Retirement has been disappointing so far

Well, that's it.... day one of retirement was New Year's Day.  As a dramatic "first day of the rest of my life" it was sort of a non-event.  I spent the day watching my friend flip through hundreds of tv channels, with the result that we never got to watch any single show.  He would flip to a new channel just before commercials started, so I never got to see what the scene climax was, then he would flip back long after the show had re-started so there was no way of knowing what happened.  In between channel flips, he would sleep.  Ah well...

The Deed is Done

It's official.  I told the directors that I'm retiring as of December 31st.  I will return to work part-time (3 days a week) in January - but only because I don't really have any other plans for beating boredom during the winter months.  Since I'm firmly convinced that we will have record snowfall in order to atone for the spectacular summer weather, I don't imagine I'll be coming into the office all that often anyhow.

May 30th will be my official, official last day.  I will stay in town for Festival Polynesia, then hit the road right afterwards.  Prince Porketta and I have tentatively made plans to do a loop around Ontario, to see some of the old family homesteads.  The rest of the summer will be at Grundy.  After that, who knows.... wherever the trail beckons, I suppose.

Did I miss a memo or something?

I don't shop a lot, but jeez..... did I miss a memo or something?

I would like to know if I accidentally tripped a switch on my way out of town last June.  I figure that can be the only explanation for the complete change that has occurred in my little corner of the planet since then.  It's either that or, as I have suspected for some time, the local economy is directly tied to my wallet.

I have lived in the same place for 16 years, shopped at the same stores, driven the same route to work.  When I came back, I discovered that the grocery store I most frequently use is closed; the store where I buy all of my clothes is also closed; the 2 main routes I use to get into town are all but closed due to construction; the alternate grocery store which only opened a year ago not only closed but then re-opened as an all-chinese grocery store which smells like a giant fish market and doesn't have English signs so I can't shop there; several of the restaurants I usually use are closed; even the Dairy Queen is closed!

I Broke The Beast!

I know that I need help with backing up. I can't even back my little tiny Toyota up in an empty parking lot. I don't know what made me think I could back up a 34 foot RV into a narrow opening between 2 trees, on a curve, on a single lane street, with cars parked on either side. What was I thinking? Or in this case, why wasn't I thinking?

Anyhow, I heard a crunch and noticed that the back bumper seemed a little more prominent than usual. Sure enough, it was cracked from top to bottom. Thank heavens it's a silvery color - the duct tape actually seems to blend in. My brother is going to fix it with zap straps, he says.

On the up side, the weekend was spectacular. The weather couldn't have been better. My bro, SIL and I had a lovely long weekend, played card games, putter pool, sat in the hot tub, and even had a great turkey dinner. Bro indulged in marathon wood chopping sessions - he hasn't said so, but we think he's training for next year's Lumberjack contests. 

What more could you ask? Except maybe a new bumper. Sigh....

We are so going to pay for this!

I can truly believe that the world will end on December 21st. How else can you explain that there hasn't been any rain to speak of in Vancouver since August? Obviously, Armageddon is at hand.

My bro, SIL and I are planning to give the Beast one more outing before winter (and the end of the world) sets in. We're heading for Bridal Veil Falls for the Thanksgiving weekend. After that, poor old Beastie will be getting its final rub down and will be tucked away for the winter.

Goodbye, old friend

I just got the news that my old trailer is sold. I really loved that trailer. It was the first one I bought and had everything I ever wanted: a front kitchen, a back bedroom, lots of space. It was always bright and airy. It had a few drawbacks: the roof leaked one year and so there was a bit of a bulge in the ceiling. The awning was a nightmare to take down. Mice got in regularly in spite of the combo of Bounce sheets, bay leaves, Warfarin, Bromine, moth balls and mouse traps. But it was home for many summers and I'll miss it.

The End of the Road.....

It took exactly 9 days to get from Sudbury back to Vancouver.  This was something of a surprise, since we weren't rushing all that much.  I'll let Prince update on his return trip with Sparerib and Shortrib by way of Canada, via the West Edmonton Mall.

