I don’t think I’ve ever written explicitly about how much I hate getting online in the U.S. with my Verizon phone. In fact, I think that will shock some of you since I have always expressed satisfaction with internet in the U.S. Well, the fact is that the Mac version of VZ access manager, the app that lets you dial the phone and establish a connection to the net, is the demon spawn of the dude who wrote the coding for Windows 95. I have never seen such a buggy piece of software. In fact, it is so bad, that it truly crashes Mac in that it freezes everything and requires such a hard reboot that it breaks the hard drive. I can normally go months without having to repair my hard drive, but I need to do it once a day in the States because of VZ access manager. It is just a crappy piece of software and the developer is unreachable. Verizon can’t do much about that. More sophisticated Mac users have come up with roundabout ways of connecting without using the software. I plan to read up on the methods and try a different route next year.

All that was to say that dealing with VZ access manager was better than the internet connection I’ve had here for the last few weeks… until today. I’m hoping that’s clear enough context to illustrate my frustration. I could deal with the VZ access manager mess because it was predictable and I knew how to fix it and that I’d be back online shortly. Not so here.

Once I got online this morning after bringing the antenna down closer to ground level, I had only one major drop all day and one very minor drop. By major, I mean the internet, being sentient, shut down once I realized it needed to if I was to get any work done and came back at exactly the moment I was honestly do for a break. If that’s not proof of sentience, I don’t know what is. And then the Mifi went dormant a few minutes ago, but the connection started immediately after I rebooted. I was even able to seamlessly stream an episode on Netflix during a raging downpour! In other words, this has been my least frustrating day on internet since Dallas, where I was using Ms. Cinnamon’s connection. Things are looking up!

I’m taking bets that I’ll be posting from the hill tomorrow morning. 😀

And with that, I’m off to bed. It has been a very long and cold transcription day and my finger joints hurt.

Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin’ for, worth fightin’ for, worth dyin’ for, because it’s the only thing that lasts.

I feel like a completely different person than I was this winter, dreading my return to Canada and seeing no future for myself here. I had no idea how the property was going to work out and half expected to land here and discover that I had just bought an investment, not a place to put down tenuous roots.

My life plan hasn’t changed at all. I still want to RV a few more years and then see the world. The only thing that has changed is that I have a safety net. Should the bottom fall out, I will have this place to return to and I will be at peace with doing so.

This property will only tether me as much as I let it. Investing in a little hardscaping, like gravel, will mean having less green space to tend, or to have tended, during my voyages. Not having a proper house on it means not having to worry about pipes freezing, rodent damage, and the like while I’m out gallivanting in my RV. When I’m ready to see the world, I can weather proof the rig as much as possible, leave a friend to keep an eye on it, and take off, secure in the knowledge that I won’t have to start from scratch should I ever decide to return.

I will confess to being rather excited at the prospect of turning this property into a proper landing base. I can already see the grainery I’ll turn into a cozy guest cottage/wood working shop/laundry room, even if it takes years to amass the materials to do so. I can already taste the fresh herbs and tomatoes I’ll grow next year. I eagerly await the day I get a faucet so I can wash my first load of laundry in my Wonder Wash and hang it to dry on a clothesline I’ll install when I get back in July.

I look forward to more Friday night canasta tournaments, to watching summer grab this land and reluctantly let go of it in the fall. And I am going to eagerly await that the first nip in the air that will tell me it’s time to go south. The border crossing should be easier with my having real ties to Canada and big plans for the following summer. Next winter, meeting up at Quartzite with friends will be all the more enjoyable because I won’t be so annoyed with having to go back to Canada.

I keep getting asked how I found this place. All I can say is that when you know what you’re looking for, the options narrow down considerably. I knew what I needed and I pounced when I found it. But it is luck that it has worked out as well as it has.

When I bought the property last year, I wondered what a plot of land would mean for me.

The short answer is that it means the Canadian government has won.

I am exhausted by all the lies and half-truths I have to tell to be a true full-timer in this country. I especially worry about losing my health and vehicle insurance coverage.

The government demands that I have a truly fixed address, not someone’s yard or a mail forwarding service’s office, and now I’ve got it. They want me to spend the bulk of the year in one location. That’s likely going to happen now that I know the property is going to work out as an RV base.

But I did capitulate on my own terms. Most people in rural Saskatchewan have PO boxes tied to a lot number, not a street address. So no one will care that I don’t have a proper house on my lot and being a property owner will likely reduce the amount of scrutiny I might get about how much time I’m actually at my place.

I have a property that will be low maintenance and which I can improve at a slow pace, with absolutely no pressure to develop, so I can keep spending more of my money traveling.

I also have the peace of mind that if Miranda ever becomes road unworthy, I can park her on the lot, cover her with a heatable structure, and then have a paid home to retire to should I ever need to stop moving.

I don’t know if I will ever think of Haven as being ‘home.’ I don’t think I have the kind of personality to truly have a ‘home’ as per the conventional mindset. To me, ‘home’ is a place you don’t want to leave. I really don’t feel that I could ever live in one place all the time ever again and be satisfied. Therefore, I don’t believe I ever could truly have a ‘home’ outside of Miranda.

Growing up, I always had two visions for my life. In one, I was the globe-trotting nomad, in the other I was a homesteader. I thought that RVing had allowed me to find a compromise to those two visions, giving me the freedom to travel while still having a home. But I think that RVing plus a low maintenance property is doing a much better job of merging those two conflicting dreams.

I am still a full-time RVer; the land doesn’t change that in my mind. Right now, Miranda needs a few repairs that make me shy about taking her back out on the road, but they’ll happen in due time. I do think I am going to slowly start traveling less with her and that a heatable structure is going to rise up in the list of priorities.

One of the many reasons I wanted a truck was to be able to pull a lightweight trailer behind it. I think the time will come in the not so distant future where Miranda will stay behind in Saskatchewan in the winter and I will travel with just a small trailer. The expense of driving a huge ’97 motorhome is just going to keep mounting and I think Miranda is about to reach the point where she is going to get old and decrepit very fast; comfortable for living in a fixed place but worrisome to take on the road.

If any of this is a shock to anyone, you haven’t been reading the blog that closely. I had a 10-year plan for traveling with Miranda and I’m already at the half-way point in that plan. Now that I have the property, some parts of that plan are a lot easier to firm up now.

Of course, I could still meet that dashing American and get the chance to live as a true nomad in the States, but that’s not a sure bet. It’s good to have a backup plan. 🙂