Sonya - Great Falls

We did it! After thinking about it for 6 years and actually doing some serious planning for the last 6 months, we have finally hit the road for our year-long trip through the US and Canada. We have had a very busy two weeks, but this last week has been crazy. So many people to thank! First off I would like to thank my plant sitters who are taking care of my favourite plants. Kyla and Sarah came and took many plants, turning their small apartment into a jungle. My plants have taken to their new home wonderfully and Kyla’s Christmas Cactus is so happy to have a friend! Ken, my brother-in-law, also took quite a few plants for me, the last ones reluctantly, but I bribed him with beer. We had so much beer, so I offered it to Ken and he is pretty happy with his 6 month stash.

Many people came to visit us as we were getting ready to go and we had a small going away at Blake’s parents house, thanks to Jeff and Cathy for organizing that. Thanks to everyone for coming to the house in the last couple of weeks as we were packing up and to everyone who came out to the RV on our last weekend to say goodbye to us. It meant a lot to us, even though it was crazy busy and we seemed a little frazzled. Blake’s work team also made a huge effort to say good-bye to Blake, it almost seemed like a retirement with all the gifts, cards and good wishes. Well, I understand on the last plane ride out Blake was congratulated over the PA system on his retirement - Geoff D. had something to do with that. Blake appreciated it and the effort made, I am sure he will talk more about it in his post, but it was amazing. The two going away parties at site and the final good-bye at Ceili’s downtown in Calgary. So many people came to wish Blake well and to say good-bye and to wish us well on our year away. I must say that cake of the Imperial Starship was amazing; I loved the addition of the Millennium Falcon on the back!

Our move out was kind of crazy, to fit everything into our downstairs room, a Cube-It storage container, Blake’s parent’s house, and into our RV was a challenge. We hired a couple of movers and they did a great job of fitting as much as possible into the cube-it and downstairs room, so a shout out to Vlad and his friend at Armcraft Movers. We loaded up Blake’s parents basement and garage with our stuff and we also had to leave our outdoor furniture at Ken and Val’s. We had lots of offers from other people to take some of our stuff, and thank-you for that. We also had 1/2 of our driveway filled with donation items and my neighbour, Jodi, confirmed that Clothesline picked everything up yesterday! So happy it is done, we got rid of lot’s of stuff and our house is ready to be moved into by the tenants next weekend. We are still having lots of insurance issues and cannot get the same answer when we call in and it is difficult to get the same person each time. I guess it is a huge issue to live in our RV for a year and to spend so much time in the States, from an insurance perspective. We are covered for the next 30 days by our current insurance and we probably need to find someone else to cover us for the rest of our trip! Good times!

Yesterday we finally packed up the RV with everything, hooked onto the truck and started driving out. Our first stop is Great Falls, Montana. We did a lot of organizing and packing before we left, so actually did not get out of Okotoks till after 1, which made us a little late getting into Great Falls. We had some things to take care of on the way. I had done up a letter to mail out to our Christmas Card list, but we had not gotten around to addressing envelopes and mailing them. Natasha did a great job of addressing all the envelopes while we were driving, we stuffed them in the envelopes in Lethbridge, found a post office and got them mailed off before we crossed the border so that was amazing! We were trying to outrun a storm all day yesterday, but it caught us in Lethbridge a little bit. I managed to run into the post office and mail the letters, get back in the truck before the hail started. Kizmet does not like storms, so she was having a little panic attack in the truck. We managed to outrun it again and had sunny skies after we crossed the border, but then it caught us again after we were set up in Great Falls. We were a little worried about our border crossing, but it only took us 5 minutes and we were on our way. The Border Guard’s only concern was that we were going to take Kizmet back into Canada with us! Of course we are :-) We stopped in Shelby, Montana for some food for supper when we realized it will be too late by the time we got to Great Falls to eat. I ate first and then took over the driving so that Blake could eat. I towed all the way to Great Falls, through the city and to our campsite! It is actually really easy to tow, I have yet to try backing it up, but I am sure my time will come. The KOA campground is really nice. Isaac was so excited about the spray park and pool! We were a little late for the kids to try it out last night, but they are hoping to have a go this morning before we get on the road again and head for Yellowstone. They also had live entertainment last night that started right when we arrived. We headed over and caught the last 1/2 of the show. They were really good, some old time country songs and some story telling in between. Then that storm caught us and we were exhausted, so we headed back to “home” and called it a night with a determination to blog in the morning.