Personal

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No Turkey

It’s Thanksgiving this weekend, but you’d never know it in Quebec. I saw exactly one Thanksgivingish promotion at the local IGA (they had a few whole turkeys available), but that’s it.

Thanksgiving was never a big deal growing up, but I do remember celebrating it on my dad’s side of the family several times. Looking at the holiday through adult eyes, I have to wonder where the heck we got the supplies. Do Quebec anglos have a Thanksgiving black market to turn to?

This holiday gained more meaning for me on the road as I found myself a few times with friends for whom not having turkey on Thanksgiving is unimaginable. And now that I’m eating meat again and love a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, I am surprised to find myself a little bereft this weekend.

But it’s all good because I will be in Virginia at my friend’s for the US Thanksgiving, where I have been assured I’ll be able to eat myself into a crazy turkey stupor. So all is not lost! 🙂

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Visit With An Old Friend

One of my best friends from high school now lives in Australia. We just happened to be in the same time zone and a short distance apart this month! This is a gal I go way back with. We have so many inside jokes and war stories and travel history that our friendship is the kind that can pick up at any time. It took a while for us to piece together the last time we saw each other, disbelieving that it was during our trip to Colorado in ’96. No, it was more recently than that, and definitely post 9/11 as I remember her breaking the news to me that one of our former classmates died in the attacks.

We met for lunch at the Boston Pizza in Saint-Bruno simply because the mall is about equi-distance for both of us and BP is the only sit down restaurant there.  We spent the afternoon together, trying to cram into four hours all those years apart. Needless to say, we failed.

Of all my friends from high school, she is the one I relate to the most. We’re both single gals in our early 30s who are dedicated travelers. We’re far from our families and are trying to reconcile the dreams we have for our lives with the expectations society has for us.

Her schedule is really tight for this trip, but we hope to squeeze in a coffee date next week. Otherwise, I just may have to go visit her in Australia myself!

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Four Years As a Full-Time Canadian RVer

Having finished a marathon transcription weekend this evening, I find myself with time now to reflect on my four years as a full-time RVer.

I have reached this anniversary a little weary and jaded, but after analysing my feelings, I am relieved to realise that I still very much love RVIng and it is still the right lifestyle for me. It is the context in which I live my life that has grown tiresome. In short, after four years of full-time RVing in Canada, I can say without reserve that I have had enough of full-time RVing in Canada. And let me say that having seen as much of it as I have, having done everything I could to twist myself dream to fit the legislation, and having spent so much time and energy trying to understand my country, I have earned the right to say that I am sick of it!

When I started RVing, there were no resources for young Canadians starting out on the road. And so, I left with an American vision that is not sustainable in Canada. Our legislation unequivocally denounces the transient lifestyle and makes it impossible to legally have health coverage, insurance, a driver’s license, and a duly registered vehicle.

And let’s not get into the vast different of philosophy about the management of public lands, with the Americans offering all the free long-term spots a boondocker could want while Canada charges upwards of $40 or $50 a night to dry camp on a concrete slab in a national park.

The Canadian climate means that unless you are willing to endure six months of grey dampness in the most expensive regions of our country, you will have to take a chance at an international border crossing. You will have to take several days (and spend hundreds of dollars in fuel) to out race snow to a warm locale in the fall and back north in the spring because, at best, you can only have six months south of the border and our winters are longer than that with their shoulder seasons.

If I was an American, I would be living a very different life on the road. Two of my four Canadian winters literally bled me dry financially and I have not been able to recover from them. The biggest mistake I made on the road was the first major one I encountered: where to spend my first winter. I should have gone south right then. But I thought I’d be able to work through the winter. Ha.

That’s another mistake I made, thinking I could support myself American-style through camphosting and other jobs that target RVers. No. There is no such industry in Canada. The only way to make a self-sustaining living on the road in Canada is to be self-employed. That’s the second mistake I made. I should have focused on building a business right from the start instead of slaving away at jobs that paid minimum wage or slightly better.

I know I sound terribly negative about my life, but it’s not so. In my old age, I will look back on my first Klondike Summer, the friendships I have made, the incredible Canadian scenery that made me weep with awe, and the satisfaction that all I have experienced enabled me to write an important ebook. These memories will make the bitter memories fade away like frost under the first spring sun. I will only remember that I made choices that set me free, opened up my horizons, and left me feeling profoundly satisfied.

