Doin’ the Moho Slalom

I got the tow pins tonight. All I will say about that is that I’m surprised that I’m surprised about how that went down.

Anyhoo, I arrived at Miranda’s parking spot for the last time around 7. I took perhaps fifteen minutes to unload boxes and empty as many of them as I could.

Then, I looked for the magic battery button, but I don’t seem to have one, so I positioned Pommette for a boost. Once I got Miranda going, I manoeuvred her into place for hooking up the toad behind her.

Hooking up was surprisingly easy!

My tow bar is a Blue Ox Aventa II. I would have bought an Aladdin, which is a high end model suitable for towing a small car, but much cheaper than the Aventa II. The Aventa II, also a high end model, could probably tow a Hummer. It’s really huge and heavy, but I like knowing that I could upgrade Pommette to a pickup or SVU one day and still have a tow bar I can use.

The Aventa II is a self-aligning bar. I can’t figure out what’s ‘self-aligning’ about it, but I can say that I was completely hooked up, safety cables and all, in less than 20 minutes. The hardest part was getting the toad lined up perfectly with the coach and at the correct distance. Then, it was just a matter of attaching safety cables and electrical wires. I figured out the wiring on my own. As it turns out, I had to open a thingy under the rig, push in another thingamabob, and then plug the cable into the thingamabob. I’d seen the thingamabob in the rear pass through and had offhandedly guessed that it was part of the towing system, so I was already one step ahead of the game when I couldn’t find a skinny rectangular outlet for the wire.

I’m surprised by how easy it was to hook up the car on my own. There is no way I could have done that with a traditional ‘fixed’ tow bar, the kind with a ball coupler. The only thing I wasn’t able to do was confirm that the brake lights were working on the toad, but since the turn signals were, I didn’t worry.

Then off we went, the very picture of freedom and the antithesis of the current economic climate, LOL!

The drive back to Ottawa was very emotional. I was pretty sure it would be my last time driving up the 416 into a beautiful orange sunset and watching the pastoral landscape slowly become the skyline of the adopted city I will always consider to be my hometown. For all that’s found, something else is lost….

I let Majel the GPS pick the best route to the garage where I would drop off Miranda. She had me go down a narrow residential street that had cars parked down it. The parkers were smart and alternated which side of the road they were on, so I was able to take a serpentine route all the way down. Maybe I’m just tired, but I really got a kick out of doing the moho slalom.

Towing was a piece of cake. It really helps that I could see the car in the backup camera monitor, as well as all the connections. I didn’t notice much of a difference when stopping and starting, even on hills.

I feel positively drained and have to keep reminding myself that this time next week, the first day of my adventure will be just about behind me.

Pleasant Surprises

I was just playing around with my cell phone and managed to lock on to a signal that took me to my account where I could check the balance. I was curious to see if I would still have 100$ on it, or if I would have been dinged for some unexpected tiny print charges.

Neither.

While all the other cell companies charge you 25$ or so to activate your phone, Virgin Mobile pays YOU money to activate your phone! They gave me a 15$ credit for activating on line!

Even at 30 cents per minute for local calls, 115$ is going to last a long time!

This reminds me of ten years ago, when I bought a £5 phone card for my month in Scotland and got a ludicrously generous £3 bonus. I still had so much money left on the card at the end of the month it was worth giving it to another traveler!

Crunch Time

I’m pretty much in melt down mode now (par for the course for me when I move), but am better than I was four hours ago.

When I picked up Miranda in July, I didn’t have the tow pins, so I couldn’t hitch up the car. The previous owner was going to be out of town for several weeks, so I set all thoughts of the pins aside until he got back. When he did, he questioned if the pins really belonged to me or came with the base plate. By the time I got an answer about that, and learned that no place in town has the pins in stock and they would all take at least two weeks to get some in for me (!!!), the PO was unreachable and… it was 4:30 today. I came up with several contingency plans for getting both Miranda and Pommette back in town by Saturday. None were pretty. Then the phone rang at 4:45 and it was the PO, out of town, but back tomorrow. I can pick up the pins at 5PM. Crisis averted. PHEW.

