The Edge [of all] Journeys

Last night the kids feel asleep on the way home after visiting with my sister, her husband and their sweet little girl. My brother-in-law is a food genius so we were treated as usual to a delectable feast. Yummy food, delicious drink and lots of laughter. It was a great night. This morning the kids slept in until 9am! We had a wonderful laxy day today. Did a bit of school, a little work but mostly just hung out, got a coffee treat at the campground coffee shop and even got a nap in! It’s a rough life! We’re going campground scouting tomorrow to see if we want to move somewhere else or just stay put. We have till Wednesday to decide.

Ahhhhh….. It feels good to be clean. Nothing like a nice hot shower in your own home. Even if it is small, the trailer is starting to feel a lot more like home. Every time we arrive somewhere we have this little family joke: “We’re home!” no matter where we are when we stop. I’m thankful for the things we sometimes take for granted: hot water, electricity, heat (especially on days like today). I enjoyed my tromps to the laundry room and back in the cold, and the family walk / run – the exercise and cold air felt so good. And so did coming back to a nice warm cozy trailer!

I am really enjoying having Andrew around every day. There have been sacrifices that we’ve had to make, and challenges adjusting to this new way of life, but it’s worth it to start and share every day together with him. I like brewing a pot of coffee for two rather than just myself. I think I could even live in a tent and eat rice and beans every day as long as we were together as a family. Of course, I say that now, not knowing how hard it would really be. Andrew gave up a really successful position at a comfortable job with an income that spoiled us a little, but the kids and I missed him.

It’s going to be nice staying put for a while so that we can relax a wee bit, visit family and friends, and have a little time to enjoy our home sweet home before we take it with us to our next adventure.

I hope this post makes it through – the wireless service here outside the city has turned out spotty to say the least and our connections (internet and mobile voice) are very unreliable.

Such a bizarre weather time-warp … just over a week ago we were enjoying 80-90 F weather in Pennsylvania only to get up here (yes, I know it’s Canada but it’s the middle of May for crying out loud) and have some snow. Ok, nothing you could actually play in, but it’s the principle of the thing. Not that I mind really… anything to have more of a challenge. It’s good for us. Puts hair on our chests.

Today was full.

Breakfast and coffee. Registered at the office for a week here (initially, though we’re going to go campground exploring around the city to see if there are better options). Explored the facilities.

Tromped through some of that insane Manitoba gumbo mud with the kids for an hour… you can’t possibly know what I mean unless you’ve had the experience yourself – your shoes end up twice the size and 3-4 times heavier than when you start out. So then there was The Scraping and Soaking of Boots at the end of that, which took the rest of the morning.

Mounted a fruit net holder thing to replace a light fixture we were never going to use and a green bowl that took up too much counter space.

Started working on the kids laptop to get it all set-up and ready for them, which took 8 times longer than it should have since I can’t seem to keep a solid connection going… and that’s still not done.

I did get a couple emails off, although I should have been helping Renee with kid-wrangling-for-dinner at the time.

Tried to switch our cell phones over to the Canada side of Verizon, and finally found the access code I needed ( *228 ) but no success… I think we need to be closer to the city for it to work.

Emergency freezer thaw and spray down wash / wipe / dry and repack due to the fishiness that crept in during those couple days after we unplugged from AC power before the LP mode on the fridge was fixed and our stinking frozen Haddock defrosted enough to stink everything up.

Renee got the kids through school. Did the laundry (5 trips back and forth by the end of the day). Finally got her shower. (I’m still contemplating mine). Made lunch and supper.

I checked in with our finances. Made sure we weren’t forgetting any bills in all the ruckus.

Had another shootout with the Black Tank… there were a couple days when we didn’t have a lot of water to flush down the crapper, so today was more of a preemptive strike than anything else. Nothing as dramatic as the first campaign. But it did require a bit more stretching of ye ol ingenuity.

