TubaOrNotTuba

With a minimum of effort supper was over. The kind of food that you eat when at a picnic. Or camping. We are on the last leg before home, stopped in a small campground on the bank of a river just upstream from provincial capital. I have been to this campground a number of times and on each occasion I have been satisfied. Completely. No hassles and no trees in the way. The highway ride was also without note. I did have a breakfast from Big Mac and I did watch the trucks go by. While listening to CBC radio. I tend to do CBC in binges. Each time I learn new things they would having to follow a storyline. I can only wonder what the life of a journalist is like. Did I learn anything in particular today? No but maybe tomorrow. On that last leg towards home. The weather has been excellent and we found gas stations when we needed them and at night we curl up and sleep lake logs. Or dogs. You take your pick. I considered taking the dog from last night along with us. The owner would probably notice the disappearance although it does seem like a new friend to me. One that comes over even when there isn’t food being offered. Almost a perfect dog one would say. I think my sneezing has stopped as my body grows accustomed so much fur. But we will put that behind us. There is winter yet. We should also go to a bookstore. Not for me but to pick up the most recent book by an author we have followed for years. Someone here will read through quickly with gusto. Is that a good word for literature?

Another day of affirmation. When I say that you should plan before you go, I am reassured that this is a worthwhile step. Under list today we had looking for a new sleeping bag and looking for a new phone. Neither necessary but fun to do when you have the chance. The sleeping bag searched did not go as well as we had hoped. Too many options and none of them absolutely correct for what we wanted. As for a telephone or a cell phone, you put yourself in the hands of sales people. People have only one goal and that is not your satisfaction. The larger the list of products they can sell you the happier they are at the end of the day. And so after three hours we had a new phone number on a new phone. The salesperson told us that what we had received from the other company was nothing more than a placebo. And actually, I agree. But we came away from the experience with more gear and less money which is the whole point of business. As for the sleeping bag we will continue looking for the perfect equipment. I learned that parking a truck in the dark is not nearly as much fun as it seems in the movies. A lot more stress then I would have believed even when I wasn’t the driver. But it all worked out thanks to some #1 who understands the mechanics of the whole thing. We went to bed and woke up the next day to frost on the windows. I said that we were getting late in the season. Title a new phone

The best days come with a plan. Or a list. Or both. We were ready. We needed to add a new extension cord. Easy to find in a local shop. And then, it was time to dump the tax. You know, the nasty tanks. We knew where to go for that as well. After all we had lived here for awhile. On the way it was decided to check the address on the net to add it to the GPS . The app indicated that the site had changed and that the new site was better and permanent. And here was the route. And so, off we went on a chase. After about 1/2 hour the route seemed to be familiar. Very familiar. We had if you will come full circle. Chased our tail. And the new site was not where the apps said that it would be. In fact the road has not even been built yet according to a local service station. And so we did the obvious thing we went back to where we were going originally. Happily the original site is now new and improved. First class. The best of the city this size can offer. Our tanks are emptied and we are ready to face another week of travel if necessary. But do not depend on your own knowledge when you get updated knowledge to have you go in circles. It’s a life game. And so another day has passed. I spent some time sitting in the middle of a shopping mall which is really not nearly as interesting as one might think. A lot of have conversations from people going by with their phones. I think that is why I prefer books!

With the family gathered together I think we had a family photo. At least I was asked to turn in the direction of an unseen camera and I assume that’s what was going on. We were in the restaurant and I’ve learned that no matter how careful you are in placing your order or how much you depend on the feedback of the server what appears on your plate is almost random. Tonight my salad became French fries and gravy. Still good just unexpected. I am very aware that the temperature is dropping because at different times during the day I found myself shivering. Almost as if we were at the port of no return for winter. I must find my boots and my mitts and my tuque. We are now considering our travel options. Judging the wind and the rain against where we will sleep next. Odds are good that we were will return to a campground we have visited several times before since they seem to be open until the end of the month. Not easy to find campgrounds this close to the close of a season. As near as I can tell the staff goes back to school and the campground gets ready to hibernate. This was the return of the dog parents from their South American trip and it was fun to know that we will have a chance to see them perhaps one more time before we return east. Little chance of anybody wanting to travel early in the winter particularly with the attended birth of two children. Not mine but you know what I mean. I also learned that a Jeep is much higher off the ground than I expected. I did not fall in or out but I was warned. Designed for climbing rock piles not sitting beside a sidewalk in the city.

We’re sitting in the apartment of son #1. In his absence. However there are two older dogs. Mature, or other certain age, as you wish. One of them loves to eat and so receives food from a ball that is hollow. One that must be rolled around so the food will fall out through the cracks. A symbol for life. And the effort involved is real Atlas up and down back and forth shake and wait. Anything that will cause the food to magically appear because I’m sure that for a dog that is what it seems like. Not part of the hunting mechanism that has been bred into a dog for centuries. Last night the temperature dropped below freezing for the first time. We are prepared. Good sleeping bags and an electric heater and a supply of propane for the furnace. But it still is a shock when we think that before much longer there will be snow. In fact that was our warning. Snow on the roads north of here. We’re still early but it bodes for a long season. Other than that we have learned to enjoy the comfort of a small space. No extra beds or chairs here. Enough for the passengers and no more. If someone wants to visit with us we will see them in a nearby restaurant. Or at their house if it’s so gives. With more than a week behind us on this trip I am starting to look forward to all the other comforts of home. Access to the refrigerator. Access to hot showers when I wish. Wi-Fi that is always there thanks to our Starlink dish. Perhaps, by next year, we will have invested further into the world of starlink. A smaller dish and a mobile plan but for now we have to take our Wi-Fi when we find it.

