Thursday September 7, 2017

Laundry Day. We left the marina at 8:00am in order to get there early enough so that we weren't doing laundry all day. There were already a few people there when we arrived! But there were just enough machines for each of us. The washing machines were the smallest I've ever seen! I think we had 5 loads? Made an event of it though and brought Miss B and Greg and Byron did a Starbucks run after we got everything in the washers.

While Sue was finishing up with her laundry, we walked Bella over to a pet store to ask about getting her toe nails clipped somewhere. She said that we would need to go to a professional groomers to get them done, and when we asked for a local recommendation, she said we were actually in a bit of a "dead zone" of groomers. Then she asked if Bella was good when she got her nails done and offered to do them herself! She was a groomer previously for 10 years, but just didn't do it anymore. So she grabbed some clippers off the rack and just snip snipped while Greg held onto Bella. And then she said we couldn't give her any money for doing it. Nice! So we bought Bella more treats. Cause she really needed more treats.

Back to the boats to put laundry away, and then try to get the marina WiFi working again. We had paid for marina WiFi and also bought the upgrade package so we could stream stuff. Didn't work worth poop. At all. Shortly after noon, we headed out in the car to drive to Cumberland to see Byron and Sue's friend Darren. His wife Michelle was back east visiting her Mom, so it was just Darren. They somewhat recently opened the Cumberland Brewing Company and we all wanted to visit there (duh!) and so we went for lunch.

Darren has the perfect personality to be a "host" / "owner" of a public establishment that does craft beer. They just started it around Xmas of 2015 after previous careers doing something completely different. We got the full run down on each of the 5 standard beers they have on tap all the time. He was quite sheepish about the fact that they did not have anymore on tap - they like to have at least 8, but they were "tapped out" (pun intended) after the labour day long weekend and didn't have anything else ready to go. Byron and Greg had the Stout which got 2 thumbs up, Sue had the cider on tap, and I of course couldn't choose and wanted to try everything, so had the flight. Their food menu was really interesting and our lunches were fabulous.



Shortly after starting the brewery, they had the "opportunity" to purchase the building across the street. So they did and moved the pizza place over there. It's called "Riders" and is a community fixture. Now they had more room for more vat's of beer. We went over to take a look at it because Byron and Sue had been there previously right after the sale when it was an abandoned Chinese Restaurant. It looks a little different now and Darren and partners have just finished installing outdoor gas heaters on the patio so they can have "3 season" outdoor dining. Byron and Sue had 2 growlers that they have been carrying around on the boat, so we got those filled with more Stout for the arduous boat trip coming up. (Not.).



Before we left Darren, we had to meet Barley, his 7 month old relative new Pug / Cavalier Spaniel cross named … "Barley". Because he has every colour of barley in his coat Apparently this is a new cross breed that the vet's are likely because it rids each of the source breeds of their known genetic over breeding defects. So you get a healthy dog out of the deal. Sounds good.

We wandered a block or two in the town and found the Island's oldest credit union and got some cash, and then also found the chocolate shop. It's a lovely little hipster town these days and of course everyone there wants to help and support the local community which is great. Then we drove back to Campbell River and the marina and did some vegetating after all that eating and drinking. We still fought with the internet and told the marina folks that their support people never returned our call, but there was nothing they could do about that. They said they would come out and unplug/plug the WiFi on our dock (which they did), but it didn't make a difference.

Greg walked up and got a roast chicken and some salads for dinner on SB. Finished watching season 6 of Suits