September 30, 2008 by Rae

Easy Decisions and Provincial Differences

The park where I’m staying runs through the winter, but with only a small section of its sites open. When I pulled in last week, they didn’t have a spot in their winterized section available, so they put me in their ‘about to be closed’ section and told me I’d probably have to move today. Bummer. Today, I went to confirm that I was moving and where to. They said I could stay on my site if I didn’t mind… not having running water. Okay, run this by me again. I can pack up and move for two days or I can stay here, with sewer and 30A power, and my full tank of water? Ooooh, now that’s a toughie. This was pretty much my confirmation that this park attracts a higher end clientele; the manager couldn’t believe that it’s no hardship to live off my fresh water tank for two days! What’s nice is that I now have no immediate neighbours.

As for provincial differences, I ran out of beer this week as I finished the 12 pack I’d bought my first day on the road. I decided to replenish my supply and looked forward to seeing how beer is sold in Alberta. In Quebec, you can buy liquor at any grocery store or convenience store, or go to a liquor (SAQ) store to get higher end items. In Ontario, you go to the liquor (LCBO) store to get wine, spirits, and fine beers, and you go to the beer store for beer. I’m exceedingly fond of that system. Sure, the beer stores can sometimes be in out of the way places, but it offers every single kind of beer imaginable in one aisle. Kind of like the M&M meat shop of the alcohol world. At any rate, I didn’t really register where to buy beer in Manitoba or Saskatchewan. Parked in front of a Safeway grocery store today, I noticed that it had a separate entrance with ‘liquour and spirits’ written over the top. I imagined that it might be an LCBO-type setup, but figured that they might have some beers. I went in and found a proper beer cooler, with a decent selection. So, I guess that Alberta is similar to Quebec, in that you can get your beer at the grocery store, but in a special section of its own.

Well, I’m off to get creative with my battery compartment. An update about that will follow, provided my coach doesn’t blow up (*winks at Croft*).

September 9, 2008 by Rae

Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

When last our heroine updated her blog, she was parked at the Canadian Tire in Val D’Or. She has done more than 900km since then… and not all of them have been above ground.

Not much happened on Saturday. I wound up boondocking outside the visitor’s centre at the eastern edge of the city where I was told overnighting was ‘tolerated’, but I’d have to move to pay site or the Walmart for the next night. The only pay site in town was 15$ and that didn’t include hookups or, at least, a view, so guess where I spent my second night in Val D’Or? 🙂

At any rate, the sole purpose of my visit to Val D’Or was to see the gold mine at a complex they call the Cité de l’or. Other than outdoor sports, there isn’t much to see or do in Val D’or. I therefore wouldn’t recommend making a detour there just to see the mine, but if you just happen to be going by, then, please, don’t miss it and pay the 40 bucks for the full tour!

A vein of gold does not look like what you’d expect as it is black and white. The white is quartz and the black is tourmaline. This is extracted and then processed to get the gold flakes inside. It takes about 5,000 tonnes of ore from this mine to get a single oz of gold.

There was nothing but wilderness around the mine site, so a village had to be built to house all the workers and their families. Imagine a whole neighbourhood of log cabins.

The old mining village is just adorable and is a historic site, so current owners face strict regulations as to how much they can change the houses.

These houses offered excellent accommodation for the miners with running water, heating, telephones, and electricity. Miners were considered rich. They made about 35$ a week while a living wage was about 5$ per week! This is how they could afford such luxuries and pay the rent of 50$ per year for these houses.

Before my tour of the mine, I walked through the village and was accosted by a withered wraith of a man who used to work at the mine! He spent about twenty minutes sharing his life story. I thought it would be a tale of woe, but not at all. He loved his time at the mine, saying that the work was hard, but that conditions were good and safe, and that unlike coal mining it wasn’t that bad for the health as there was no dust. His job was to take core samples that would be analysed to determine which way the mine should be further excavated. When he retired from mining, he used his knowledge to found his own diamond drilling company with more than 150 employees. Meeting him proved to me that there are no accidents in life. I was sure my mine tour was at 1PM, but it was at 1:30. I therefore had time to kill, time enough to make an encounter that completely change how I felt down there, 300ft below the surface….

I really don’t like enclosed spaces, so the hour and a bit we were underground was just enough for me. When we got back into the shuttle for the drive back up, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I can’t imagine spending a whole day in such a place, including a lunch break spent in a room that was literally carved out of the rock face.

elevator cage

indicates at which level is the elevator

elevator cage speed regulator

dispensary

door into the room where the cage is

drilling cage; miner’s liked these because they were safe and cut down on their labour

electrical panel controlling the elevator cage

horrible joke

ladder to the drilling platform

lunchroom!

me as a miner!

mining drill that can be driven forward, backward, or sideways

outside of the mine

99 Perrault (the house where the interior pictures were taken)

miner’s cabin

luxurious bathroom in the miner’s house

dresser in the miner’s house

calendar for 1943

chamberpot in the miner’s house

cheques

newspaper about the FLQ crisis

food stamps

hats belonging to the wife of a miner

ice box in the miner’s house

this gift shop area was the kids’ bedroom in the miner’s house

kitchen in the miner’s house

miner’s outfit

phone in a miner’s house

radios, adding machine, magazine

wartime ration coupons

rock chute

the shuttle we took down into the mine

ceiling sprayed with concrete for the visitors’ safety

gold vein, the black is tourmaline and the white is quartz

After the tour, I went to pick up Miranda at the Sears where I’d received permission to park her for the day, then we moved to Walmart. The store was closed, so I just set up for the night and treated myself to dinner since I couldn’t get anything working at home. 🙂

Miranda at the Walmart in Val D’Or

Sunday, I pushed off ludicrously early (around 7) and felt my mood change as quickly as did the kilometres beneath me.

I passed this very cool sign mid-morning:

entering the Arctic watershed

The weather was (and is) gross, not motivating me to try to find a boondocking spot on Crown land as I’d thought I might, so I decided to make a push for the Walmart in Kapuskasing:

Seeking a Walmart in the wilderness

(I was just amused that I was driving through the wilderness looking for a Walmart).

I passed some very interesting towns, such as Swastika and Moonbeam, where I had to take a picture:

yes, we’re still on Earth (and staying there)

When I got to Kapuskasing (and was done with the whole dumping thing), I went to the Walmart figuring that it would be closed for the evening. Nope, it’s open 7 to 8 seven days a week!!! So, I went in to ask for permission to stay overnight. The manager replied “Of course!” in a very friendly manner. I knew I would have a good night there: I had permission to stay and the OPP had a station literally across the street. Can’t get any safer than that! I wound up sleeping the sleep of the proverbial dead and woke up this morning at 5:30 feeling very odd because I haven’t slept that many hours straight through since I was a teenager!

Today was another big push as there is just about nothing between Kapuskasing and Thunder Bay. I was very glad to find this park. It’s nothing special and not a place where you can set up your hibachi or awning, but it’s perfectly adequate for a one night stopover. Tomorrow, I’m going no further than the Walmart in Thunder Bay! I have this site until noon and I plan to take advantage of that to get caught up on my housekeeping.

If there is one thing I will remember the most about my first days on the road it is that the world is not nearly as hostile a place as some people would try to make me believe. There has been at least one person per day who helped me in a way that might have seemed small to them, but which made me feel like I am not alone on this vast and open road.

Tomorrow is Thunder Bay. Wednesday will be my last night on the Shield. Thursday I’ll hit the Prairies. And then I’ll slow down properly as I’ll be hitting new things.

There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. Good lives, I’m discovering, have no shortage of bad days, but they are measured by the sum of the whole.

I’m impossibly happy, in good spirits, comfortable in my rig, grateful that my cats have taken to this life as well as their mom, and have discovered that it’s easy to be a morning person if your day is going to be filled with adventure.

September 8, 2008 by Rae

Just a Wave

I can’t do justice to the last few days in the few minutes I have left online, so I won’t try at this time. Pictures and stories will follow! Some of the highlights of the past few days:

going 300ft underground into a gold mine;

experiencing my first nights (note the plural) at Walmart;

discovering just how bad are Miranda’s sensors;

dealing with the POs idiocy when it comes to RV plumbing;

and a full recount of just how I inadvertently perfectly recreated a certain scene in the Robin Williams movie ‘RV’.