First impressions of Welcomestop Campground west of Winnipeg where #1 intersects the Assiniboine river: neat place fairly scenic albeit with a bit of a run-down feeling (perhaps due to the flooding and pre-spring barrenness); utilities all fine; thankfully no GFI on the 30 amp otherwise I’d have been trying to track down a new converter all day; muddy (only because kids will go where the mud is); laundry is low-tech but decent and nicely close to our site; store is adequate for emergency purchases; showers are coin-fed so we’ll probably never use them; staff is very nice and helpful… BUT the location seems to be perfectly situated to thwart a constant wireless connection either to the city infrastructure OR the rural infrastructure; they do have free wifi up at the “coffee shop” (a partitioned area in the gas station store); so we’re going to figure out over the next few days how much of a show-stopper this is for us as a reliable connection is obviously important to just about everything we need to do; overall the kids love it here; it will be even more fun when it warms up enough to have a fire outside and put the carpet out and the awning down, etc.

After supper we all went outside for a good hearty run  around the campground (mostly to force as much of the rest of the energy out of the kids as we could). Felt grand. There were snow flurries. The trailer felt too hot when we got back inside… well, to me and the boys anyway. Renee says it felt just right (but she doesn’t know that I turned the thermostat down before she came back from her extended walk with Jaiden).

And then SHABBAT. Sabbath. Rest. Ceasing. What a blessing.

Well, we made it! We’re in Winnipeg! (12km west of the perimeter on #1, anyway, but that counts!) We’re settled in our cozy warm trailer (heat cranked as it’s down to 35F / almost 0C outside now, and judging from the ice on the ground around our water hook-ups it might get even colder yet tonight). Hmmmmm….

We wanted to call you all  (yes even you strangers who might happen across the blog), but we haven’t figured out how to get our cell phones switched over to Canada roaming yet [Verizon gave us an access code to use once we got here but it didn’t work and we don’t have a cell phone signal to speak of at the campground]… BUT our handy dandy AutoNet Mobile router has 40% signal to some other cell network and that’s enough to get this post out as a close second and regrettably impersonal alternate option.

Thank you for all the comments! I wish I could respond to them all in depth. They’re so fun to read and it’s encouraging knowing others are traveling with us.

Long day… We hit the road at 8:30am and had several stops along the way, but we rolled into the campground right around 9pm after an hour or so of  driving through the flooded southern plains of central Manitoba, which was actually a perfect backdrop for contemplating an upcoming post that will probably be titled something like “Death by Bureaucracy: Archetypes of the Hidden Worldwide Slave State that permeates everything and can be found in something as simple as trying to legitimately cross the longest undefended border in the world…” It will ramble on about how we’re all slaves to a system that controls us far more than we realize until little moments give us glimpses, but then the glimpses pass and we forget again… about how – even with the level of freedom we seek to attain in our travels – there is yet a strong opposition in the world to anything that resembles true freedom (not freedom of “choice” to do whatever one wants, but true freedom)… about how there is a spiritual freedom that should be impervious to such encroachment – that certainly goes far deeper than any physical freedom to do or say – but how even that can be stifled if the mind gets in the way… about how odd it is that so many people can’t fathom or process or even contemplate that some crazy folks (like us) would actually NOT want to live in one place all the time… (the simple question, “Where do you live?” in fact belies how narrow minded people can be)… and, how foolish it is that every modern societal construct in our fancy western culture is wired to the fundamental assumption that one must have a home address (not merely a mailing address mind you) where they can be found most of the time… how silly would the Bedouins or other ancient and modern nomadic peoples think you were if you asked them “Where do you live? … Where is your home?” …….. After today I can completely relate, and I’m sure none of the 3 border crossing guards at each of the 3 levels of redundant-question-asking-security (2 of which were completely new to me in crossing) had any idea how silly I thought their questions were. Ah…. it was once such a simple thing to cross the border. I did it every weekend for a year (give or take a few weekends and most of those when I was in Mississipi) when Renee and I were engaged and I was stationed at Minot, ND. And as long as you seem “normal” and they can measure you and quantify you and rely on you to act predictably (like pretty much everyone else) you can slide right through no problem. Well, no such simplicity here. HOWEVER, we did get through, and YHWH can certainly provide crossings in even more impossible scenarios in the future.

There, now I don’t even need to write that post after all.