The wind has been blowing now for hours and I am really noticing that it does not sound the same way as it does at home. It makes sense. We are in a different region with different landscape and different tree cover. Right now I keep imagining myself on a sailing ship with high winds but that is not what it is actually like here. I am rather sheltered from the outside world. A lot of pine trees. Last night we had some rain and I was unable to tell how heavy it was falling. Even in the RV where we hear each raindrop the sensation is different than when I am at home in my favourite chair. I’m inside a home with good Wi-Fi so that I can get my daily exercises out of the way. I think we’re going up to the city later today to try some stealth camping on a city street. Something we have done before but each time we approach it as if it was the first. Better to be aware of what is going on around us. Who knows? We might actually get a place in a driveway off the street where people will not even pay attention to us other than the fact that we are a vehicle from another province. I put each of these moments into my memory. For going forward. Not going to write a book about travel on a day-to-day basis. This blog will have to suffice. I have not been paying attention to the news for several days but I’m going to assume that all is well in the outside world. We will finish out this trip and head back to home base to get ready for winter. Time to put the deck furniture under the deck as they say. And put away anything else that we do not want to sacrifice to the snow. Given the falling temperature we will also have to winterize this vehicle. Like any other year. Our life goes on.

During our recent transit through the north part of Maine, one detail stood out. There is a lot of construction in this area, and it is all based upon buildings with storage units hundreds and hundreds of them. I know we all need places to keep our stuff, but this seemed to be over the top. As if people had two sets of furniture for each house they swapped in and out on a regular basis Is. Or the largest collection of junk that you ever dreamt of. Not going to fault the people there for what they do with their time and money, but it is not like at home. Where I live the storage unit is rare. Most people just put everything into the garage or the extra barn and are done with it. Of course, that might be what is going on here; this may be a place where people have not got into building barns and now need places to keep all the stuff they have been accumulating. Sales, auctions, whatever. I know we keep too much stuff and like  to have things around.

Today was a Family Day in the broadest sense we spent time visiting and catching up on what it happened since our last time together period. Like you do with family. And then we went for a drive out to the drive to the graveyard oh I have no idea where it is. The road seemed much longer than I remembered. After that we did a little shopping and then headed back to our campsite. A place where the Wi-Fi is fast and the temperature is warm and we can simply let the evening go its own way. I do not know what tomorrow will bring nor the day after. Certainly going to see other people in the area and talk about other things and catch up on stuff since we were last together. All in all content for a good home movie but not much else. And then when that is all over we will head back towards home. The only detail that really marked me was a trip to the washrooms. Now I know I do like things to be where I can expect to be but this was a little different. The building had huge wide stone steps. Made from polished river stone. With no handrail. And the whole time I was coming up and down I kept imagining what would happen when I suddenly lost my step if you excuse the pond and found myself in full flight. Not a calming feeling. I sometimes wonder if the people that create search wonderful systems actually try their own. Maybe and maybe not. Perhaps the stones were just there and they decided these were the ones they wanted to use in this front part of a public building. I really should have gone there late at night so that I would have no excuse. It is up to me to bring my own lights and my own caution. And so I shall knowing that the steps are still there and I might need to return period.

I placed my personal safety among my most prized habits. I am unlikely to find myself anywhere where death is an ongoing option. Of course most of the places that a tourist can visit have already been taken and sanitized. The really nasty stuff has been removed from the equation. Earlier today I re-watched a video of some people exploring a former military installation. Something from the last century which involved coastal guns. And I said to myself that I have been there and at no point did I feel that my life was at risk. If I been in the area half century before I might have found myself in the middle of a battle but not anymore all we have left are the large reminders I imagine that removing a multi ton cannon was more trouble than it would be worth. Easier for the authorities to remove the dangerous bits and place some safety railings which they have done there was little chance of my dying in a spectacular way. All I could do was to go into the vault look around turn around and leave. As I think about it almost everything I have visited as a tourist fits in that category. The cool bits are gone. We just have a chance to imagine what a place was like when life was going on there. Probably for the better because some of us do not watch what we’re doing as well as we should. But it would have been interesting to hear those large cannons fired and to watch the method of the soldiers getting things ready for the next big moment. Old photos and movie clips do not give the whole story. We have some movies but because we cannot compare them in the then and now way, we have to imagine how the film people did their job. And when we as tourists visit old installations we have to remember that the people in charge of the site have already been over it carefully looking for all the things that could hurt the stupid people. There are a lot of them.