Spring Break

Mother Nature took a hissy fit this spring. There was more snow in March and April than we had all winter.  So to escape this very Canadian temper tantrum, we flew off for a month to California.

Now normally when one is heading for a Spring Break in California, one would pack shorts and suntan lotion. We pack tools and paint clothes.

Guess we always did take the road less travelled.

This is our third go-around in the San Francisco area since we retired. We are lucky to have family living here, and have enjoyed a lot of the touristy things the place has to offer. We have toured Napa Valley (a particular favourite of mine), eaten oysters by Bodega Bay, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and walked up the famous steep streets of the city. But for this trip we have other priorities.

Since we sold off all real estate holdings seven years ago now, we are very obliging about helping out family members still bound to the ball and chain of home maintenance. It doesn’t seem to be so much of a hardship to paint another person’s walls when you are not fretting about what should have been painted in your own home, had you gotten around to it.

So we have painted, and replaced carpeting, and fixed the various things that always need to be fixed in a house.

Again, we have turned my sister-in-law’s house upside down. 

In order to paint and re-carpet bedrooms, someone has to be moved out of it. It isn’t as though we have an extra bedroom to play musical beds with, either.  We invited a nephew who was in-between jobs to stay and play with us, and then kicked him and his belongings out of his room a few days in. At least we were fair. Hubby and I also had our turn at trying to find our luggage in amongst the relocated furniture and linens. And so did the poor beleaguered owner of the house.

To say that my husband is enthusiastic about projects like this is understating the matter.  He attacks these things like a football player tackles the opposition. We always start out with a well defined plan and specified improvements that could easily be accomplished in our time schedule. Yet even before the first goals are achieved, other things seem to come up that are important, too. 

So instead of merely having her upstairs redecorated, my dear sister-in-law now has a new kitchen sink and the main water shutoff valve to the house replaced. 

The front patio, started many years ago by her late husband, is now finished and new motion sensor lights adorn the outside walls.

But alongside these multiple projects, we also had summer without enduring a fickle Canadian spring. The weather was usually sunny and warm. Jackets were optional, and only occasionally worn with the shorts and flip flops that were our daily uniform. The landscaping that we slaved over four years earlier has come to maturity, with masses of flowers creating a colourful carpet in the garden we built.

And we had one fun day in San Francisco, playing tourist. We enjoyed a stop at the Golden Gate Bridge in the morning, clam chowder in a bread bowl along the Fisherman’s Wharf, and a visit to the Bay Aquarium before giving up the pretence of being tourists and joining the rush hour crush heading back home.

We are flying back into Canada in the first week of May. With luck, Mother Nature has matured into a more reasonable version of spring. We are more than eager to pull our Airstream out of her winter home and get her ready for summer.

It’s time to get our own house in order.

W

Snowbirds

After five years of heading to warmer climes when the snows threaten, one begins to wonder why anything that has freedom and mobility wouldn’t do the same. It must be enjoyment. Love of the fresh air and the crisp and sparkling snow. It certainly can’t be pleasure in the treacherous freezing rain and ice.

But since we have committed to spending this winter up north, hubby and I have been finding our own pleasure in the season. Because we don’t have to be out of the driveway at an unreasonable time in the morning (that's anytime before 10 am), we have been happy to use snow shovelling as an exercise. We even got the snowshoes out after a nice dump. The cross country skis have yet to be dusted off, however. We are waiting for a little more snow to cover the rocks along the back lane.

It turns out that many things don’t go south in the winter. And it is not all that obvious what those things are until it snows. Just a dusting of that white stuff creates an artist’s canvas on which the footprints of passersby paint their movements. Some of these expressions are cute, like the squirrel prints hopping from one tree to the next. Others are startling, as was the prints of the coyotes that came alarmingly near the house during the night.

Equally unexpected were the footprints of a lone turkey.  I wonder if he met up with the coyote.

