Pics o' the Boler

As promised.


The bench seats (there's another one on the other side of that yellow table) turn into the bed when the table is lowered.

What do you think of those blue dots on the wall? I tried ripping one off but it took a bit of the wall coating off with it, so we'll have to leave them up for now. Do you see the writing on the fridge that says "1975"? The fridge is a chalk board. I know that's a stupid little thing to get excited about, but I like it! Mucho gusto!!

Our tiny camper underneath the bow of our landlord's gigantic looming boat. It's not there any more - we're stashing it in a friend's back yard for now.

So it's tradition to name these little guys. I don't have any good ideas yet. If you can think of anything good, leave a suggestion in the comments please!

I haven't been talking about it much, but our Spanish lessons are also coming along well. We're into level 2 now and it's so great - there are only four people in our class so there's lots of individual attention.

I have to tell my work very, very soon that I'll be quitting. I don't want to tell them once the chaos of tax season hits because it'll add stress to an already stressful time if they get that kind of news right in the thick of things. I'll let you know how that goes.

Mexico, here we come! :)

F*** it dude, let's go bole-ing

Yahoo!! After and intensive hunt and one very major false lead, we have in our possession one VERY cool little Boler travel trailer. It's a '75 and has been kept up so well - original floor and table (excellent condition), but new sink, stove, porta potty, cushions, curtains, and lots of other stuff. The guy that owned it before us (because we own it now! Yeah!) was an auto body mechanic and took really great care of it. He apparently had people from all over the province trying desparately to find the time to come to the island and look at it, but since we live right here we saw it first, so we got it! What luck!

It's really cute and exactly what we were looking for. Now we need to plan a weekend at Goldstream so we can use it sometime soon. I will post pictures on the weekend, when I can see it in the daylight. It's in our driveway now but we're gonna store it in Megan's back yard for the price of dinner on us once a month. :)

Mexico is gonna be so much fun in that little thing. After we got home last night we just sat in it for a bit, and twiddled with the lights and curtains and whatnot. How pathetic is that?! Ha ha! We're planning on putting shelves into the closet space and maybe making a screen door for it (you can find the plans for this project online), but really there's not much to do. It's in great shape.

Aaaahhh...success...

cool blog, funny quote

Here's the quote: "life doesn't have to be five days of lame followed by two days of relief - one of which is ruined by the knowledge that lame starts again tomorrow."

Yikes, how true!

Here's the blog: http://www.meganlyles.com/

She's up for a Bloggie award for it as I write this. She and her bf took a year-long trip from the US to the very bottom of South America, and travelled mostly by bus to do it. She's a great writer, and the blog is really fun to read.

K that's all for now.

of ferries and motorhomes

Well!!

We survived our weekend on the mainland at the Abbotsford RV show. I have to say that I'm kind of disappointed in BC Ferries though. We got on the 9am ferry to Vancouver on Saturday and, having the dog, didn't want to leave him alone in our truck while we fought for a seat on the loud and crowded passenger decks. So we took Arlo and went in search of the pet room, which is a simple enclosure on the vehicle deck of many of the ferries. On this particular ferry, it happened to be a wide space in the sidewalk on the car deck with a sign instructing us not to leave our dog unattended. Imagine sitting in a plastic chair in a big parking garage for an hour and a half - same exact atmosphere, only with wind because the ferry is sailing over the ocean and it is February. So there we sat, apparently looking so pitiful that one passenger on her way to the upper decks asked us if we'd like her to bring us a coffee. We declined, but what a sweetie!

There were some other people with dogs further down the sidewalk in the other part of the dog area, so we went down with Arlo and the three dogs played for a bit. Arlo was all excited and barked a couple of times as a ferry employee walked by. I corrected him and I know the ferry guy saw me do it - but, shouting to be heard over the roar of the engines, the ferry worker told me not to let my dog bark (remember that we were in the designated dog area at the time) because - this is a good one - "people are trying to sleep". ...um, what? Keep in mind also that it was probably about 9:30 or 10 in the morning. All the dog owners kind of smirked and/or rolled their eyes. I made a sarcastic comment after the guy walked away, not noticing that he had circled around behind our group from the other side of the sidewalk and had likely heard what I said. Ah well. I forget what my comment was, but rest assured that it was witty and amusing.

