Sonya's Blog - Final Post - The Okanagon

Sonya’s Blog - Final Post - June 2016 - Vernon, BC

We are in Vernon, BC now. We got our RV into the repair shop, the part was ordered, we picked up our RV and set it up at Swan Lake. We managed to push our slide out, because the tech assured us we couldn’t break it anymore than it was already broken. It makes such a huge difference in the living space. Our part is now in and the slide will be fixed on June 23rd, right before we head back to Calgary. Perfect!

We have spent some time staying with my Mum, and some staying at the RV. The kids are mostly staying with my Mum, because there are two extra bedrooms. I don’t mind heading back to the RV in the evening and going back in the morning. It means we all get our own room, which makes for better sleeping.

There are a number of dogs. My Mum has three: Teddy, Tuppence and Toby (pictures in order):

My Mum is also taking care of Maggie-May (she is a Swiss Mountain Dog), who is the landlords dog:

As well as Tippy the cat (also the landlords):

Of course, there is Kizmet:

So, at the bare minimum we have 5 dogs in the house. We also have a number of dog guests that have come to stay (my Mum has a doggy business). At most, there have been 7. So it can get kind of crazy and walk time is a circus. My Mum drives a little Kia Soul and yesterday we had six dogs in there and the four of us. It was a little tight and totally like the the circus car with all the clowns in it:) Some of the doggy guests that have come to stay:

Gus & Rio:

It has been good timing for us to be here, as my Mum had surgery last week. We have been helping her out, while she recovers.

Our trip:

What can I say about our trip. Sometimes it is hard to believe we are at the end of it and that we actually did it. On other occasions, I cannot wait to get back home, move back into our house and get back to some sort of routine, as it feels like we have been gone forever.

I have learned, that we can live in a much smaller place and do quite well with less stuff. I expected to learn that, but I thought I may miss some of the comforts of home more. I really just miss the stability of somewhere to call home, but not our particular house. I certainly don’t miss all our stuff and cleaning our ginormous house! I quite liked cleaning day in the RV, it took an hour at most - sometimes two if I was really fussy!

Overall, we all got along quite well on our trip. It really wasn’t very different than when we lived at home. The tight quarters didn’t exacerbate any problems, or make us more grumpy with one another. It helped that we mostly had nice weather, so our outside space became part of our living space.

I learned I am not a very patient teacher, especially with Isaac. This has been one of the most challenging aspects of our trip. Natasha was very self-directed in her schooling, which worked really well for us. Isaac, not so much. We really had to stay on him and force him to do his school work. There were a lot of arguments around this and it was quite stressful. He got the work done, in the end, and I think he has learned a lot. Sometimes, it is hard to tell. Time will tell, I guess.

We had a number of challenges along the way, especially in our last couple of months, that tested our perseverance to stay on the road. From the tire blowouts, to the thefts, to the slide breaking we were starting to have enough. In the end, we were able to get through it and continue on with our journey and try to stay positive. Sometimes we were not as successful as we wanted to be, but hey, we tried.

We are continuously asked what has been our favourite place on the trip, but everything is so diverse it is hard to say. We love the beaches in PEI and the pace of life. We loved our Capital City - Ottawa, but also the US Capital - Washington, DC. I also really loved Québec City and would return in a heartbeat to do some more exploring there. My favourite beach on the East Coast was in St. Augustine. I loved how big it was and that you could drive on it, bike on it and take our dog on it for nice long walks. My favourite beach on the West Coast was Cannon Beach. The most unique National Park we visited was Yellowstone, but Gros Morne is a close second. We have learned so much about our wonderful country, it’s history, the geography, the massiveness and the uniqueness of the different regions. We have also learned a ton of history about the USA, that we did not know before, and also so much about the regional differences in that country. It has been interesting to compare Canada and the US along the way and to note the differences between our two countries.

Overall, we have been very lucky to have done this trip. We now have to get back to reality, routines and our life in Calgary. We have lots of challenges ahead of us and we don’t know how things will look a year from now. We are hoping Blake will have a firm idea of where he will be working in the next two months, I have also been looking for work. I have an offer to fill in for a maternity leave starting in October, so I am considering that. This will really change up the kids lives, so it will be interesting to see how that all shapes up.

How our map on our RV looks now:

I certainly hope all of our blog visitors have enjoyed reading about our adventures. It has been an interesting experience to keep a blog and I hope that it has been, mostly, entertaining. Thanks for coming along on our journey.

Sonya out!