I woke up at 6:15 this morning in full panic mode and made up several more boxes before leaving for work an hour and a half later. I really don’t have that much left to do, but it’s all spread out and looks worse than it is. I’ve also essentially ‘lost’ an evening. Tomorrow, I’m driving out to North Gower to pick up Miranda, and I’ll drop her off at the mechanic’s where she’ll undergo an oil change on Friday morning.

Friday afternoon, I’ll go pick her up and drive her here to fill her up as much as I have time for. Then I’m going to a sports arena a few blocks from my place that allows overnighting in an RV at no charge!!! How convenient is that?! I was surprised to find not only this option, but also TWO Wal-marts within a ten minute drive. Ssh, don’t tell Gatineau! They’ll shut down that practise if they get wind of it.

So, Friday night I’ll sleep in the moho at the arena with the catkids and be back here bright and early on Saturday morning. I’ll have time to clean the house before my friend shows up to help me with the mattress.

Then, it’s off to the municipal dump to get Miranda weighed, the grocery store for supplies, and, finally, the campground for some well deserved downtime and BEER.

This is my seventh move in ten years. One would think I’d have such an event down to a science by now, but I’m not. Each move has been very different. I’m just so tired of it and hope that I can RV for a few years.

Things are so rushed right now that I have to remind myself that this time next week, I’ll be trying to wind down in preparation for the big departure the next morning. I might not feel ready, but “There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.” (Tennessee Williams)

Eight sleeps left!

Removing Tar From a Car

When I was out and about on Saturday, I noticed a long scratch down the passenger’s door of my car. Disgruntled, I examined it more closely and realised that it was actually a streak of something that I could flick away with my fingernail.

I suddenly remembered that when I got back to Mr. Wonderful’s street on Thursday to pick up Pommette, the owner of the house in front of which she was parked was tarring his driveway….

My heart in my throat, I took a closer look at the car and realised that the whole passenger side, windshield, front, and part of the driver’s side was flecked with tar. I hadn’t noticed because of the way she’s parked at home. Yes, I’d noticed that the windshield was messy, but didn’t really think that much of it.

At any rate, I was pissed off about how much money and time I was going to have to spend to clean up the car.

I got home, did some Googling and came up with a list of possible solutions, from the supposedly undamaging to the ‘definitely works, but you’ll strip the finish and need rewax the car.’

Tonight, I finally had a half hour to kill to try out these solutions and figure out how much time it was going to take to clean the car completely.

Twenty-five minutes later, I had a shiny, non-damaged, and clean car.

The answer to tar on your car is…

Baking soda!!!

I sprayed the car with water, then sprinkled baking soda all over. I used a raggedy wash cloth to rub away all the tar. Minimum elbow grease was needed. When I was done, I used the hose to rinse the baking soda from the car.

I didn’t even get dirty. Or wet.

*heaves a huge sigh of relief*

More Frustration

Well, I’ve wound up getting a new phone number.

As it turns out, Virgin Mobile could have ported my old number over to the mobile… had my internet service provider, Vidéotron, been willing to cooperate. They were not. I spoke to an absolutely vile woman this afternoon. But that doesn’t surprise me, all the customer service reps there need to have an attitude adjustment. I would have still gone with them, though, had I moved within the city because the tech guys rock. They are sub-contractors who are in the right business. In case that wasn’t clear, if you’re in Quebec and you have a choice between Bell and Vidéotron, pick the latter. Their reps aren’t as helpful as Emily, but their tech guys won’t make it necessary for you to traipse to the telephone pole with your ladder in the dark in minus 20 weather to fix their bad wiring job.

But, I digress.

So, having my pick of any area code in the country, I decided for a Victoria-based number (area code 250). I anticipate being in that area for several months and having a ‘local’ number will make government job hunting easier. I have the option to change my number later, of course, and local calls (say to Calgary from Calgary or Saskatoon from Saskatoon) are charged the local per minute rate, not the long distance rate, no matter my number’s area code. So, really, this was self indulgence on my part. 🙂