And then there are the prints you talk to. “No, no, little mouse! Stay away from the house. Stay outside where it might be cold, but is much, much safer.”

We much prefer the bird prints. We refuse to feed the squirrels, and coyotes, and mice, but we do enjoy feeding the birds.

We have experimented with different types of bird seed, from buying it ready-made in bags to mixing our own from bulk stores. Suet was a new adventure for us, and after getting instructions my hubby the cook quickly went about making some. There is always a feeling of satisfaction when the food disappears quickly. 

Unless it was because a horde of starlings descended on our feeders en masse and didn’t leave until everything was cleaned out.

This house has lovely windows to see all these birds. Unfortunately, it’s the sound of them ricocheting off of the glass as they try to swoop through it that is bothersome. We’ve tried pulling the blinds down, but then we can’t enjoy the view, or watch the birds eating. Hmmm, feed the birds, kill the birds. That’s quite a dilemma.  Actually, I don’t think we’ve killed any yet. After the collision, I usually peek out the door to see a spread-eagled body, but later I notice the poor little thing is gone. Since I don’t see any coyote tracks leading up to the window, I assume the bird has shaken itself off and flown away. Hopefully wiser.

There are bigger birds than the turkey that have decided to winter in the cold. They caught me by surprise after a snowfall when I was driving along the lakefront. I saw small white “icebergs” in the water near a flock of geese, but it had not been cold enough to freeze the lake yet. 

Another glance saw the body of a swan come back upright after feeding on the bottom. My camera was never available whenever the swans did their “bottoms up” trick, but as there are 6 pairs staying in the area, we have been seeing them frequently.

Now, I don’t know for sure why all these other creatures decided not to go south for the winter. It may be that they knew it was going to be a mild one. Or that they knew just how far the loonie would fall compared to the US dollar. For us, it was merely happy circumstance.

It was a good year to be a snowbird in the snow.

W

House Wife

I’m no Martha Stewart. I consider myself a barely adequate and unenthusiastic housewife.

I don’t like cleaning, or polishing, or dusting all the knickknacks that one naturally collects over one’s lifetime. Putting out pretty plants that need tending, decorating for amusement just to take it down before the next occasion – I can do without that. I’m sure that makes me a terrible housewife.

It’s been six years since we sold our 5 bedroom house. We became free from house and yard responsibilities, traveled wherever we pleased, and the only cleaning and maintenance required was confined to 34’ feet of trailer.  I am a happy trailer-wife.

This year we are experimenting with staying a full winter season in Canada, staying in a farmhouse on the shores of Lake Ontario. 

It comes with accommodation for our Airstream, a lovely lane stretching back past the fields, and a scenic view overlooking the lake.

It is located in a friendly rural area, which means people drop by, often unexpected, at all times of the day. I quickly learned that I need to have tea and baked goods at the ready. As a result, I have gained weight. And its not that we’re eating more. At the trailer, people would often come over for campfires and happy hour, and indulge in snack foods and alcohol with us. I just didn’t realize how fattening tea could be.

Adapting to a temporary home does have some issues.  For the first little while, our feet were automatically searching for the pedal flush of the RV toilet. And it is disconcerting, first thing in the morning, when one is not quite awake, to come upon an unexpected full length mirror. Downright shocking, in fact. Especially after a full week of that sinful tea.

In a house that has more than 10 times the living space than we have grown accustomed to, we have a lot more storage space than we have had for many years. As a result, we have been buying in bulk during sales, gleefully shopping in Costco, and picking up larger sizes of supplies than we normally would have.

This means we are more likely to lose things. Or forget we bought them in the first place. I just hope we can use our stash up by the time we move on again. Especially the tea. We‘d better not have too much of that left over.

So far the experiment has gone well.  Hubby is happily involved in a massive project, located in another building on the property. He is completely gutting and renovating an old Airstream. His project keeps me happy, too. It means he’s not underfoot all day, but he is still nearby. 