So, after a cruise around the campground and an hour and a half setup (connect electric, off the hitch, level front to rear, slide-out, stabilize and level side-to-side, connect sewer line, connect water line, etc etc) while Renee got the kids tucked away in their beds it will finally feel like we’re here after a couple “normal” nights’ sleep that aren’t followed by driving days. YEA! See some of you soon! Although we are thinking that we might just lay low this weekend and get some rest, recover from travel, settle in, tend to some loose ends (like showers and laundry), that kind of thing… if we can get away with it 🙂 We’ll see how it goes.

Since I’m posting this, we do / should have normal email access, which might be the best way of contact until we get the cell service figured out… ok… supper and then bed!

I am playing a drawing game with Bennah and we just entered North Dakota. We’ll have a brief stop in Fargo and are hoping to be in Winnipeg by tonight. Woo hooo!!

I have a few minutes here to write. I’ve had about 4 or 5 blog entries swimming around in my days for days and have not written them down. I haven’t showered in seven days, Joyzers needs a diaper change and is tired, Zac’s complaining of a headache (he’s tired and just needs to sleep) Jaiden has to pee. Again. Now so does Reayah. And Bennah is hungry. It’s just about lunch time. I feed Joy a bit to tide her over, Zach has finally gone to sleep. Jaiden and Reayh have gone pee in our handy-dandy porta-a-jon and I have five minutes. Oh, but now, we need gas. We’re stopped and I need to make lunch.This is definitely not the full picture. I’m just writing in the moment now and writing out of how I feel. We’ve been driving for 4 hours straight. Our kids are such awesome travellers. We’ve had a lot of fun today but I’m feeling pretty drained after a whole morning of serving everyone within arms around me. “Take a number!” I laughed earlier when everyone was wanting something from me all at once. While I am usually good at multi-tasking, it gets tiring and everyone is going to have to wait their turn. One at a time. Life is easier that way. Complete one task at a time, fulfill one request at a time. Ahhhh!  Yes, sometimes there are moments when multi-tasking is a neccessity, but most of the time, even if you don’t get as much done as you’d like, when you accomplish things one at time, or take care of a child’s need one at a time, each child is learning the difficult but very critical skill of waiting their turn but then they also get mommy’s full attention and the need is met fully or the task is completed with 100% effort. Except this blog, which I am writing while multi-tasking:)

B . I o balls if orien . Us dr is X is Drive xrng .th roogh Wisconsin trying to write witln left fingers nails on pocket pc. Letter lreccogn.izer.while focus on drive …:

Had to mentioned this mfolrnings adventure breakfast while we waiting for camping world’s repair on trailer still having to replaced converter myself as .they don’t have thenn in sto.re. .The converter is what’s cavsing external GFI to trip even tho its putting out right voltage + amps. Prol..y losing volts on some tiny internal short …
.
So anyway about breakfast because that’s what this is really about ..: Pine Cone Restaurant in De Forest , WI jvst off of I-94 & 51… Oh mamma ! Imagine a giant cinnamon roll sliced horizontally from the bottom up and then cooked like french toast with butter & syrup drizzled on top! Oh yeah thats wh.at I .had.

Lovinj Wisconsin I-94 : 60 mph @ 700 pyro / 1800 rpm most of the way..:
..
Jvst .passed mile 106 on 94W. 4:30pm 5/13/09 – 120 miles to St. Paul.

Although I have to say that I haven’t always been completely comfortable in supporting a huge corporation that takes advantage of third world countries and seems unsympathetic sometimes to it’s employees, I am sure thankful that they allow overnight RV parking in their parking lots. I know it is selfish on their part: we’ll probably buy from them if we’re parked right there for night. It’s been nice not to have to pay for a camp site or reserve a spot for the night while we’re traveling. I must say, it’s very weird sleeping in Walmart. I’m at home in my warm cozy bed. I wake up and look out my window and lo and behold, I live right next door to a Walmart! It’s not the most restful sleep. The parking lot is bright and noisy with all the traffic. Tonight I walked out my door and walked right into a Walmart supercenter to pick up some organic apples Wisconsin cheese curds and some other items for our meals tomorrow. Weird but sortof fun.