Osoyoos British Columbia

So lately I have been pretty heavy duty on my posts so let's lighten it up today. Enough about returning to work, phase 3, UBI, and all that other stuff.

Back in 1990 I spent a summer working in the Okanagan Valley in a small town called Oliver located in the hot southern part of British Columbia. I remember it was so hot everyday that all I did was pay $3 to get in the public pool everyday just to cool off.

Instead of everyone heading down over the border just a 20 minute drive from where I was to get into the U.S. more Americans would be heading north to the Okanagan to get their sunshine and park their RVs. The closest town to the border was a place called Osoyoos. Located just 2.2 miles from the U.S. and adjacent to the First Nations Reserve the name means the "narrowing of the waters" in the local language called Syilx'tsn. 

Definitely a place to retire over 43% of the population are over the age of 65. Situated on Osoyoos Lake it's elevation marks the lowest point in the valley at 967 feet or 276 meters. The average summer time temperature is 17.0 C or 62.6 F making it the warmest place in Canada. Temperatures can exceed 35.0 C at least 17 days during the summer. It is like a dessert because where I was in Oliver it never rained all summer and Osoyoos was the same. Air conditioning was a must.

I have looked for it on google but have yet to find it but from what I heard when I was there they even grew bananas in Osoyoos it was that hot and dry. The one thing I can say that made the heat tolerable was unlike here in Southwestern Ontario their humidity is quite low. That also made the nights bearable for sleeping as well.

Tourism and agriculture are the two main industries in Osoyoos. Irrigation made tree fruit growing possible in this dry arid climate with  cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums, pears and apples all being grown.

For the tourist you have the warmest freshwater lake in Canada being Osoyoos Lake with the temperature averaging 24.0 C or 75.0 F with many beaches to go with it and also some golf courses for the avid golfer to choose from.

With mild winters too wouldn't this be an idyllic place to retire? Only just over five thousand people in total I could handle this place no problem. Golf, beaches, fresh fruit stands everywhere and also I forgot the wines of the Okanagan right there you cannot beat it. The only problem is it is too far away from Ontario. 

When we moved from Vancouver to London Ontario way back in 2000 the wife and I camped there for 3 days. It was pretty nice. Below on the Osoyoos website they have a video cam of an osprey nest live. An osprey is a hawk with a big wing span. You can check other things going on just click
Osoyoos.

Osprey Web Cam

Rick's Cafe

When I was staying at the Hedonism in Jamaica back in 1985,  and if you want to check out the place you can click on the resort by clicking on the name to redirect you to it,  there was a place down the road called Rick's Café. The location of Rick's Café is known for it's spectacular sunset. One evening I had to check it out.

I do not remember the cliff diving though so I included a video of someone with a lifeguard shirt who has obviously done this before. I did a bungee jump in my last post but I couldn't do this. It has a cool Bob Marley song while you watch him climb high for the jump. The dive to the water is really fast which makes me think this was edited and no one actually does this jump but let's pretend everyone does just for now.

Jamaica is quite a place to visit. It is pretty chill there as you can imagine. Had a nice day trip and scaled up Dunn River Falls which was pretty cool as well. Other than than it was nude sunbathing. eating, drinking, and toga parties at the resort. Below is the video and some photos I snatched from the web site. Like I said I was never big into photos. I wish they had smartphones back then.                      
                                                     Diver Jumping at Rick's Cafe

        

Bungee Jumping in Phuket Thailand

One day on the ship we had a day to do something while we were in Phuket Thailand. Mickey the bartender who was from the Netherlands says to me and a few others how about doing some bungee jumping.

I looked at him and said no way! He says back it will be fun. There is one here in town not far away.  Really if you are going to do something like this you have to be impulsive and not think too long about it or your mind starts thinking what about if you are one in a 100,000 that jump and the bungee snaps. So after a quick lunch on the ship we head out to the bungee jump location. Mickey knows what he is doing because he had moved to the Philippines and was familiar with this part of the world. Although why I thought that had anything to do with bungee jumping I totally do not know. I have to admit it was comforting though.

There were about nine or ten of us which was great because you had the group force support behind every jumper.

Well when you watch the video below it was exactly how it was except for a couple of things. One was when the guy counted to three the first time I chickened out. It took me till the second count to jump. Second of all the guy said to look far ahead and spread your arms. When I was there the guy who probably after all these years is not the same one of course told me to look down. That was not a good thing to instruct when one is standing on the ledge and seeing the others sitting around having a beer looking up and laughing.

I was the second to jump because I was waiting to see if the first one would survive. I had to have proof that this thing worked. It was a big crane that made that grinding noise as it went up leaving you with a sense that perhaps I shouldn't be worried so much about the bungee cord snapping. Especially when the higher you got the more the crane started to rock a bit.

I jumped and felt nothing for a few seconds then the bungee whipped me back up and for the next two minutes while I was going up and down all I could say was the F word over and over again.