For those wanting to follow me on a map, I left Val D’Or yesterday morning and overnighted in Kapuskasing, Ontario. I am presently in Long Lac and heading for Nipigon, several hours away hence why I can’t take greater advantage of this great connection! Northern Ontario, for those who don’t know it, is 90 billion kilometres long, so I have at least another two days left in this land of black spruce, granite cliffs, and clear lakes. I just wish the weather was better so I could enjoy it more.

All is well… and I still have my sense of humour.

More will come from further down the road! 🙂

September 5, 2008 by Rae

On the Road

For a change of pace (*g*) more photos, less bla bla bla.

Miranda at the Ottawa Municipal Campground

We left this site at the Ottawa Municipal campground mid-morning on Thursday September 4th. Right on ‘schedule.’ I gassed up (oh, the cost of freedom these days) and without much fanfare made my way through most of the places I’ve called home for eight of these past ten years. Highway 105 north was the hardest as the string of familiar hamlets passed behind me, to be seen again, perhaps, in a very distant future: Alcove, Farrelton, Kazabazua, Low, Blue Sea, Gracefield… Maniwaki was a non-event, but the town has changed since I was there last, perhaps four years ago.

The drive was difficult because of construction, but the weather made up for that.

Finally, we reached the first major milestone of this first leg of my journey:

Grand-Remous, Quebec

Loosely translated, turning right meant civilization and turning left meant heading into a northern frontier of mining towns, granite cliffs, and forests of black spruce.

I turned left.

When I reached the southern access point of Verendrye Park I was glad to almost be done driving for the day. It was getting close to mid-afternoon and my 250km done that morning had worn me down. So, I selected to stay at Lac Roland, 40km from the entrance and right on the 117. Cost for the night was the same as when I tent, 15$ and change, since I didn’t want hookups.

Then came the taking of a calculated risk that will have a lot of people saying “YOU IDIOT!”, but I repeat that it was calculated, and it paid off big time.

I drove all the way to the end of Lac Roland campground, right to a dead end, with no way out except backing up about a half kilometre. Or doing what I did. I unhooked the toad, and moved it onto a site, then I manoeuvred Miranda into that site, too. That took some precise driving, but I’m actually more comfortable operating her in reverse than I am the toad. The square shape makes it very easy to know exactly where I am and what I’m doing.

Lac Roland, Vérendrye Park, Quebec

Why did I do such a seemingly foolish thing?

The view outside my study, of course:

View from study at Lac Roland

If I had played it ‘safe’ I would have taken the first pull through I found where all the RVers gathered last night and partied hard, instead of being quietly ensconced in a private site with a great view.

And I wouldn’t have had the chance to gain so much confidence about my Miranda driving abilities. Driving out of there was actually tougher than backing in!

Next order of business was dinner. Mmm, charred bird!

BBQed chicken that tasted better than it looked

(It was very tasty!)

This wonderful device was very useful for doing a preliminary cleanup on the greasy BBQ tools:

Outdoor Shower

I then set up the computer and settled in to watch a couple of eps of a favourite show since it was way too early to sleep, but I was too tired to do anything useful.

Went to bed ridiculously early last night, so was up ludicrously early this morning. It was pouring rain and damp inside, so I decided not to hang around. Next stop: L’Abitibi.

Route 117, Quebec

Which is where I am now, parked outside the Canadian Tire in Val D’Or making full use of a free wi-fi signal I’m picking up. I have errands to run and am debating whether to leave the coach here and set off in toad, or to go off coach and all. There are so many RVs here that I suspect I’ll be able to get away with spending the night here. I hope so. The other place I have lined up is 25$ per night and that doesn’t include hookups!

September 3, 2008 by Rae

Trials and Tribulations

I don’t have any pictures to share at this time because my desktop computer isn’t set up and hooking up the camera to the laptop is too fussy for the short time frame I have. So, enjoy all the bla bla bla and come back later for pics. 🙂

Oh, I’ve written soooo much about the last almost week, but I need to save some material for a book! 🙂

Here are some highlights from the past six days.

