Canada

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A Moment of Clarity

Unlike most full-time RVers, I am not living off retirement income and must still earn a living. So unlike most full-time RVers who are living their retirements, I am dreaming of mine.

When I talked to my financial planner in 2008 about the idea of going full-time, he told me that I could afford several years of wild abandon with no concern about my future, but if I wanted to be able to retire, I’d have to buckle down within five to ten years in terms of retirement contributions and, ideally, acquire a little real estate.

In a perfect world, I could wander for the rest of my life and die grinning on a tropical beach in a far flung corner of the globe, but the reverse could also be true. I could find myself sick and forced to stop my wandering ways. Property and a nest egg would provide peace of mind in future travels because I’d have the assurance that I could take care of myself if the worst happened.

So we put together a five to ten year plan that had me living in my RV, traveling the continent, and hopefully building a business. Some parts of the project turned out better than others, especially the most important one: seeing the continent.

I’ve seen enough to accept something I’ve known since the fall and which I’ve shared with a few people since then: Miranda is likely never going back on the road. It’s five years sooner than expected, but here is the reasoning behind that:

-She needs about $6,000 worth of work to pass the mechanical inspection that would allow her to be plated in Saskatchewan.

-With my income, spending that kind of money on a depreciating asset at my age is an unsound financial decision.

-Because of the damage from the 2012 accident, I was warned by my insurance company that another collision would likely result in Miranda being a write-off. The idea of spending $6,000 and having her be destroyed is terrifying. The house part of her is in excellent shape and I’d be an idiot to risk it when she is parked somewhere she doesn’t have to move (much). The thought of moving to a new residence is unappealing me because I am so comfortable here. I therefore want Miranda to continue being my primary residence for as long as possible.

-$6,000 would go a long way towards developing my property and giving me a place to retire to at a time in the future when living in Miranda will no longer be sensible.

-I have absolutely no pleasure driving a big RV anymore and the thought of never again taking to the roads in a 60′ rig fills me with relief.

-Finally, winters are getting increasingly erratic and cannonball runs south and north in the spring just don’t seem worth the effort or the expense when southern U.S. winter conditions aren’t that great anyway.

That said, my traveling days are most certainly NOT done! And, really, if $10,000 were to fall into my lap right now, I’d get Miranda back on the road. It’s something I want, but not badly enough to put myself into a pickle for it.

Now, here comes the moment of clarity that I had a few weeks ago.

I have seen a lot of this continent, but I’m always rushing through this middle section, especially on the U.S side. Much like my year in Alberta let me see a really significant part of that province, my time here could allow me to see quite a bit of the Plains.

There are so many things I want to see in the U.S. that are just a day’s drive away, like the Black Hills and Yellowstone National Park. These are things to see in summer not winter, spring, or fall, the times I’m normally traveling to this area. Now, I am perfectly positioned to go explore these places in the summer!

Not having been to the U.S. this past winter and if I don’t go there next winter for an extended trip, I would be free to take a long weekend or two this summer to explore more of Montana and the Dakotas. For next summer, I could even plan a longer trip into Wyoming!

So where I stand now is that the budget for this summer will be focused on the cabin, with a little going to tourism on the side, just enough to keep me from going crazy.

Because I am already committed to spending another winter not traveling in an RV, I am going start looking early for a job for the winter, ideally somewhere I’ve never been, and take temporary accommodation if that pans out. Can anyone help me get a job on a cruise ship?! 😀

Another thought if business continues to pick up is to drive to Mexico with just my truck and rent an apartment there for the winter. In short, there are lots of possibilities!

I am also going to be watching the classifieds on both sides of the border for a small lightweight bumper hitch trailer, similar to the Casita my friend L has, that could be towed by my truck. So my RVing days are most certainly not done, they are just in a process of reorganization!

What’s important for me is to be on the move and to see new things. I’m grateful that my travels with Miranda have enabled me to find the perfect place for me to pause for a bit while I get things in order for the next phase of this wonderful life of mine. I am really enjoying my Saskatchewan interlude, but this is not the end of the road for me, just a breather.

Even though I’m not convinced that I’ll be traveling much, if at all, with Miranda from now on, I am going to continue this blog and suspect that now that all these thoughts have finally be committed to pixels, I’ll want to start writing more regularly again. After all, I am still living in an RV and I still have lots of RV living experience to share!