SO...being the pacifist suckers we were, we decided to just go back to our truck and sit in it for the rest of the trip. As we started walking along the vehicle deck, I noticed that there were a lot of axes and fire extinguishers around the place, but no life jackets or signs indicating where they might be. Hmm...didn't a BC ferry just sink last year? There was another crew member near our truck, so I went over and asked him "where are the nearest life jackets?" He said "what?" and I repeated my question. Here's another perfect BC Ferries quote: he said "Oh, they're all around" and then just stared at me. There was a pause in the conversation as I digested this cryptic non-answer. Was this guy really NOT gonna tell me where the lifejackets on the vehicle deck were? I persisted, and got lots more evasion. He showed me some of those life-preserver rings that were hanging on the walls as the back of the ferry and after that he told me not to worry because all the crew was trained for emergency situations, and I could just go to him if there was a problem.

Yeah, no flaws in that plan! Hah!

I was really not impressed and started making my way back to the truck. I guess the guy thought about how bad it would look if I complained to BC Ferries (or, heaven forbid, the newspapers) that a BC Ferries employee failed to show me where the life jackets were upon request, so as I was walking away he popped into an "employees only" room behind the little mesh fence at the back of the ferry and reappeared with a life jacket in his hands, saying "here's one!" Great, thanks guy. Now I have proof that there is at least one well-hidden life jacket on the car deck. I'll bet it won't end up on the body of a paying passenger in the event of an emergency.

Anyway, the ferry didn't sink and we were soon on our way to Abbotsford. Our cheap hotel was easy to find and had friendly employees. Mark was convinced they were mocking us because the guy at the check-in desk was smiling too much or something, but I just think they were friendly. (The place has a surprisingly adequate continental breakfast the next morning - yay for free breakfast!)

So the guy behind the counter that Mark disliked so much gave us directions to his favourite Indian food establishment (I cannot say restaurant after having been there) and after getting lost once or twice, we found it and hurried in to grab a quick bite before going to the RV show. I'm not quite sure how to report on this place. It was just...weird. We walked in to find ourselves in a huge, very dim room, with empty tables and piles of various junk scattered around the place. It was half past noon on a Saturday and there was only one table that was occupied, and I'm pretty sure it was full of people that worked there. We just stood there for a minute or so before turning around and noticing that a menu was posted by the entrance, and there was some sort of deli counter with human activity occuring at it. We looked at the menu and then placed our order with the girl behind the deli counter. She said it would be a half hour. Hmm...I'm not even sure we were allowed to sit down - it looked like the type of room you have to book for a banquet, and it was already clear that there would be nobody actually serving us. The prospect of waiting a half hour in order to eat out of a styrofoam dish in an uncomfortable atmosphere was not very compelling. We left and went straight to...

THE EARLYBIRD RV SHOW!!

Mark's overall impression: lots of jogging pants and fanny packs, and he felt very out of place. I agree, but feeling out of place doesn't really usually register in my mind, so I was just having an amusing time looking at all the silliness.

There were so many HUGE motor homes and "bus conversions" and just generally ginormous and over-the-top RVs - I mean, it was fun to go inside them and poke around, but we're just not in the market for things that are almost too big to drive and cost $300,000. Yes, really. Some of them, anyway. We wandered around for a long time and assimilated lots of RV info. We went to the private/used sales area in the hopes of finding something reasonable, but alas. Everything was still huge out there, too. Don't any people want simple campers or trailers with just the basics? I guess not.

There was an informative talk that was also a thinly veiled sales pitch about solar panels and kits for motorhomes. We'll have to look into that as soon as we buy our thing.

We also learned that weekend that our truck can only hold the tiniest of the tiny pickup campers, which would be fine with us, except that even the weight of a tiny one puts our truck VERY near it's weight capacity...do we really want to punish the truck like that for at least three months of travelling? I think that's kind of inviting disaster. So, we're now considering a travel trailer instead, which will make normal parking a bit more of a bitch, but has advantages like being able to easily unhook the truck and go jetting around while the trailer stays in a campground.

The RV show was really crowded full of slow people, and the booths were mostly high-end crap that we weren't interested in. We did manage to have quite a bit of fun in spite of it all, and really we did go to learn and that's what happened, so mission accomplished. Do you know what a "tongue load" is? Sounds dirty, doesn't it? It's not! It's very boring! But I know what it is now and how it affects my existence!

There was a booth for Dawson City at the show so we went to talk to the people at that booth. I had ulterior motives - we've been toying with the idea of taking a trip up north for maybe a month this summer, just to test everything out. I would love to hit the Yukon and visit Whitehorse and Dawson City, but Mark has been talking about visiting the Queen Charlotte Islands. the lady at the booth was really nice and I think Mark got a bit more enthusiastic about it, because now the tentative plan is to go to Whitehorse & Dawson City, and then MAYBE all the was up to Inuvik, land of the midnight sun. Then, on the way back, we might hit the Queen Charlotte Islands.

So we had our fill of the RV show and started the trip back home. We went to lots of RV dealerships, both in Abbotsford and here on the island, on the way back. We didn't end up buying anything, which was good because that wasn't the plan that weekend, but we are well on our way to finding what we want.

This weekend we are trying to find the time to go up-island and look around in the lots in Duncan/Cowichan/wherever we see one. Wish us luck!

a year of preparations

Hey y'all!

Well, it's the new year - the year of preparation for us - and we're seemingly off to a fine start. Thanks to last year, which was the year of putting our heads down and doing nothing but saving money, our savings are on schedule. I'm staying at my accounting office job until after tax season is over. By that point we'll definitely have our base savings (the stuff to buy land, build, and live off of for a little while) and we'll be well into building up our "extra" savings (the stuff to live off of here, buy a camper to go on the truck, and cover expenses during the road trip).

Speaking of campers, we're planning on going to the mainland, to the boomtown of Abbotsford to be exact, in a couple of weeks to attend an RV show. I guess we'll have to dye our hair blue and buy some loafers and slacks - it'll be a blue-hair blast!! We are very much aware that we act like a couple of seventy-year olds at times, so just shaddup about it, k? We're going to the RV show so that we can learn a bit about campers, hopefully. There's also a section of the grounds at the show that will be devoted to private sales of campers & motorhomes, so we might even find our very own camper there.

So that's in early February, and in mid-February is a surfing trip to Tofino with all our friends! Yay!! Should be good times.

March/April will be pretty much a bust for me, due to tax season. Boo, work. But then I quit. Yay, freedom.

May to July or August Mark will probably stay at his job, and I will quit permanent work and start temping. There are some cob building workshops being put on in the Victoria area over the summer - we'll definitely attend at least one, but I'm not sure about dates yet.

We've decided to take a little road trip up north before we move away from BC. In maybe August we'll head...well, north. Not sure where. Mark seems to be excited about hitting the Queen Charlotte Islands. Me, I'd really like to go to the Yukon. Maybe even Alaska. We'll see!

After that, my parents mentioned that they want to come out and visit around September-ish. Since we moved last month, our new office is too small to double as a spare room and I'm not entirely certain we could fit the futon in while the computer desk is there. The futon is currently in the room that is our entry/den, and the dog is LOVING it. The futon has always been his favourite place to sleep, but before we moved the spare room was usually out of bounds with a foster cat or some other animal tucked away in there.

Since we've cleared all our moving boxes off the futon, Arlo's been there like ALL THE TIME. He doesn't even wander into our room at 6am any more to sleep on our bed with us. I say good luck to my parents trying to wrestle control of the futon away from him.

So where are we? That took us up to September-ish. By that point we will have started thinking about getting rid of our belongings. That's going to be a big job! Other than that there's not too much in the works for next winter. I think it would be a good time to work on some of our personal projects. Mark's got his guitar and mandolin to practice, and it would be nice if I could get some writing done then. Fun stuff, like that.

K, that's 2007 as it stands now.

Wiz-bang!!

home for a bit

We've been in Nova Scotia for the Xmas holidays, and everyone has been asking us when we're moving back. For Christmas we received not one but two road atlases for North America, and fold-flat origami-ish dishes to take with us when we're on the road.

More exciting news - we'll have lots of furniture to look forward to when we finally move here. Mark's mom is going to be moving into her new husband's house when they've finished renovating it, and of course two complete sets of home furnishings are not going to fit into his little bungalow - especially since Deb's house is bigger than his to begin with and so could fit more stuff into it! So we'll likely pay her to store her extra stuff for us and grab it when we arrive (unless the new place is not renovated before we get back).

