The Best Laid Plans....

We should have been crossing into the USA right now.  We aren't and as a person who likes to plan things down to the hour (or minute, when possible....) it is driving me crazy - thank goodness for my better half, who has been repeating over and over "Chill out, it will be fine". And it will be.....

Trail near our hotel

After my last post, we continued our drive south to the Lower Mainland of BC, it was a beautiful day for a drive.  We love all the different environments in our province - it is such a diverse place (if I remember correctly BC is one of the only places with such a range of ecoregions).  The Cariboo region is starkly beautiful and an area I fell in love with when I attended university in the area.

After leaving the Cariboo, we started to wind down towards the Fraser Canyon (yes Stacy, I took the windy road photo for you) which is a spectacular drive, though a bit nerve wracking when towing a 36 foot trailer with a sheer dropoff to a river on one side and rocky cliffs on the other!

The girls and I figured out how to do 'school' in the truck...as best as we can anyhow.  It is a good time to memorize times tables, poems and Spanish words as well as reading aloud (even Hubby got into The Land of Stories) but not such a good time to write essays!  As long as it gets done in the end.....right?

We dropped the trailer off at Sidewinder Conversions (a truly great vehicle conversion shop) and headed to our hotel where we hung out, got lots of school done, and the girls swam and swam (I swear they are part mermaid). On Thursday, we saw my aunts and uncles who live here, and picked up an umbrella that mounts to my chair (www.mobilitymount.com <-- GREAT PRODUCT ) which will be essential for winter on the West (wet) coast.

Thursday night was when a very, very stressful 24 hours began..... starting with getting stuck in a traffic jam for 3 hours! It was nearly midnight before we got back to our hotel, we were still excited because we thought that the trailer lifts were done and we would be heading across the border on Friday afternoon.We checked out of the hotel (major stress there, story to come later.....)

Well, despite an amazing amount of hardwork, and patience, from the guys at Sidewinder, it turned out that the lift they were trying to install wasn't long enough to lift me from my outside chair to my other chair inside the trailer. MAJOR BUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not only would we not be heading to the States that afternoon, we couldn't until Monday (hopefully the longer lift arrives as promised then) and would have to stay in the Lower Mainland for 3 extra nights <-- not in the budget!  Thankfully, the amazing guys at Sidewinder were able to make us a temporary ramp/platform which enabled us to camp in the trailer for the weekend.

We are at a very nice RV resort (Camperland at Bridal Falls) and have had a much less stressful day, getting some much needed laundry and organization done.

Well, we are settled into a hotel (I can't get into the trailer until the lifts are installed later this week) after our first 500 km of this journey.
The drive was uneventful....A Gorgeous fall day! Even managed to get some school work done on the road - eye spy with the 5 properties of matter works well but writing essays isn't as easy!
Topped off the day by some truly excellent backing up by hubby... Hard to believe that just a few months ago he was a new bee at it!
We are looking forward to the next 500 km tomorrow, when we will drop off the trailer to get the lifts installed. Then we can finally cross into the States and start our adventure.

The first 500 km

Well, we are settled into a hotel (I can't get into the trailer until the lifts are installed later this week) after our first 500 km of this journey.
The drive was uneventful....A Gorgeous fall day! Even managed to get some school work done on the road - eye spy with the 5 properties of matter works well but writing essays isn't as easy!
Topped off the day by some truly excellent backing up by hubby... Hard to believe that just a few months ago he was a new bee at it!
We are looking forward to the next 500 km tomorrow, when we will drop off the trailer to get the lifts installed. Then we can finally cross into the States and start our adventure.

Hasta la vista

Well, this morning we cleaned our 1200 square feet for the last time as we prepared for a 'hasta la vista' party. Many of our dear friends took the time to drop by and say goodbye until spring. And to enjoy a yummy cake (thanks Mom!)...it says 'adios amigos', and other yummy goodies!

We were sad to say goodbye, but excited to get on our way! One last day of last minute packing...

Canadian Winter....

I feel a bit like a traitor, leaving for the winter.  I always felt proud to be able to survive a real, northern Canadian winter - all 5 months of it...but I must admit that I am looking forward to missing it this year!
I will miss the beauty and peace of fresh fallen snow though, especially when the evening light falls across it...(at 4pm.....)

Anyhow, this post was spurred by this interesting graph that came across my FB feed

We live on the 54th degree....