And there are many amenities at the farmhouse that we have enjoyed: a laundry room, a huge flat screen TV, and a lovely woodstove to comfort us on cold evenings.

All this does not mean we want to stay stationary permanently. The opposite, in fact. We miss the excitement of having new places to explore, the comfort of being in our own little space, and the freedom to head off on adventures. We realize that we made the right choice in our lifestyle.

I love being a trailer-wife.

W

The Other Saskatchewan

I am vertically challenged.

Yes, I am physically short, but I also do not like being high up. I do my best to stay clear of standing on anything taller than my shoulders.  And don’t forget how short that is.

You would think that Saskatchewan would be an ideal place for me to hike. Everyone knows what the quintessential prairie province looks like, right? Flat.

No humps or bumps and definitely no cliffs or steep slopes.

So imagine my dismay when our daughter showed us the highlights of her province. High, being the operative word.

We camped at Buffalo Pound Provincial Park – as if there hadn’t been enough bison in our lives recently. But at least these hairy residents were tucked in behind tall fences, and observed at a distance.

This park is situated along a river, in the southern, and flatter, part of the province. But the river carved a few hills along its route. And it was these hills that we got to hike on.

Up and down we went, not a flat piece of earth anywhere. 

Nothing too terribly steep, but at one spot at least, the downward slope was such that I worried if I slipped, I wouldn't stop rolling until tomorrow.

Hubby and daughter were kind enough to leave me behind for the next hike. Castle Butte is a large hill of sandstone and clay, but it is craggy and steep, and I’m glad I stayed home in my cozy tent. For some reason, they seemed to enjoy the scramble to the top and the view of their tiny car at the bottom. I find it ironic that they had to drive over flat farmland to get to it.

Being in the prairies, it meant that when the weather changed, we could see it coming and act accordingly.  In other words, head for the car and keep ourselves dry. 

In fact, we headed for the underground. 

Someone in the city of Moose Jaw was smart enough to realize that outdoors was not a place to be when winter hits Saskatchewan. So, many years ago, under the downtown of the city they created tunnels to get across the streets and from one building to another. 

There is now a company that demonstrates what else the tunnels were used for in the past decades. They have recreated an old Chinese laundry, with bunkhouses and workrooms, and carefully explained the prejudice faced by these immigrants in the late 1800’s. Then they showcased the gangster life of the 20’s when Al Capone took the train from Chicago. They had hidden doors and staircases, and a tunnel behind a fireplace. 

Now, this is where I'm comfortable! 

I didn’t even have to duck under the doorways.

W

Scat

As an individual, I am not normally into scatology. But while hiking in the wilderness, it really is the best way to know what creatures are around that have their eyes on you.

At Elk Island National Park in Alberta we shared the woods with, surprisingly enough, not elk but plains bison. These big animals are almost as numerous as the mosquitoes. We hiked 21 km over 2 days and you really had to watch where you put your feet.

It was like taking a stroll in a cow field. With really big cows. But we knew for sure that they were around us.

Our first sighting of bison was along the road, a single bull grazing by the campground entrance.

Whether in a herd or alone, these park kings are totally unconcerned about anyone else’s agenda. They will stroll across the road at will, and regardless of traffic will get to the other side and immediately decide to go back again. They can do this for hours, occasionally stopping mid road to stare down an impatient little Honda. 

Even inside our truck we found it intimidating when one large patriarch chose the middle of our lane and walked straight toward us. All we could do was stop and wait and hope he swerved.

We were a lot less protected on our last encounter. Walking along a trail, dodging bison pies, we met a bull coming in the opposite direction. All three of us stopped, apprehensive of each other. After raising his snout to catch our scent, Daddy Bison continued on, confident that he had the right of way. We graciously allowed this, scrambling uphill into the raspberry bushes.

Bison weren’t the only ones we shared the woods with. As the trail wound among the numerous berry bushes, we saw lots of other droppings. Bear, for sure.