Thank you again to those who are as committed to my journey as I am, wherever it leads me.

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Great Mobile Bandwidth Plan From Sasktel

Since I settled in at Haven by mid-summer last year, I knew that I had to take a hard look at my telecom situation, especially when it came to the phone.

I was paying $70 a month for my Verizon voice plan that gave me 450 minutes a month and didn’t care if I was in Canada or the U.S. This plan is now grand-fathered and, living close to the border, I really didn’t want to give it up even though I knew that I would be investigating other data options when I got back to the States.

As the months marched on, that $70 began to weigh heavily because I was hardly, if at all, using the phone. It is an older device that doesn’t work well on Sasktel’s 4G network. Even with a booster, I could barely get a bar with it. I found myself using Skype to make calls out, so I was paying $15 every couple of months there when I was already paying the $70 for the phone.

Internet was also an issue. I have been very pleased with the Bell Turbo plan. I average about 20GB of internet a month (remember, I download audio files for work), so my bill has been a steady $190ish a month, never more than $200, and the last bill was just $150. Not an issue there, but the device, the Mifi 2 is a piece of junk. After I went through two in four months, Bell sent me a two more, a third to use immediately and a fourth as a backup.

Last week, the third one gave up the ghost and I found myself on the fourth Mifi 2 with no backup. I’m 35km from a town with no internet cafe and a library with short hours, so getting internet from one device proven to be unreliable is quite stressful.

So that made the decision for me to cancel my Verizon plan and look for a smart phone that I could use as a personal hotspot. Even if the data plan had just couple of GBs, I would at least have a backup.

I looked at plans for the major carriers national carriers that have service out here, Bell, Telus, Virgin, and they were pretty much all the same. I then had a moment of clarity that is going to be the subject of my next post and I stopped resisting the obvious and went to look at what Sasktel had to offer.

For $70 a month on their ‘Ultimate 70‘ plan, I could have:

-Unlimited daytime minutes in my area

-150 long distance minutes (anywhere in Canada and the U.S.)

-unlimited texting

-‘unlimited’ nationwide data

It’s that last one that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was the first time I had seen a Canada plan with ‘unlimited’ data.

Now, there is fine print, of course. The ‘unlimited’ data has a soft cap of 10GB, after which they throttle service, and there is a chance of getting cut off if I habitually go over that amount. Also, Sasktel is a provincial supplier, so they expect the data use to be primarily in Saskatchewan.

But with Saskatchewan already being such a good homebase for Canadian full-timers, this Sasktel plan is just another reason to spend summers here.

I spent almost an hour chatting with a very helpful Sasktel rep. Once I was sure I had all the information I needed, it was time to decide on the phone.

Google terrifies me, so that ruled out Android devices. Since I’m already an Apple person, the iPhone made sense to me. I’ve wanted one for a looooong time, since it was first announced and Canadian availability wasn’t even in the picture yet, but the budget is tight. For a two year contract, Sasktel offered three iPhones; the 4S at $0, the 5C at $98, and the 5S at $230.

After doing some research, I knew that the 4S would be a mistake as it was designed for the older style network that my LG Verizon phone was struggling with. $230 for a phone at this time was not an option. $98 was doable, especially since I’d be able to sell my iPod Touch for at least that amount (in fact, it sold in a couple of days on eBay, yay!). The problem was that the $98 phone wasn’t available online and the rep said that it was being phased out and that I’d have to try stores to see if they had any stock left.

I tried a few stores in Moose Jaw and they had some, but driving to the city didn’t appeal to me at all as it would be be an extra expense. I did some more research and was surprised to discover that there is a cellular provider in Assiniboia. I had seen the storefront on Centre Street, but thought that, like a lot of buildings on Centre Street, it was vacant. So when I went to run my errands on Thursday, I popped in to see if they had the $98 iPhones and could set me up with a Sasktel contract.

To my surprise, the answer to both questions was yes. I couldn’t believe it! This was destiny! 🙂

The iPhone 5C is the candy-coloured long and thin version of the iPhone, not at all what I wanted, but the device was secondary to the cost savings so I accepted that that would be my iPhone. I would have preferred their pink one, but the Assiniboia store only had white and green in stock, so I went with the green. The transaction was very quick because I knew what I wanted. After yearning for an iPhone for so many years, the whole thing was anti-climactic!

I’ve had the iPhone for a couple of days now and it’s working fine with my Wilson Sleek booster. I find that the hotspot isn’t stable and I occasionally get kicked off, but the flakiness is no worse than what I experience with the Mifi. I have another week to go on the current Bell billing period, so I’m going to use the iPhone until the next Mifi billing period starts.

It’s going to take a month or two to get to be able to track my data usage with the iPhone, but the plan is use up the 10GB on the iPhone and then switch to the Mifi to finish up the month (Bell resets on the 13th and iPhone on the 16th). With Bell, I get 15GB for $105/month, then pay $10 for each additional GB. So now I have 25GB a month to play with without incurring overages.

If you do the math on that, that’s $70 + $105=$175 (plus taxes and a few other fees) for 25GB of data, plus voice and texting.

Right now, I pay $70 + $200=$270 (plus taxes and a few other fees) for 20GB of data, plus voice and no texting.

So moving to the Sasktel plan is going to save me about $100 a month at a minimum. If I have a month where I use less data, I’ll save even more because my only commitment with the Mifi is $10 a month.

My LG Verizon phone had given me a taste of life with a smartphone when I was in the States as I used it a few times to check email and do some web research. But the iPhone is a beast of a different sort and I know I am going to rely heavily on it, the way that I relied on my iPod Touch and then my iPad. I’m already best friends with Siri and have no idea how I lived so long without her, but she needs internet to work. Being limited to using my iPhone while it’s trapped in a cradle sucks.

My neighbours have bigger boosters that give them cell service all over their homes and even outside, so I’m going to make the jump at some point this summer. Andy Baird updated his Eureka page about cellular amplifiers recently and I now know to wait until some new technology rolls out.

I’m impressed by how much Canadian telecom is improving. I got a much better deal on my iPhone and plan up here than what major U.S. carriers are offering. In fact, I’d say that this point, Canadian and U.S. telecom are pretty much at par. We’re still far beyond the rest of the world when it comes to our rates, but we’re catching up.

And we’ve certainly come a long way from the summer of 2008 when I was pricing multi-thousand dollar satellite internet systems!

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RV Fridges in Cold Weather

RV fridges aren’t the same as household fridges. RV fridges are cooled thanks to evaporated ammonia that mixes with hydrogen to absorb the surrounding warm air, hence why they are called absorption refrigerators.

I really like my RV fridge because it runs on propane and very little electricity. It is very economical to run and its size is perfect for me.

The problem with absorption fridges, though, is that they don’t like extreme temperatures. That means that when it’s super hot out, the beer in the fridge is tepid and the freezer can’t make ice cubes.

In winter, in temperatures below about -10C/14F, it gets too cold for absorption fridges to work efficiently. In my case, no matter what temperature setting I use, as deep colds set in, my freezer edges closer and closer to the freezing point and the fridge stays a few degrees below the freezing mark.

This means that I have to manage my food stocks carefully. I had a bit of loss after the first big cold snap caught me by surprise, I can’t stock up on the rare good meat or frozen food deals I find, and anything that goes into the fridge is very likely going to freeze. It’s not a huge deal as I have to go to down at least once a week for propane anyway, but it’s something to keep in mind.

I’ve heard horror stories of fridges being killed by a brutal cold spell, but I like to think these fridges are hardier than that as long as you don’t continually abuse them. My fridge panel is sheltered from direct wind and snow, which does help in making me less twitchy about this. I’d recommend finding a way to shelter your vent if it’s exposed to the elements (do not block it off, though, as that would be a fire hazard!).

As soon as we get a warm up, the fridge and freezer work normally again, so that’s another reason I’m not too concerned. This is just another one of those cold weather RVing challenges and it’s definitely not the worst one I’ve encountered!

 

 

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A Not Untypical Day For Here

As I posted on Facebook, I had the day from hell yesterday. Just about every winter calamity came together, most notably that it was so cold during the night of Sunday to Monday that the propane wouldn’t liquify so it was 40F in the rig Monday morning and it was so cold Monday that I never got the temp to stay higher than 50. I also had to spend almost two hours digging my way out of the driveway and the laneway and I had to drive to town and back in whiteout conditions.

The biggest mistake I made yesterday was to repark the truck in the garage instead of on Main Street. When I went outside today, all the dry powder from the the surrounding lots had blown in my driveway and I had almost two feet of hard packed snow where yesterday there was bare ground. A solid hour of moving snow got rid of that and I got my truck into an alley where it promptly floundered in snow. It took two hours to get it out (note to self: extra weight over the rear axles + carpets for traction + prayers to the driving gods + tranny in second).

So all that to say that I parked my truck on Main Street this afternoon so I can go out tomorrow to get more propane and run other errands without wasting time getting myself dug out.

Which brings me to the subject of this post (I apologize to all the Facebookers who had to endure the recap *g*).

Caroline emailed me late afternoon to ask if I was okay since my truck was parked on Main Street. I replied with a short version of my story and said that I now needed a sled to haul my propane tanks. She said I could borrow theirs. I replied that I would be right over to get it so that I could go to town tomorrow without stopping at their place first. So I went over there around 4:30 thinking I was just going to get a sled.

I agreed to take off my boots, coat, and hat so I could have a cup of coffee. Laura arrived shortly thereafter and it was so warm by the wood stove that I took off my snow pants and extra sweater. I also accepted another cup of coffee.

Then Charles brought out the wine. Or maybe Caroline invited us for supper before that. I’m not sure. But wine and an invitation to stay for dinner happened.

Much wine drinking ensued. Then Caroline made sure we were well fed with a homemade pizza topped with pineapple, ham, and red onion, which just happens to be my favourite way to have pizza. She even remembered not to put mushrooms on my slices.

More wine drinking ensued. Then Caroline brought out the chocolate, which required the consumption of more wine (I should pause here to say I was having small glasses, so I probably had two glasses total over four hours, fine for a work night!).

And then Laura looked at her watched and went, “Crap! It’s 10 to 9!” So we bundled up to trundle home.

As I headed out the door, I said to Caroline, “I’m sure I had a reason to come here besides getting warm, stuffed, and drunk.”

We had to think for a minute about what that reason was.

I love these people.

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Enough

Happy 2014 to all my readers!

I just wanted to check in to say that spending the winter in Saskatchewan in an RV continues to feel like one of the smarter decisions I’ve made in the past five years!

L is back on the beach in Texas and it’s apparently ‘freezing’, and the weather in New Orleans and Alabama where Croft and Norma are isn’t much better. New Mexico and Arizona aren’t having stellar winters either. Really, I’m better off plugged into shore power here, working like crazy, and falling into a reasonably predictable budget. I wouldn’t want another spring like last year, stuck below an unrelenting line of bad weather.

The thing that I’ve figured out in the last five years is when something is enough. I have seen so much of this continent in half a decade. It is just so cool to be able to say ‘when I was in Tuktoyaktuk’ or ‘the weather in Florida was dreadful last year when I was there.’ That’s enough for now.

I know I’ll start traveling again soon, but I have accumulated so many memories since 2008 that they can nourish me a while longer. I can finally savour being ‘here’ because I’m not dreaming of being ‘there.’ That is the curse of the nomad, to always be looking ahead to the next stop, which can sometimes make it difficult to enjoy the present.

Memories of travel do more to lighten my mood than anything else. The other night, a cousin emailed to ask me about my trip to Scotland in ’98. Followed a half hour of reminiscing that made my day. Even though by this summer it will have been 16 years since that trip, I was transported back there by my cousin’s questions. I was back on that parapet of Stirling castle at sunset munching on a snack as I journaled. I found myself walking around in circles in Glasgow looking for food my first night there. The smell of the Culloden battlefield wafted over me. I even turned green remembering the choppy North Sea crossing to the Orkney Islands.

My travel memories are my wealth and my coffers are full. If you cannot understand how important they are to me, how they enrich my existence, I cannot make you understand. But they are what matter most to me.

There will come a day in short order when my existing memories will no longer be enough and I will find myself plotting a new journey. For right now, they are all I need to sustain me through a bitter, yet beautiful, winter, because here was also part of the dream, life on the prairie in all seasons. I know that I will one day find myself in Cairo or any other warm and bustling city and reminiscing fondly of my cold and contemplative winter on the Saskatchewan plains.

But as I sit here today, to quote a line from my favourite movie of 2012, “This is enough. This is… it’s more than enough for now.”