You Just Wouldn't Believe What Happened Today

For quite some time Bea has been thinking of visiting Germany again. Bea's mother is turning 90. As she has been in a nursing home for years she is not doing well. So this visit might be the last chance for Bea to see her mother. On March 1 she booked her flight from Boston via Iceland to Frankfurt. Air Carrier was WOW AIR, a low-cost airline based on Iceland. Today I was perusing the news on "NEWSWEEK" and was stunned to read that WOW AIR had ceased operations. 

WHAT????

Bea was not home so I got in the car to find her in the neighbourhood where she has started to prepare a garden for a customer.

I could see her distress right away. 
Being back home we tried to get to the bottom of this and found confirmation that WOW AIR was bankrupt. I literally saw 800 Bucks disappear behind the horizon. We tried to call various numbers at the online travel agency where she had booked the flight, but nobody answered. Finally, we called our CC-Company and were told to call the fraud department. Calling the 800-number we learned right away that VISA had already opened a separate phone line for the many people affected by the WOW AIR insolvency. After 40 minutes wait at the phone we got a very friendly gentleman who was nice enough to open a case # for us.

We then send an email to VISA's fraud department with our itinerary included.

Checking her email, Bea then found an email from the travel agency offering a refund claim on her behalf. So as of now it might look like that we will see a refund of our costs, even if it might take some time.

Meanwhile, Bea was lucky enough to "snatch-up" an Air Canada ticket from Canada for the same dates.  Though the "snatch" was coming at 1500 Bucks, the approximate double of the previous ticket.

Main thing is that she will still be seeing her mom. 

To say it mild, the day has been exhausting and stressful, but tonight we are relieved of the outcome so far. 

Oh Man, What An Awful Day

While I have been doing a little less than nothing over the last days, this really is the day where I can do nothing at all. Storm clouds are chasing each other over Campobello, and it is pouring down like crazy. Weather forecast announced a “Rainfall Warning” for our region. But as bad as it is for folks like us who like to be hiking with our dog, it also has its good side. We still have some ice and snow on the ground and this rain is actually helping to get rid of the last left-overs of winter.
Dixie might be the only one really suffering under this kind of weather as her beloved beach walks are not happening. We took her along when we drove down to Herring Cove to shoot a few pics of the surf coming in. The pics didn’t work out though as the windshield was full of raindrops. I show them here anyway.

Above: High Tide and the waters are swelling in the Lake Glensevern Lake outlet

So now Dixie is sleeping on the floor until she thinks it’s time to climb onto her bed and do another nap there.
And it is time to say “Good Bye” to Winter for this time, but I am sure the fellow below is right:

PS.: This posting was supposed to go online with Open Life Writer, but the program is again been messed with and we are again getting "Error 400" messages.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

It is supposed to snow right now, but nothing happens. The day began with some blue skies, but it’s overcast now.

Looking at that weather map you see the marker there? That’s us, supposedly sitting under a cloud of snow. The blue color is marking the area to be under snow. It goes to show that weather maps can be quite wrong. We had our 2 doggie walks but it’s cumbersome to step through the old deep snow. We found us a track where a few snow mobiles had gone compressing the snow, but yet we tired out after three quarters of a mile.

Spending the afternoon sitting back in the couch I decided to pull up a western movie on YouTube. And I say I found a good one.

“High Lonesome” was done in 1950 and is full of hard-working real stunts and chemically free of high-tech effects, which is really refreshing, given what is produced these days. You can click on the image and YouTube will start. What I also like with these old movies is the great inspiring music and the great western landscapes shown. High Lonesome was not made in Europe, but rather in the rugged mountains of the Texas Big Bend Country. Since we have visited that very same area I kind of feel “at home” there.

One day I want to return there, take a closer look, spending more time.

Right now we are waiting for a March warm-up the coming week. Maybe that’s when some of that unwanted snow will disappear.

Almost Too Much Of A Coincidence

Reading Al’s blog the other day we saw that Kelly and Al had met another dog while walking Pheebes. And it was that dog which caught our immediate interest.

We are 80% sure that that dog is a sister of our Dixie. Dixie was born in Oklahoma, but her litter was abandoned and in an effort to rescue 7 puppies and her mother, transferred to Arkansas. As the puppies were getting ready for adoption we found the entire bunch advertised on petfinder.com. Initially we chose the one with a black spot on the tail. When Dixie arrived, there was no black spot on her tail. Whether that was based on a misunderstanding or a mistake when naming the dogs, we don’t know, and it is not of any importance for us. Dixie is the world for us.

             It is the puppy to the left, and the only one with a black spot on the tail.

                        Above: Is this the dog Al and Kelly met in New Mexico?

              Above: Pheebes meeting what possibly is Dixie’s sister. Below is Dixie.

But back to Al’s pictures of the dog they met, it shows the same markings as the one with the black spot on the tail shown in the puppy picture. It also has the same mottled markings as our Dixie. The mottled spots appeared about 2 weeks after the puppy picture was taken. On top of that the dog shows a black spot on its forehead and has the same general size with long legs just as Dixie

It is almost too much of a coincidence that Al and Kelly should come across a sister of Dixie, but is it impossible? We think not.