I like where I am right now on the eve of my fourth anniversary of full-time RVing. My rig is in great shape, my business is finally taking off, I have a couple of successful border crossings under my belt, and I really think this will be the winter where I will sit on a beach by the Gulf of Mexico and drink wonderful rum-based drinks out of coconuts. Really, this is it!

So the negative things I’ve enumerated above only serve to drive me to make changes in how I approach my life on the road and to shape my future in the way I want it to be, not the way the Canadian government says it must be. I am not one of those bloggers who likes to lay out her maybes for commenters to pick apart, but rather one who prefers to present faits accomplis, things that are done. I will just say that the wheels are churning and the last four years have given me the courage to face a new challenge. The only hint I will give is that when you are as sick of your country as I am of mine, maybe it’s time to see how other people live so you can gain a little perspective.

It may be too soon for this radical change in direction or exactly the right time. I won’t know until I get south of the border this fall. But the research and planning and discussions are making me come back to life again the way I did emerging from my first winter as I headed north on the Alaska Highway.

Sometimes you don’t know when you’re taking the first step through a door until you’re already inside. Ann Voskamp

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Working Hard

There hasn’t been much to report in the last few days. I’ve been continuing training to work remotely for a new client.

The most challenging part is not learning the job itself, but learning to work with Windows 7. I do have a bit of experience with Windows XP, but the last time I really worked with Windows day in and day out was on version 98. Windows 7 does have a lot of similarities with OS X, but they are mostly cosmetic. I don’t want to start a Windows vs. OS X debate in the comments, so that’s all I have to say about my experience with Windows.

Today, I set up my new printer. The physical setup was a breeze thanks to videos integrated in the control panel of the printer showing everything from how to install the duplexer to how to size the paper trays.

Getting the printer and scanner to actually work was a little more challenging until some research told me that the OS X drivers that come on the CD, and all accompanying software updates, are for Snow Leopard. So once I found, downloaded, and installed the Lion drivers, everything went smoothly. I even set up ePrint to work with my iPad!

I received a massive transcription project for the weekend (30 hours of work due 11PM Monday), the first serious transcription project in almost a month. I am rather relieved! It’ll be a busy weekend, but it’ll be nice to spend so much time on a non-frustrating computer. Okay, so that wasn’t all I had to say about working with Windows! 🙂

The weekend will be broken up tomorrow afternoon with the celebration of my niece’s second birthday. She has been visiting all week and I have really enjoyed getting to spend so much time with her. My eldest nephew spent a few days here, too, happily playing games on my mother’s spare laptop while she and I worked side by side. I’ll be babysitting him and his brother next week for the first time.

Tonight, I’m doing a serious cleanup of my Mac. It has been running a little sluggishly and inefficiently since I upgraded to Lion. I installed more RAM a couple of days ago (going from 4GB to 8GB) and the difference has been phenomenal! I didn’t expect to notice a difference, but it was $90 (including shipping) very well spent.

Now that the computer is running more smoothly, I decided it was time to start cleaning up folders and managing files more efficiently. I am test running Hazel, an app that creates automated processes for OS X. I am fairly certain I will be buying the app as it will save me tons of work. My next project is to master my inbox. I have been working with Apple Mail for nearly 10 years now and I still don’t use it efficiently.

Needless to say, if I have moved on to virtual organizing, my home must be running smoothly. Indeed!!! Tuesday, I did the first really big and proper grocery since the accident (yes, in four months) and I have been cooking nice dinners and experimenting with new recipes. This week, I mastered sushi rice! Will I start making sushi at home now? Hmm…

The battery bank project will hopefully happen next weekend. I really don’t want to delay it much more than that.

As for my leak, it has been raining something fierce the last few days and it looks like my leak repair is holding at last! Miranda is looking really, really good.

I can’t believe that tomorrow is September 1st. This is the last month that I can count on decent weather for exterior projects. I am hoping to be here through October to get in as much work training as possible and delay crossing the border, so the count down to departure isn’t on yet, but I am thinking about it.

As proof, look what came in the mail the other day: