So I'm reading the archives at wherethehellismatt.com , and the dude is ruminating about his trip being nearly done, and starts talking about his cubicle life beforehand. He comes out with this:
"We all live in cages. We don't want to admit it, but a lot of us walk in there voluntarily, cause the stuff outside can be really scary. We have these reasons why we can't do stuff and they limit our options until we're forced into whatever's left. So we sit in there complaining about what we ended up with, and eventually we forget that there's no lock on the door."
Wow. Well said Matt. I found his website when I was looking for blogs about travelling. He's a very entertaining writer and it's just fun to read someone's site who has done something similar to what we are planning on doing. I guess it's not THAT similar - he took planes and stayed in hostels and hotels, and he travelled the world instead of just the one (possibly two) continents we plan on travelling. He also went a lot faster than we plan on going - he mentioned at one point having slept in six different countries six nights in a row.
Come to think of it, do you actually know what we plan on doing? Shall I tell you? Okay.
(drum roll...)
In February-ish 2008, we will be leaving Vancouver Island in our pickup truck with a cute little pickup camper (yet to be procured) on top. We will be heading south at a leisurely pace, and plan on stopping a few times on the way south to WWOOF. For those of you who don't know that term, it means we will be going to organic farms to do organic-y farm-y type work with the farmers. They, in turn, will feed us and give us a bed to sleep in. In this way we'll hopefully learn lots for when we buy our land in Nova Scotia. Buy what, where, you say? More on that later.
There are a few things we'd be interested in seeing on the western coast of the U.S., but we don't really plan on having a rigid travelling schedule, and we DON'T plan on doing a lot of mainstream tourist crap. Disneyworld? Hell no. Los Angeles? Hollywood? The Seattle Space Needle? Um, read about that stuff somewhere else. We want to drive on smaller roads and see the real things. We want to talk to people who haven't been paid to smile at 4 million tourists that day. Big cities are a no-no for the most part.
Anyway, the clever members of the audience will have already figured out that if you keep driving south, from Canada through the U.S., at a leisurely rate, you eventually end up driving south, at a leisurely rate, in MEXICO. Yay!! This is where we're going to take a well-needed break from WWOOFing and loafing around in the States, to settle in to Mexico in a few comfortable locations which have not been chosen in advance. What's the plan? Idunno. If we really really like a spot we might hang out there for a while, but if we feel like going on our merry way we might even make it into South America and all those countries down there. Who knows.
So after a month or so of that, we'll be driving, at a leisurely pace, north. North-east-ish, I guess. More WOOFing up the east coast, more avoidance of diabolical tourist traps (specifically, avoiding that other damned Disneyland or world or whichever that other one is in Seniorland...I mean, Florida).
Eventually, we'll land in Nova Scotia where we can have a big party with all our long-lost friends and relatives. The big land-hunt begins. It will hopefully end with a rural property, treed, with some farmable land and running water somewhere on it - and by running water I do not mean a kitchen sink. Although we'll need one of those eventually. I mean a stream, brook, river, anything that is fresh water and not standing still. We'll be building the most self-sufficient dwelling possible, complete with a grey water system, composting toilet, solar power and our own little version of hydro power (hence the running water need) and perhaps we'll build our dwelling out of cob. Who knows. We'll plant a big garden, find some extra cats, dogs, and probably chickens, and be poor and happy for the rest of our lives.
Got it? Good. That's the plan.
