Road Trip!
There have been a lot of lessons learned about this whole process.
- People are more supportive than you realize.
- Everyone has misconceptions about the whole process until they’ve tried it.
- Travel is a long-term never ending circle of hopes/dreams.
- You need less stuff than you probably own.
- Storage is expensive for the stuff you do own.
- You will never be completely satisfied with every decision.
- You always run out of time dealing with everything.
We had flights booked for Ontario. We canceled them.
I didn’t sell our car in time.
Truthfully, I should have put the car on the market about two or three months earlier than I did. We were making near weekly trips to our storage room the month before we left. I didn’t want to be without a car for that time.
If you have a used Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla, you can sell it in few weeks.
Ford Focus, not so much…
Lesson learned.
Even if it has low kms and is in very good condition, you’re looking at three month turnover. I only learnt this after taking my car back to the dealer to see what they would offer me last minute. Considerably less than I hoped. I got a second offer in the same range.
I actually really like this car and the only reason we were getting rid of it was to have one less thing to worry about. Storing it in Vancouver would be prohibitively expensive for a depreciating asset. We’re not saving anything by holding onto it. It’d be nice to have a vehicle in Ontario to visit the dozen or more people we plan on visiting.
Luckily my parents had a car bay free. We just have to get the car to Ontario.
Three Days, Easy Right?
Nope.
I’m convinced you could push through if you could sleep while someone else drives. Unless you’re 21. Trying to save some coin. And you’re OK agitating your co-pilot on low amounts of sleep, then you’re probably best with more time.
We stretched it to four. That’s the fastest I’ve ever done it. If you’ve never driven across the country; Do it. At least once. It’s almost 4 lane highway the whole way now. The road is actually in pretty good condition, save portions of BC and Ontario. Get it together Ontario!
It’s easy to forget how beautiful and diverse Canada is when you fly over it. Four days isn’t even enough in a car to see all the cool stuff the country has to offer but it’s the Coles Notes version. If you have more time, I have fond memories of a family three week cross country RV trip. That’s the right way to do it if it’s vacation.
You’re tired and cranky driving all day but we had a nice stop in Calgary to see some family.
Then the prairies begin…
Pushed on through the prairies to a nice little hotel in Winnipeg. It’s so cheap compared to big cities. If it weren’t so damn cold in the winter I’d almost consider living there. Oh and the lack of ski hills, mountains, ocean and it being in the middle of nowhere. Other than that though, I’d love a cottage about 2 hours east just over the Ontario border. 😜
Well if the blackflies aren’t too bad, that is. Other than that though, it’s all beautiful country. Can you believe Terry Fox ran this far? Opposite direction, sure but the dude ran 5373 km from the east coast to Thunder Bay. It’s only 3005 km more from Thunder Bay to Vancouver.
Quite by accident we spent our third night in White River. Birthplace of Winnie the Pooh. Not much to it really, other than the start of the Canadian Shield.
Muskoka is my second favourite place to visit in Canada. Fond teenage and early 20’s memories. Tiny rocky islands and warm beautiful lakes. That’s basically when we stopped taking photos. That and well…nightfall.