Open Live Writer Test

Thanks to Dave https://goingrvway.blogspot.com for instructions on how to fix the OLW application. This has been a problem for many weeks. The clumsy blogger publishing app is terrible to work with if one pursues a certain layout of pictures and text. So here you have little Dixie just 3 months old in 2017.

I Am Still Baffled About This

Never think you know the weather in Canada. 

Yesterday we had the most fantastic day with a heat wave reaching 13C (55F) in the sun, which brought us out with the coffee mugs, today we are watching a blizzard unfold. As of 10am it has aleady brought down more than 4" of snow, and it is expected to continue until early evening. All I know we might get a foot or even more of this. :-(

Not good. Doggy walk got cancelled again, but Dixie joined us in our effort to clean up the mess down at the driveway. She put herself to bed afterwards doing the only sensible thing there is: SLEEPING.

A Trip To Town

Living on Campobello means you are pretty much removed from everything most people would take for granted to have around them at just about any time of the day. (or night)
Example: We don't have a gas station, we don't have a bank, there's no big supermarket, and no public offices, (if you don't count the community clerk office). Then, of course there's no shoe-nor clothing-store, no Home Depot, no Walmart, no theater, no amusement park (we amuse ourselves). I'm sure you got the picture now. If not, you gotta come here and see for yourself.

Oh, I almost forgot, we don't have a whole lot of people here either, at least not during off-season. "Off-season" is everything except June, July, August and 10 days in September.

Why do I mention this? Well, I thought it might make you understand our excitement when we finally decide to "take a ride to town".

"Town", means town, as opposed to city. I have to laugh every time when I fill out one of these forms and there is a line where you gotta fill in the name of the "city". Or sometimes it asks "closest city". I can really see people's eyebrows raise when I say it takes almost 3 hrs to get to the city. Hell, it even takes more than an hour to get "to town".

So yeah..."town" is St.Stephen, while "city" is St.John. Yup, our province is full of "saints". I guess it derives from the time the French were dominating these parts. They were mostly Catholics, while the Brits were Anglican.

So, we have to drive a lot, if we want to get somewhere. Life on this island is full of surprises. Let's just say you want to buy a new fridge, or a cook stove. Choice is you can buy it in Canada or in the U.S. If you buy it in the U.S. and talk the dealer around to deliver it, you gotta pay the guy 50 Bucks extra. If you buy it in Canada, the dealer can't deliver it at all.  That's because he has to drive the piece through the U.S., meaning he has to be bonded, which he is not. BUT, and now it gets interesting, if you should own f.e.x a pickup or a big van you can take it through the U.S. without being bonded. You just tell the friendly CBP-officer you have been shopping and he waves you on. Neat, isn't it?

Now let's say you wanna buy lumber from the building supply place. They are bonded and offer to bring the stuff to your house - for a fee. Of course our fellow New Brunswickers on the mainland enjoy free delivery of their lumber. Tis is life!

So the need for a big vehicle is the reason why we still had that full-size monster of a Chevy Ambulance. It has served us well over the years. But lately we ran into problems. Our vehicle insurance company, the CAA, kicked the ambulance off the policy. After years of having the thing insured in the same company and (get this) after 15 years of CAA-membership they found out that our van was a commercial vehicle. The CAA doesn't do commmercial insurance, which is fine with me, but the ambulance had its last commercial driving order when it picked up some seriously ill person 6 or 7 years ago. Ever since, it was cared for by loving owners who used it for private errands.

So this insurance matter forced me to sell the damn thing. Now, SELLING a vehicle on Campobello is about the same as if you want to reach the full moon on a ladder.

Advertising it on our area's many facebook motor group pages, many inquiries rolled in, and only one of them was special, as it mirrored some serious interest for purchase. The fellow was from up north in the province. We messaged back and forth and an appointment was made for him to get here today. This morning I noticed another message from him asking whether he HAD TO GO THROUGH THE U.S. ????

And here I thought we just had a lot of media attention about the missing ferry service from mainland Canada. 
So it turned out he had barely slept all night as he panicked about going through the border. I could literally see the deal go the way the chickens are kicking. So I was quick to offer a meet-up in St.Stephen.
It would just be 75 minutes to drive and...heck, the trip could be fun. I left first and took all the recycling cans and bottles with me for drop-off at the bottle depot. (another thing we don't have on the island)
Bea would follow with the other van an hour or so later, taking Dixie along for the ride. Later Bea told me that Dixie had scared the CBP-officer by letting out one of her deep-throated growls, when the officer got a bit too close for comfort.

At 12:30 the fellow from up north turned into the Irving-station where I had been killing time, enjoying a coffee and an apple-fritter from Tim Horton. Bea had not arrived yet. So I kept us busy with small talk about the van, until I finally saw Bea coming into the round-about next to the station.

So the van and the money changed hands, papers were filled out and the deal was done.

Then we went shopping. Groceries!

Gotta take advantage of "being in town".