Scat!

I mean, Shoo!

W

Camping

Camping is such an imprecise term. It can mean a tent in the wilderness with a cold stream for bathing and a bush for a potty. 

Or spending vacation time in a 45’ motorhome with an inside shower, 50 inch TV, and electric fireplace.

So, if someone in a house uses a motorhome for their time away, what does a person living full time in a trailer do? 

Go tenting, of course. Have yourself a primitive experience that will make you appreciate what you come home to.

It was past time to get away from it all. We were tired of sitting still, having been in our seasonal site since May. We locked the trailer and lit out at warp speed. Twelve hours and more than 900 kms later we stopped for the night in Michigan. 

We found a regional campground that we had stopped at before, in a trailer. A regional campground, like state and national parks, are very fair minded. Whether in a tent or trailer, your site is the same as everyone else’s. It was late, and still warm, so we threw up our screened shelter, inflated our air mattress, and crawled into our sleeping bags.

We should have taken the time to erect a proper tent. The mosquitoes found their way into the shelter. And the air found its way out of the air mattress.  Not a good start, but not discouraging, either. 

Hey, we had real flush toilets close by!

Off we went to our next stop. We skimmed the corner of Indiana and blew right through Illinois. Our goal for the second night was to be in Iowa, a state we had not yet stayed in. New places are exciting. 

We drove past farmland and low, rolling hills to find a state park near our route.

A Wal-Mart along the way had provided us with a new air mattress, so we eagerly put up our real tent. And would have inflated the mattress if we had a pump that fit. I considered blowing it up manually, but after a couple of breaths realized that it would take all night. So again, we slept on our old self-deflating mattress. At least the mosquitoes kept out of the tent.

Wal-Mart was our new best friend. We bought a 12V inflator and crossed our fingers for the coming night. That one was spent at a small campground just outside the South Dakota Badlands.

Our tent site happened to be beside the tallest pole in the area. Just before we retired, we could see this massive thunder storm cloud advancing over the plains towards us, lightning flashing.  Too late to do anything but tighten all the ropes and pegs, we rolled into the tent, onto a still inflated mattress.  The rain came down so hard; it was as if someone had dumped a bucket over top of us. It took about half an hour to recognize that our tent was waterproof, and our mattress was firm. We relaxed, and fell asleep to the pounding of water over our heads.

Amazingly, the hot and dry prairie wind overnight dried our tent fly completely by the next morning. So when we woke up and saw another storm coming, we packed up in record time. However, we weren’t in any hurry to hit the interstate. We were on the edge of the Badlands, an area where the grasslands gave way suddenly to a deep river valley. Erosion along the edge created a steep section of canyons and gullies of loose rock that would have been very difficult to cross in the days of foot and horse travel, hence its name.

The road through the  Badlands National Park loops up and down along the edge, giving you spectacular views of the grasslands along the top and the colourful strata of the cliffs and canyon edges below. After driving the 30 miles of scenic road we hopped back on the highway, headed west to see Mount Rushmore.

It was not a good time to visit this popular tourist area. On a Saturday afternoon in the summer, the traffic is very heavy going through the mountain roads to this monument. Fortunately, we were able to get a good look at the carvings from the road, and did not need to actually enter the park area around it. A quick turnaround got us heading back to the interstate and on our way.

Once we crossed into Montana, we decided to view the countryside from roads less traveled. We got off the interstate so that we could see more of this “big sky country”. We drove long, long country roads that bordered expansive ranches and interesting geography. These 2 lane roads were mostly straight and empty. We could set the cruise control at 110 kph, which was under the legal speed limit, and cover many miles in a fairly fast time. 

The roads gradually climbed increasingly higher hills, creating a roller coaster effect of going up steep hills and down long, deep slopes. I would have thrown my hands up in the air and yelled “Wheeeee!”, if I had felt at all comfortable doing that speed on a 2 lane country road being watched speculatively by the mule deer standing alongside. And when those straight roads started winding through a low mountain pass in the western side, with no lessening of the speed limit, I was ready to get back onto the wider interstate.

There were many questions at the Canadian border about why we would have driven through the States from Ontario to Alberta just to catch a flight to San Francisco. However, they did let these suspicious characters back into their own country. 

Our last tenting spot was in a private campground in Fort Macleod, Alberta.

Now, in many campground “resorts”, the tent camping area is often hidden in the back acreage. It has always puzzled me that the big RVs, with their TVs and self contained bathrooms, are placed close to all the amenities – the full bathroom and showers, and the games room with the TV. While the second class citizens in the tents have the smelly pit toilet and no sink to wash in.

But hey, I’m not complaining. We chose this vacation style.

And we chose this town because of its close proximity to our last sightseeing goal for this leg of the trip. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is just outside of town, on a ridge with steep cliffs. I always thought the name referred to the buffalo that leapt to their deaths, but instead it was named for a curious young brave who wanted to stand under the cliffs to watch the event unfold. Obviously, he didn’t survive the show.

I was also expecting to see deep piles of bones at the bottom of the ridge. In fact, this site is so old, and had been used over so many thousands of years, that the bones are buried along with other dirt, rocks, and plant material that had also fallen from the cliff. Scientific digs have proven that the bottom of the jump contains 36 feet of bones, rubble, and artifacts. So while what we see today are grass covered mounds under a short cliff, hundreds of years before this there stood a tall and deadly precipice.

That was our 5 day camping trip. It wasn’t high end camping, but at least I never had to pee in the bush. The next leg of our vacation will be at hotels and family homes, with hot showers that aren’t costly and timed, and clean flush toilets. A little bit of luxury for a couple of weeks at least. We don’t want to get tired of camping.

We will have to do it on the way home.

W

Summer Home

May is always a marvelous month.

Lilacs bloom and the sun grows stronger. 

People venture outdoors and even allow some skin to peek out of the swaddled layers. 

At least until the mosquitoes show up.

Wildlife comes out of their winter hideaways, sometimes with little ones in tow.

We found these curious fox kits peeking out of a driveway culvert.

And May is when campgrounds open up in the Canadian north.

People work hard all year long to remove bugs, dirt, and darkness from their homes. Then comes the summer and they spend their weekends camping. 

In the bugs, dirt, and darkness.

For us, it’s a lifestyle choice. Not that I thoroughly embrace bugs, dirt, or darkness, but I have learned to contain my cleansing efforts to the 34 feet that I reside in, and let the outside live on in relative peace. And to enjoy, well, maybe not the bugs and dirt, but for sure the darkness of night outside of urban lighting. 

Providing there are no bears in the area. My empathy with the universe only goes so far.

Our regular campground in Adolphustown opens its gates and lets us move into our seasonal site once the snow is gone and the ground is dry.  All at once our lifestyle changes from the nomadic to the stationary.  We have even put up semi-permanent structures in the form of a deck and a shed tent since we will be staying put for the next 5 months,

Well, actually it is not us that is staying put, but the trailer. Hubby and I still find time to roam around the countryside, visiting family and going on short trips. 

We wouldn’t want to get too used to being in one spot.

But since our beloved Airstream will be rooted for the summer, we’ve been busy making our “yard” – a good sized campsite – look nice. Hubby buried the water and power cables, I raked and reseeded some spots on the grass that had died off last year.  Foolish, I know.  I’m just going to have to mow it later. 

And hubby put up a couple of bird feeders to invite feathered friends to come closer to our trailer and truck. That I am going to have to wash later.

Hum, there seems to be a theme here.

Maybe that’s why I’m so pleased that hubby has a project this year. A 1978 Airstream for him to gut and renovate and keep him busy for the foreseeable future.

So I can enjoy our deck and yard in peace. With the bugs and dirt and darkness.

W