Month: April 2012

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Tethered

My wonderfully awesome friends Ken and Donna gave me their US Verizon cell phone that can be used as an internet modem. A lot of money, several phone calls to tech, and about five hours later, I’m finally online with a connection similar to what I get with my internet key in Canada. I also have a US phone number. I am shocked by how easy the activation process was. I know that a few short years ago, I would have needed a US credit card and SSN. Today, they were able to run a Canadian credit check (must have been good since I didn’t need to make a deposit) and all they wanted beyond that was a US address, which I was able to give them since my best friend told me I could use hers.

Getting on was so hard that I’m afraid to log off! But I badly need groceries. I spent some time trying to find the nearest grocery store when I remembered that I am parked at a Super Walmart. Doh.

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Reflections on North Dakota

“It was at this moment that I fell in love with space, endless space.”  Esther Hautzig, The Endless Steppe

It was in North Dakota that I first encountered the prairie landscape. From my journal at the time:

The first thing I noticed about the prairie is the sky. There is so much sky that there isn’t enough pigment for it; even when there isn’t a cloud above, the sky is a weak, diluted blue. The next thing I noticed was the flatness that meant there was more land and sky than I could take in with one gaze, that there was no place to rest the eyes. It took my breath away. In North Dakota, the prairie is marigold, emerald, and amber.

I had thought myself an ocean and even a mountain girl and was surprised to find myself moved to tears by a landscape of endless sky and dancing grass as high as my waist. It is only in hindsight that I can recognize how this discovery shaped the years that followed. I can add North Dakota to the list of places that shook me out of my complacency and made me look at the world, and my life, in a different way, and then set me on a different course.

Sitting here in North Dakota once more, I am shocked to realise that it is here that my journey to full-timing truly began. It is here that the first stirrings came into my mind that my life could be different, that there were other options for me, that there was more to life than what I knew. I barely spent any time in this state and it still had time to sear itself into my consciousness. It has been almost seven years since I was first here, but it feels like another life. Perhaps it was.

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Why Not Minot?

I am at the Applebee’s in Minot, North Dakota posting from my iPad. I’m off to Verizon next to see about getting the US cell phone activated with a data plan.

As I approached the border this morning, the last words spoken to me by the customs supervisor last year echoed in my mind. I made some notes in your file. As long as you’re back in Canada by April 7th, your next crossing should be easier.

He wasn’t kidding. Had the agents not struggled with getting the front door opened, I would have been through in under four minutes. My having to get out and unlock the door for them delayed the process by a whole 30 seconds. They rummaged around for a bit and then the lady handed me my passport and told me to move ahead. I asked her where she wanted me to park because her instructions seemed vague. “No. You’re clear. Have a nice trip!” Yahoo!!!

Miranda is parked at the Walmart, one of the worst lots I have stayed in, hard to get around in and on a slope. But there aren’t any obvious alternates and it’s just for a night.

I seem to have changed time zones as my iPad says it’s 12:45 and I distinctly remember pulling into Minot at that time. It’s been a short driving day having left Estevan less than four hours ago, but I’m beat and glad to call this drizzly day done.

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Inching Towards the Border

I am at the Walmart in Estevan (The Energy City), still in Saskatchewan. I didn’t get much sleep last night and drove about 500km total today in the toad, so I was tempted to stay in Weyburn. But I felt that three nights there were already pushing it, that another 80km wouldn’t kill me, and that it’d be nice to start the day so close to the border (40km). If the border crossing goes smoothly, I will have a chance to do my business in Minot and still make it to the RV park I have in mind. But I have managed to get a full charge today (THANK YOU GALARNEAU), so tomorrow’s cold and overcast forecast isn’t too scary, not with sun being promised from Friday onward, and I will keep open the option of detouring to Bismarck if I do not manage to find the required services in Minot.

Estevan is rather a large city for this part of Canada. The Walmart isn’t as convenient to access as I had to drive through town, but the lot, like that in Weyburn, is nice and big with plenty of space to tuck away a 50′ rig on level spot.