Category Archives: Destinations

Good Morning! from Coastal Black Winery In Black Creek, BC

Posted by Jul 7, 2025 Destinations, News, RV living, Uncategorized , Leave a Comment
Good Morning! from Coastal Black Winery In Black Creek, BC
Coastal Black Winery, Black Creek, BC

I’m not normally what a farmer would call an early riser. However, travel days that involve ferry travel frequently involve being woken from a perfectly sound slumber in the first

I’m not normally what a farmer would call an early riser. However, my travel days that involve ferry travel frequently involve being woken from a perfectly good sleep before the light of dawn. 

Coastal Black Winery

That’s because Daisy Mae is a long, overheight vehicle, so ferry fares at most times of the day are well over $350. That said, I shop for super saver fares to get fares as low as $145.  The only pain point here is that these fares are only for salings before 7:45.  Today this meant waking up at 3:30 am.  At that hour, I was surrounded by the ethereal morning beauty of the Coastal Black Winery farm.  

The Sun Blinking Away Darkness

The sun was just beginning to blink away the last of the darkness. This is when all the colours of the world are muted, diluted in varying tones of bluish grey with the black silhouettes of trees stretching toward the skyline.  Vague hints of colour stretched out beyond evergreens that marked perfect rows of a huge market garden.  These rows would soon produce a wealth of beans, onions, carrots and fresh corn. There is no doubt that this is a truly magical time of day.  Every time I get up that early, I resolve to do it more often. Sometimes I actually do.

Some people are early risers

3:30 AM is a normal waking hour for a dairy farmer.  That said, Coastal Black Winery was once the site of one of a handful of Black Creek dairy farms.  As I waited for coffee to percolate on the stove, I heard the putting of a farm vehicle coming through the opalescence of the coming day.  I looked outside to see my bearded host on a side-by-side. Alongside this ran a stunning black and tan german shepherd who seemed happy to run alongside.  I greeted the dog and the farmer equally. He’d come by on his way to morning chores to wish me a good morning and give me directions to get out of the gated property.  

This level of friendliness is typical for any of the Harvest Hosts locations I’ve stayed at. I  highly recommend getting a membership to the Harvest Hosts & Boondockers Welcome if you travel a lot in an RV. A $200 annual membership gets you unlimited free stays at thousands of host locations wherever you happen to be. 

Dental Destination Tourism

Posted by Jul 1, 2025 Destinations, RV living , , , , Leave a Comment
Image: Pexels

So,the day had come, I realized, as I sat in the examination room of the Campbell River dental clinic. I’d outlived my teeth. The dentist carefully explained they were worn beyond making simple repairs. I needed crowns. I needed root canals. I needed an extraction. And to get these I needed a bigger income( or a sugar daddy). And the second option is only there for comic relief.

So I asked him how much would it be to get them all fixed. Dr. Rivers sighed, and then sheepishly said “actually what you could really use is a smile makeover but that’s tens of thousands. But for now we can plug away at the essentials. Four crowns and root canals, one extraction. “So how much is gonna be?”I asked although I didn’t know why. It was going to be more than I had anyway. “

Oh, we’re going into pretty close to 12000 for the crowns and root canal we can do right now. To do the rest of your teeth isn isn’t going to be cheap.” Now my curiosity was piqued. “So whats “not cheap”? Doctor Rivers frowned. And he started to scuttle out of the examination room. Staying over his shoulder oh we’re talking more than $50,000”.

Well, that was kind of out of the question for me. But I had to find some way of fixing my teeth. And after talking to three other dentists in Campbell River, it was an apparent that I could not get this work done in Canada. The Canada Dental plan wouldn’t cover the root canals or crowns, but would cover extracting the five teeth that were urgent. But since I bought my own dental insurance, I wouldn’t qualify anyway.

I started looking around for dentist in Mexico after hearing great reviews about dentists there. I got a quote from one has fantastic reviews and decided to get my teeth fixed there. For 20 crowns and three root canals they would charge me $350 for each of the crowns, plus $300 for each root canal and $100 for the extraction. In US dollars it would be about $10,000. That I could swallow.

The dentist was in a little town called Los Algodones, across the border from Yuma in the middle of the desert. The only reason for the town’s existence seemed to be for dental tourism. More than 250 dental clinics have set up shop in Los Algodones. They cater mainly to dental tourists from the US and Canada. It’s earned the town the nickname “Molar City”.

Friends offered to care for Annabelle and Jolene so I could make the trip. and it was set.