TubaOrNotTuba

After watching a lot of videos about staying in your RV I’m getting a feeling for our limits. We are two adults in a small space. No dancing in the hallways. The real test is how much autonomy we have based on our own supplies. After a week the black tank has been drained. We have been careful users. No excesses. And now with drained tank we can continue for another week. The original fell of freshwater is not yet empty. However we have not been using the shower. Too early in the year for that. I believe we still have propane because we have been using electric heat for the main part. Staying in the campground with full services allows us to make choices. We have not been cold and we have not been uncomfortable. The two beds are based upon large foam mattress material and I have been able to sleep all night long. The sleeping bags were chosen to allow us comfort even on the edge of the season. Right now night temperatures are down around 4 Celsius. Because of staying in a campground with services the battery box is still not in service. No need for extra juice as they say. I think small amount of solar panel on the roof is keeping the house batteries up. I will continue to monitor the situation. Meals have been limited to food that we brought with us. To put that in context we finished the big bag of bagels today. I keep wondering if we really do need to purchase one of those fancy grills that I see advertised. Unsure if the cost will match the benefits.

This current road trip is now moving into a second week. No incidents to mention. We have found a good campground close to the city and it has allowed us to visit with family members on a daily basis. For the first time ever we have babies involved. Two of them. Still on a milk diet if that helps give you an idea of the age. And we have not had to take the responsibility for real care. Instead we’re doing what grandparents have done for ages. We hold them when they’re happy and we note they smile. It might not have much to do with us actually but it is a new paragraph In the life story. A year from now these two babies will be very different people. And because we will not be there to see all the steps it will seem as marvelous as child rearing has seemed for every generation. After all, how can you complain about a small child that smiles when it sees you. As for our daily bread we have been doing meals with family which means that we have not had to do much serious searching for our next meal. Yesterday was KFC platter. Something I had not done for well over a decade and I can assure you that the recipe has not changed in the mean. I checked to see what the plans are going forward and we should be here through the weekend at least. That will be the longest time we have been away from the house in the past year. No storms incoming and someone is checking the property so even that is just a detail. We do not get much mail anymore so if the post is due go out on strike I will not be able to use that as a marker.

This afternoon I am staying at the apartment. Not alone. I do have two dogs in my company. And my choice of all the chairs one at a time. I can handle this. Last night when we arrived at the campground we found that our space was already occupied. That too I can handle. This campground has no staff outside of the dinner time window right now because we are in off season. However finding an empty space near the reception office was simple. We parked up. We found some codes for the Wi-Fi system near the office in the mailbox. And we went to sleep. This morning we had the chance to visit with the park staff and learn that what was going on was just a glitch. No big deal. When we return this evening we should have a space where we expect it to be. All good. I rather like the campground in the sense that there is a lot of area and we’re close enough to the city that if we needed to go out for something we could. We have not. We received some apple juice from son #1 and we will eat in the morning each morning because we have our own supply of bagels in the fridge. The comforts of home. I am not responsible for meals So what we have for supper is still a mystery. There was some chatter about KFC but I must wait to see if that actually happens. I haven’t had a bucket of chicken in many years. You learn that you can do just as well at home. I mean, that 11 herbs and spices is overrated. And as for entertaining myself I have Wi-Fi for the iPad and my choice of chairs.

I feel that I may have treated this subject before. However in the world of postal services we have a problem here in Canada. We have a service that cannot get its act together for more than a couple of years at a time. Our posties are about to go on strike because they’re upset with their bosses. It all comes down to the Postal Service which does not make money is always trying to rationalize it’s expenses. In this case they want to reduce home delivery. That is the part that rebels me. I have been a customer of the poster service for many decades and in over a 40 year. I have never had this home service of which they speak I have either had original post office box or no service at all. The idea of someone coming to my door to leave me my mail every day is this thing that I would find so interesting when I watched a movie. Turns out for the post office and its employees it’s an important detail. In other things that caught my interest today I heard a public service announcement asking people to not take seals home from the beach. That is a marine mammal that might be there on the sand. If you see a small furry beast on the beach shivering do not take it home and put it in a warm bath, not your job.

The rain lasted all night. No accumulation that will set a record but more than I’m used to. However we were away from the campground in time to head off to the restaurant to join other members of the family. This was the section of town where I lived 4 decades ago familiar but unfamiliar. After we had completed the meal we headed off to see the baby. At least one of the babies. Hard to get everybody together at the same time. And so I spent the afternoon re learning how to keep a small child content. Posture is important for both the adult and the young person. No turning people upside down unexpectedly. After supper when the hockey started we bid our farewell for the evening and return to the campground. Getting hooked up again in the dark is getting easier. We had no Great Expectations to be tourists and so we did not. Getting to bed at a reasonable hour is a reasonable thing to do. We will see where tomorrow goes. I still have not checked the news today so I have to assume that nothing important took place. My way of looking at the world. Also I had the time to play with a couple of dogs. A food bowl seems to keep one of them occupied for hours at a time. I would love to place a pedometer inside the ball just to see what distance is traveled in a single afternoon. For the eventual record books.