Friday August 29, 2008

I successfully backed up into a busy street at rush hour as I couldn’t very well sleep at my mechanic’s. No one was injured during this impressive feat of driving. Thank you to David for stopping traffic!

After spending several hours loading STUFF into the RV, I took off for a sports arena a few blocks from the house to spend my first night as an urban boondocker. The cats took to the RV immediately and slept good nights. Mom was too exhausted to fuss and had a good night, too. The arena wound up being quiet and dark. I didn’t suffer for lack of 120V current and I really, really, really enjoyed being able to take a hot shower!

Saturday August 30, 2008

Up at six, worked non stop, got the house emptied and the RV stuffed by noon, right on schedule.

Was screwed over by Vidéotron one last time.

Arrived at the campground absolutely drained and overwhelmed.

Circled my loop, planned my entry into the site, came back, pulled straight into an empty site, and unhooked my toad, which is where:

Rae learns a very important lesson about towing

Watch where your feet are. The tow bars are heavy and purple toes are NOT a fashion statement.

Toes weren’t broken, so I ignored the throbbing pain down there and moved the toad out of the way. Moved the RV back, forward, and back again, getting it into the campsite in one shot. Eyewitness testimony states that I seemed to have been doing it my entire life. Which is where:

Rae discovers that backing up perfectly (in one try) into a campsite is actually not the most important consideration at that time

As it turned out, I had circled my loop and reentered another one. I was in the wrong site. But, in my defense, both sites had neighbours with a blue tent AND both sites were of the same shape as I’d been told to look for!

A very nice park official checked to see if the site would be available for the five nights I was staying. It was. I could stay.

The RV was stuffed to the gills, I was overwhelmed, and just about burst into tears when I saw how much work I had ahead of me. So, I said *expletive deleted* that and went out for a nice dinner during which I formulated a plan of attack.

I slept the sleep of the dead. Never mind that the mattress is really too thick and that I can barely roll over. I was on my own mattress with my feather duvet and pillows. The cats were by my side. I could hear crickets outside. The wind was whispering a lullaby. I was home.

Sunday August 31, 2008

I slept so late I was disoriented upon waking up. I mean, the day is half gone by the time 9:30 arrives!

I hadn’t been able to plug in my RV on Saturday since the prongs on my cord didn’t match the holes in the electrical post. So, I just dragged the coffee maker and toaster out onto the picnic table.

A few hours later, as order begins to emerge from the chaos that was the basement:

Rae finds something that no longer makes it necessary for her to run an extension cord from her electrical post to the coffee maker set on a picnic table.

She believes it’s a ‘cheater adapter.’ Possibly. Whatever it is called, it’s an adapter. She now has 15AMP service!

One of the most useful things I did on Sunday was label a tote TOWING and put in it all the odd bits that I use for towing.

I took the afternoon off to get organizational stuff at Wal-mart, then I head off to a friend’s for a Labour Day BBQ. Her mom gave me a hibachi she had lying around in the shed and I am now able to char my own barbecue sauced bird!

Monday September 1, 2008

I was spending the day with a friend so I woke up early and attacked the basement. I got it so well sorted and organized that it is no longer stuffed to the gills!

At some point during this day:

Rae has a real light bulb moment involving a too highly chlorinated fresh water holding tank

“Gee the water is caustic. I can’t wait to empty the tank and put in fresh water. Waitaminute. The tank is only a third full. Maybe I can use the new hose I bought yesterday at Walmart at a major discount and top up the tank with fresh, unchlorinated, water and dilute what’s left?”

Tuesday September 2, 2008

WORK! I finalised all my files and opened cases and packed since I knew Wednesday would be a wash.

A separate entry will follow about the evening.

Which brings us to today, Wednesday September 3, 2008

I did some real work, spent some time on line, shed copious tears, received and gave a ton of hugs, and left the way I’ve always dreamt of leaving a place, with a tug of regret.

A Life By Design

"Sometimes in life, we reach to a right place by departing from a wrong port with a wrong ship!" ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Quebec

Easy Decisions and Provincial Differences

Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Just a Wave

On the Road

Trials and Tribulations