I'll have to make a decision soon about when to quit work. We'll look at our savings and decide if we're close enough yet that I can temp...but perhaps I'll have to work through one last tax season at the accounting firm if I can stand it. The money is better than temping would be, and really there's an end in sight. We'll see.

All of a sudden we can start making concrete preparations. Weird!!

Anyway.

Shameless Griping

What can we do except keep on working, keep on keepin’ on. Our time for change is so close I can taste it, but just far enough away that it’s sort of depressing to think about. I find myself letting little hints drop at work. I’ve printed pictures of cactuses and sombreros on my “in and out” sheet at reception, and I do my Spanish class homework in the office kitchen during my lunch hours. And yesterday, when I got some petty cash for some supplies from James, I jokingly told him “now that I have this thirty dollars, I’m going to run away to Mexico”, which is something I’ve always said, but now it’s sorta true and I felt funny after saying it.

I still don’t know when to quit – this part time schedule has completely screwed me up in terms of the savings plan. I think, if I can stand it, I’ll tell them in like February-ish that I’ll be gone on…hmm…May 11? It’s a Friday, and that gives them almost two weeks after tax season to deal with it. I just have to avoid quitting in the middle of tax season. I could, I suppose, quit very close to the ramp-up for tax season, and what would the consequences be? Not much I suppose, although (mostly just out of habit) I’d like to get a letter of reference outta this place when I go.

I guess it depends on the savings. If we're close enough before the start of tax season, I'll quit then and go temping whenever I feel like it. From looking at the calendar, and the level of tax work coming into the office last year, it looks like things start to ramp up in early March. I'd have to leave before things got busy, or else everyone will be mad at me, so if it's before tax season it'll probably be the end of February. The 28th is a Wednesday. It'll do (if the savings are there by then).

That's four months and one day away. The boss is on vacation most of next month (November), and then we have our vacation to Nova Scotia in December, so really there's just January to get through if I give a month's notice (which would be nice), because then I won't have to pretend to care or keep secrets in February after I give notice. Wowee. Then I'd have a relaxing spring, instead of stressing out of my skull during tax season and being expected to "give my all" for the company. Chumps.

It's just hard pretending to be a person that I'm not, and pretending to have career goals that are really completely opposite from my real goals. And I can't cheat and tell anybody here yet, so I have to act out this boring, irritating act week after week. I DID, however, accidentally tell our dog daycare that we take Arlo to, and both of my bosses also take their own dogs there. Woopsie. I asked them not to mention it to my bosses.

Argh. I know I'm a shameless whiner. Deal with it. I'll be annoyingly happy a year from now, and you'll have to deal with that too. This blog will be a communication tool when we go on our trip, but for now it's my therapy. Leave me alone about it, alright??

Hee hee.

we keep on truckin

Well, I'm not sure what Mark's "office science" posts have to do with our upcoming trip, however amusing they may be. OFF TOPIC! PENALTY!! Just kidding.

Just to make THIS post somewhat on-topic, I can say that I've acquired a new pair of perscription glasses that turn into sunglasses in the sun, and back to regular glasses indoors. Um...I guess it'll help when we're strolling around, lost, on some tiny street in some tiny village in rural Mexico.

Mark: "where are we?"

Julie: "I don't know, but man, that sun sure isn't getting in my eyes right now, thanks to my magic glasses!"

...okay, it's a bit of a stretch, I know. But I seriously did get these new magic glasses with the trip in mind. I'm too lazy to tote around those dorky clip-ons that go over my regular perscription glasses. Also, those things just look bad.

The trip is still a bit more than a year away. Man, I don't know if I can make it. But at least we'll be reaching some goals and enacting some lifestyle changes fairly soon into the new year. So...we're almost through October. November we'll just have to put our heads down and keep on truckin. December, we go to NS for Christmas. That'll be really nice. I'm excited about celebrating Christmas with Debbie and Harvey as a family. So I haven't decided if I'm going to quit my job in January/February or after tax season now, since they've cut my hours and that means that our savings schedule, and thus the date at which we would have our savings goal, is all wonky now. I'm leaving my options open for that. But really, soon things will be moving. After we achieve our savings goal, then the next little goal will be to acquire enough money to 'coast' on while we're still living here. As soon as we have enough for rent & living expenses until the departure date (over and above the base savings goal of course) we don't really have to work. It'll be fun.

That's all I got. I'll try to post again soon.