After we left Wisconsin, we headed for Minnesota by way of several detours.  A 2.5 hour trip lasted almost 7, but the scenery was nice and the park we stayed at (Money Haven Creek in Houston) was great.  However, the charms of RV camping were wearing a little thin for S&S, who went and found a restaurant with air conditioning (via a couple more detours).

The next day, we were off to Mitchell and the Corn Palace again.  All new murals - and they are spectacular.  I especially liked the little cheerleaders made out of corn.

We then headed off to Murdo and the home of the 1880 Towne where we hoped against hope that we'd find sour cream raisin pie.  Sadly, we were too late and they were sold out.  But, our tale of woe over the hardships of the trip touched the chef's heart and she very kindly shared her grandma's recipe with us.  Thank you again!!!

After seeing a minimum of 100 signs telling us we HAD to go to Wall Drug, we went to Wall Drug.  I even got a bumper sticker to say so!  Neat place - and a great oasis of A/C in the 104F heat!  At this point S&S informed us that RV life wasn't for them.  They put in a valiant effort, but the call of the motel rooms and reliable showers was too strong.  So, Prince and I headed for Sturgis and S&S headed for Mt. Rushmore and Deadwood.

The ride into Sturgis was somewhat bumpy.... probably because we blew a tire about 15 miles from the RV park.  At first, I thought it was a ripped canopy, since it sounded like flapping material.  There was no shimmy or any other indication that it was a tire.  But it was..... and I'm just lucky I didn't lose the whole side of the RV!  But CoachNet came through and within an hour I had a nice new tire and a big hole in my credit card balance.  Sigh....  Oh well, a tire is probably cheaper than a canopy.

Our last big push (for some reason, the GPS routed us through a secondary Hwy) was to Reed Point again and we finally got to ask a real life cowboy about all the cows we had seen.  Turns out, they don't all have to be milked.  This is a good thing because that looked like it would not be a fun job.  What we took to be a beautiful sunset was actually the reflection of forest fires in the distance.  It was beautiful....and just a little scary.

Phillipsburg, MT, was next by way of the Anaconda Pass.  You may remember that this is the pass where we had encountered snow on our outbound trip.  Well, there was no snow - but the pass is named for a snake for a reason!  If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they blast tunnels in the BOTTOM of these stupid mountains?!?!  Anyhow, we reached P'burg in mid-afternoon and the smoke from forest fires nearby was so thick that the sun looked red.  We headed for Gem Mountain's store where we purchased a number of bags of dirt.  Why, you ask?  Well, these bags contain sapphires.  All told we got 12 bags - 300 pounds of wet gravel.   It'll give us something to do on those long winter nights.

The next morning, Prince, Sparerib and Shortrib and I said our goodbyes and they headed off to Edmonton, while I headed off into the mountains.  An overnighter in Coeur d'Alene and I was off again, blazing a new trail down Hwy. 2 in Washington.

At this point, I would like to tell the people who told me how scenic Hwy 2 is that they were right - for the first 20 miles.  After that, it lost its charm pretty quickly.  What's the point of nice scenery if you can't look at it because you're spending all your time trying to maneuver 50 feet of RV+Toad down narrow, winding, never-ending two-lane mountain roads?!  I swear, the engineers added curves just because they were psychotic.  Add to that the fact that this was the Labor Day weekend, it was hot and sunny and there were country fairs on both sides of the road at every village and town for 200 miles, and you can see why I'll never do hwy. 2 again.  Oh yeah - and the doghouse in the coach kept blowing off, leaving me with scalding hot engine air blasting my shins until I could find a pull-out.  Probably just as well, because the brakes were burning anyhow.

I was going to spend the night in Monroe but encountered 2 huge fairs, so I gave up and headed for home, arriving just after 7 p.m.  I must have had a crazed look in my eye, because the customs agent just waved me through within 2 minutes.

And so ends the Big Beastly Adventure of 2012.  Prince is back home in Sudbury, S&S got lots of shopping done and the Beast is back in the corral, waiting for next summer's adventures.  I'm back at work (feels like I never left) and dreaming of hitting the road once again.... especially flat roads.  Maybe I'll move to Saskatchewan.