Down to the Nitty Gritty

WE ARE LEAVING IN FIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DAYS...... My list now fills only 3 post it notes, instead of 3 pages. We packed what food we could, I got my hair coloured, planned for 2 weeks of schooling the kids on the road, and now it is down to the last few things - and days!

I can't quite believe this dream is coming true!!!!

Looking forward to hitting the road (I can never say that without thinking of Amelia Bedelia - need to get my kids those books) and having adventures to post about!

Gonna miss this place.....

Sometimes I wonder if we are crazy, leaving our little slice of heaven and heading out into the unknown...

I rushed outside to try and capture the evening sunlight slanting through the fall leaves....

I love, love, LOVE my little log cabin on a lake.....but am excited to go explore this magnificent world and discover other little pieces of paradise.

On the other hand....I heard a terrible, 4 letter, 'S' word on the weather report today.....hoping this forecast stays true and we leave before the S-N-O-W flies.  The girls and I were outside gathering leaves for an art project when a big, blustery wind blew up, and rain drops started falling....by the time we got in we were wishing for gloves and touques.

S-I-M-P-L-I-F-Y

Phew....just spent the last 2+ hours cleaning, sorting, and organizing my daughters toys while deciding what will stay here and what can go in the trailer. As I was doing this, actually as I have been doing everything the last few days, I was thinking, thinking, thinking about what we need to take, what we want to take and most importantly what we will actually be able to take. I have come to the conclusion that we own a ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous amount of stuff-we all have way too many clothes,I have too much kitchen gear, my husband has too many tools, kids have too many toys, too many stuffies, too many books, just too much everything!!!

While we may not have chosen to live in a small space as a means of simplifying, I'm actually quite excited about that aspect of it and think we will all benefit by realizing how little we truly need to be content. In actuality, even after simplifying we will have taken more stuff than we really need. It will be interesting to come home in the spring, back to all of our stuff and space, and see how we feel then.

I heard a news story sometime last week about a family in Florida building the largest house in America, if I remember correctly, which had a 4000 ft.² closet!! That is just ridiculous, no matter that more than three of my homes and probably a dozen of our trailers could fit in that closet, no one needs that much space just to store all their stuff. Especially, when so many live with so much less. It just makes me shake my head sometimes, we live in a world with royally screwed up priorities. I hope we can raise our children to see that, and maybe help to correct the inequality.

Anyhow, toys are packed, our bathroom supplies are half packed (as much as we can anyhow) and when I check the long-range forecast (14 days) it shows the day before we leave! There's been a cold making the rounds through our house (so far I am the only one who has escaped) so as soon as that has passed we will be busy packing that we can and making list after list after list after list for everything else!

TOYS in the trailer bunk room (which could sleep five! Believe it or not) - not shown, big bucket of Lego's, dragons,people and horses (for the castle) or the girls stuffed animals.
the doors to the right of the castle open up (the Barbies and Littlest Pet Shops are on the bottom shelf) which is where the girls pants and shirts will go. If you look under the bottom bunk, there are three drawers where we will store their socks, underwear, pajamas, etc.
we have two slides in our trailer and I am sure glad that one of them was in this bunk room, it will be nice for the kids to have a bit of space to play inside-especially given that we will be spending the winter in rainy Oregon.

WE HAVE A DATE!!!!!

CAN YOU TELL I'M EXCITED?!?!!
We finally got the date for the install of the lifts for the trailer in the lower mainland of BC.Which means that we could finally start making some definite plans!I've spent the last day researching RV parks near Seattle and Portland (we plan to spend a couple of days near both cities-Seattle, for some sightseeing and Portland, for a lot of shopping... We've been putting off quite a few purchases until we could get to the STATES and the better deals that we can find there.) From Portland we will head south to our new home for the next six months, we should arrive on Halloween! I'll have to find out what the kids there do for trick-or-treating.

on the other hand, we have so much to pack yet so little of it can be packed very far ahead of time. I guess the last few days will be crunch time! Right now, we are busy making plans for a Canadian Thanksgiving next weekend and then the weekend after we are having a little "Hasta la Vista"drop-in goodbye party-by then we should be packed and ready to go!

Well, I'm sorry I don't have any pictures to go with this post... Somehow, I don't think you're interested in seeing boxes of bathroom items or toys which are ready to be packed into the trailer!