lack of blog entries). Rachel enjoyed her 'alone time', catching up with homework, relaxing and visiting with friends.

New Camera

The Amazon - Scott ordered his new Panasonic Lumix TZ5 camera from no less than three U.S. suppliers. One summarily canceled his order, another couldn't get it back-ordered till the end of June and the third, lost the shipment in Oakland, California.

Mail ordering the Lumix TZ5 camera was a fiasco and worthy of a blog post!

Eventually, Amazon dot com came through, rushing an overnight delivery to replace AWOL Oakland camera and earning Scott's respect for having good customer service.

Purchasing the camera in the U.S. saved Scott about $150 ($425 in Canada, $279 in the U.S.) The disparity in consumer pricing between Canada and the U.S. continues to boggle the mind.

Tub 'O Summer

Hutton House - With temperatures approaching 90°F (32°C) yesterday and today, summer has arrived in Yellow Point! (Here Scott thought he was heading back to the 'land of cool', after suffering through multiple 90°F+ days in northern California).

No sooner had Scott returned to Vancouver Island than he found himself smack dab in the middle of a big, unplanned project. (Note again, the lack of posts on Randsco? ... herein lies part of the recent reason. Mind you, an Internet outage for most of Friday didn't help either.)

This project was initiated with an email from Travis, Scott's fire-hall buddy. Last autumn, they had made a tentative arrangement to do a bit of a work-trade. Scott was going to help Travis revamp his sun deck (Scott has some experience in deck-building, as he was co-owners of a deck company in Dallas in the late 80's). In return for his expertise and labor, Travis was going to give Scott the 6-person hot tub that they wanted to remove from the deck.

Well, apparently Travis couldn't wait, as he hired the work to be done. What was going to be a work trade ended up being a modest purchase. The hot tub was removed from the deck on Monday (the day Scott and the Oop drove to Seattle) and needed to be moved by the weekend.

Immediately upon his return, Scott scrambled, trying to get ready for moving and placing this new addition to the Hutton House. He cut down a few trees, moved some large rocks and tried to level out a 16-foot by 25-foot area, in which he'll be building a deck and gazebo (with hot tub).

The land is now cleared and a preliminary deck design (which has already been modified) is committed to paper. A new 240 Volt circuit will need to be added to the existing main panel, trenched and run to the new tub. The hot tub itself, was moved Friday night, with the help of Travis and Patrick (another fire-hall friend). The 3-kilometer move went without a hitch and "the beast" handled the load without slippage or a groan! The "new" tub is now the centerpiece of our gravel patio, waiting to be moved and wired into position.

We'll probably use the tub (sans deck) for a bit, just to make sure it works properly, is positioned where we want it and we've had a chance to make sure it's something we actually will use and want (Charlie, our neighbor, claims that it costs him about $70 a month, just to keep his hot tub heated. NOT something we're keen on, if indeed, this is the case for us too.)

If there's a lack of posts on Randsco, you can blame summer vacation, high heat and unplanned construction projects! (Oh ... and web clients whose work continues on ... despite everything else!)