Would I do it again? Probably not now of course but I was glad I did when I did. We had a blast that day and after my jump felt like I had earned my right to sit and have a few beers and laugh at the others who had not yet jumped. We all did which was fabulous. I think it cost $50 US dollars at the time. Well worth it and a memory I will always cherish.

By the way no alligators were harmed during the jump.

                                              Bungee Jump in Phuket Thailand 1995

Viareggio Italy

Okay as promised every other day will be a travel feature of somewhere I went while working on the cruise ship. Today I will feature a seaside resort in Italy named Viareggio situated on the Ligurian Sea locally referred to as the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Tyrrhenian people were a people dating back to 6 BC.

Located on the west coast of Italy in the wine growing region of Tuscany this was always a great spot. The beaches were great and the nearby streets were full of bars, restaurants, and souvenir shops for the plenty of tourists who used to flock there daily.

I use to go to the beach and take a swim but most of the time I use to grab a nice lunch because one thing I do enjoy is Italian food especially those pizzas. Then have that and down a few Peroni beers.

One thing Viareggio is famous for though is their ship yards where they built super yachts. Yachts that were bought by billionaires not just millionaires. I use to walk around where these yachts were moored and just gaze at them. I have mentioned this before but if I had to do one thing more that I didn't do was to be a waiter on one of these ships. Of course it wouldn't be just serving food as I am sure there would be other duties to fulfill as well.

I took a gander at some of these shipyards and below is a video taken of the inside of one of these super yachts. I will say this it is no wonder they needed ten staff to work on one of these. Just click on the link below where I have also included a map of where this seaside resort is. You may want to check it out if you are in Tuscany Italy one day.

Meanwhile I think I will go back to listen to my Eros Ramazotti tape while you look at this video. In fact I will even leave you a link to that as well.

Viareggio is top left where there you see an indentation

Grand Hotel in Viareggio

                                                             Super Yacht Video

                                                              Eros Ramazotti

Year Two of Three

Okay the splenectomy is done after what has been a year deciding whether I qualified for a stem cell transplant and plenty of blood transfusions. I had undergone plenty of procedures to check on my body to see if there was anything else wrong, had pneumonia a few times, and then in the end it was decided that I should get the spleen out.

Up to that time I was not taking any medication. It was basically let's get the stem cell transplant done to start all over. Anyway they still couldn't figure out what was causing my hemoglobin to drop.

The two liver biopsies showed conclusively that on my liver there was some damage so on my follow up visit with the hematologist I was prescribed Methotrexate. This was to get rid of the Large Granular Leukemia they noticed. I was to take this chemo pill once a week and the other six days take a tiny Folic acid pill. Apparently we lose a lot of Folic acid when we go through anything related to chemotherapy and it is essential.

As soon as I was discharged figuring everything was under control I planned for a two week vacation out to the West Coast. We would be staying with friends for nearly a week in Victoria BC where we could show our boys where we got married and lived etc. After Victoria we would then go to the Rockies visiting Jasper especially because I spent some time there working as a waiter.

It is funny to note but shortly after the operation we had an appointment with the surgeon to have him check me out and remove the staples. He removed most of them but then said there were four he did not want to take out. So he asked Soley if she would mind to save us a trip pulling them out herself. It was a staple remover that was specially designed for such a task. She said yes she would do it and so he gave us the stapler and we said goodbye. Four days later she removed the last four staples.

The only problem was that after about a month my improved blood results took a turn for the worst and with the hemoglobin hovering up and down it seemed every couple of weeks I had to get another blood transfusion. So that was disappointing. It wasn't over as it appeared at least to me the spleen had been left there too long and now the pains of neglect were taking over. My bone marrow appeared to not be up to full force. My liver was not great either. So I was just hoping that time would straighten this out.

Before our trip out west the hematologist advised me to get a top up with a blood transfusion just before we departed. Then she brought up the stem cell transplant again. I replied that I just had my spleen out to which she replied I could still get one with or without the spleen.

I shook my head. This was becoming her dream now not mine. I was psyched up for it the first time around but again I thought. It had definitely lost it's shine by this time.

Off we flew out West. Had a great time and spared no expense. Seeing our good friends again after 18 years was fabulous and we had planned our trip perfectly. I was taking the chemo pill and Folic acid.

The only thing I couldn't do was walk fast enough to keep up with the others. We skipped breakfast to go straight to the airport on departure day

and my only episode was while in line I started to get queasy and funny looking. The security saw that and allowed me to jump the queue and find a seat in the terminal. After a couple of hours nap I was better again but the skipping of breakfast was not a good move.

When we got back I went in for blood work and my hemoglobin was down but only to 72. So I was not surprised it was down but it was not tragic. When people have lower hemoglobin they say the body fights through it and manages to get use to it. Well after climbing hills and driving a lot of kilometers I guess my body was getting used to it.

I got the transfusion again then I got a call from the hematologist...

The Wife Enjoying Jasper