Variety is important. A well known maxim period. However if you have too much variety in your spice kit the meal may develop a taste that is peculiar period. And if you have an unlimited number of options in making a decision about a group good luck in getting anything done. This evening we have been trying to put together the schedule for a brunch tomorrow. Four groups of people in four different places with four different means of transportation period. It takes a long time to sort that out you get to a tipping point where you start to wonder if you should just go and buy a couple of chickens and a pig and wait it out. But no matter. My afternoon went quietly as I waited outside the factory. We had some interesting rain but no overpowering storm activity. That was one of the things it was listed in a forecast given by a I. I will get my head around always changes period. It used to be the weather forecast was given to you several days in advance and you lived for what came. Now we try to get ahead of the weather despite all of the options available. As it turns out if it rains all you can do is wait for a dryer time. And if the wind doth blow then you fatten down the hatches period. Enough idle chatter time for me to go to bed too.

Locally the long weekend is starting. We were asked to move to a different site in order to better allow the owners of the park to take care of all their traffic. Not a problem we know how to find our way around here. There is a lovely map with really small print and if you squint you can figure out where you are. It’s a plus leftover from the days of exploration by the para nears. Actually we did do a few other things. There was a side trip to my son’s factory where I got to see both of the new granddaughters in the same place at pretty much the same time. I also had the chance to hear some new sounds. Quite often a very small baby will simply cry but things evolve. Today one of the babies made their early exploration of lip noises. You know. Baba Baba. It works and I think the baby was as shocked as anyone else and it can only go up from here. We’re probably going to stay in the area for about a week which will give us a chance to catch up on the changes to the city since we have moved out. The weather promises to be normal we’re not here to do a walking tour. I will try to catch up with other details as they emerge. Have a good evening.

And now it is dark again. We have had a rather long travel day going from breakfast to bedtime. And all seems to have done as it was supposed to but I have no idea what’s outside. Darkness does that. Probably the only thing that was special today was that we went for a meal add a Mary brown. Just like a year ago. And their food still tastes really good. Not every fast food place can make that claim. In fact that stop for food was really our only stop I did notice that’s a stretch of highway from New Brunswick to Quebec is almost done. Most of my adult life has passed watching that highway being constructed. I have to assume there are two people who have taken this on as their lifes role. It has been a long day. I would not want to do this on a regular basis. Proof that I am getting old fast. The rest of the family is aware that we are in the area and they are wise enough to accept that we will come by tomorrow. It’s all about logistics. Tonight I will just sleep without really knowing where I am. There was nothing else of note out there today. A camground should not restrict the number of objects youconnect to your code. I understand the idea of coserving band width but that is not the way todo it. Upgrade your router. 

For many years our household included a dog who suffered. With an ailment in textbook terms known as separation anxiety. Hard to control because this is an synonym for stress. In several days we will go on a short road trip and now I realized that I also have stress. Related to my inability to know where I am while on the road. All those signs indicating community and distance are lossed to me. Hence I will take my place as a passenger and wait for the purgatory to end. Our rationale for the road trip is solid. We are going to meet some new family members. And help out at a community event. Apparently my presence is required. So be it. I fully realise that I am not allowed to withdraw from life even when I do not know where I am. We’re doing our best. We will have a vehicle with beds and the refrigerator and adequate toilet facilities. Where we will park is just a detail. It was mentioned that we could find a place near the airport and all that will come to my mind was whether or not I would hear the the jets as they came and went. No need to see them when I can hear them. As for meals like at home that is also something that for me has become a detail. Between departure and return I will tell myself that this is all for the good and I will await the return to my comfort zone. I wonder if I get a shirt that will indicate to others that I am just more stressed than usual. Take it as part of my life. Like the dog used to do.

The economy globally is based upon people being paid for the work they do. In order to make things work smoothly most of us agree to accept currency that is issued by the state. However barter is out there and my artist payment my whole life was one afternoon when I painted a boat and was paid with a siren. I will try to recall the details. The boat was large enough to be able to carry passengers and have them sleep on board. The paint for something that we called copper bottom. Probably rather toxic but at the time it was seen as a way to keep a boat in the water free of pests. And so I showed up at the Marina I was handed a paintbrush. I had already painted boats. If anything I was a trained professional after one summer. And so I took the job at hand and I completed it before dark. I am unsure at what point we decided that the correct payment would be an old fire siren removed from a truck about 30 years before. I was enjoying it. But here is the detail that you forget. A siren is loud. And it tends to attract a lot of attention. In a boatyard not so much, back in the university residence it was too loud to hide. On the few times that I demonstrated the siren it received much more attention then I had considered. Remember. Loud. I haven’t seen this the siren for many decades. It might be in the basement at a friend’s house. And I’m sure that he also figured out that this was the kind of prize you could not hide unless you hid it. Unlike money which is simply spent, an old siren the size of a football is out of place. Always.