Vitamin I

We've been hitting the river hard the past couple of days. Marlan arrived here late in the day on the 30th. There were so few people here at the end of June that we were able to ride on the lake but starting today we had to spend our time on the river. The tourists have arrived.

Yesterday we went for a quick ride on the lake and river. Then we headed down to Kelowna to celebrate Dan's (Marilyn's brother) 60th birthday. We stopped in at her other brother's place in Winfield and gave Fred some of the stuff that we had saved from the house. He let us pick fresh cherries from one of the trees in his back yard. That would be a serious plus about living out here - fresh raspberries and cherries. After the party we hustled back to Whispering Pines, loaded up Sharon and her kids and headed into town on the water to watch the Canada Day fireworks.

The water is finally starting to warm up but I still wore my drysuit today. Marlan thinks we are sissies but I think he is just too embarassed to ask to wear the drysuit. Marilyn is doing the sport of fat old broads and loving every minute of it. Advil should sponsor the ski tour. After a hard day on the water about 4 Advil or the generic equivalent is a pretty good plan if us old guys want to ski again in the morning.

Today Marlan & I took the awning down and repaired it again. Clifford gave us a free awning but it hasn't ended up being entirely free. I haven't added up everything that I have in it but it is somewhere north of $600 now. When I ordered the replacement arm that I had shipped to Verde Valley I also ordered an idler end for the roller. It was sticky from the start but we were making it work. It finally gave up the ghost at Airdrie and in the process of discovering that it was dead I managed to pull off the strap that unrolls the awning. That meant that it was a little challenging to unroll it today and then after we got the mechanical part drilled out and the new one rivetted in I had to get out the needle & thread. It all appears to be working well now and it sure is nice to have an awning. Too bad Mark isn't here so I could stand under it and gloat.