Moving Week

We left Ontario with me driving a 26' u-haul and with an anxious cat as my passenger. Brandon and Zoe were both in my Colorado leading the way. As per usual - we got a late start but it actually worked out well being the first day of school, we missed all the school bus traffic. I had three big worries with driving this u-haul. Navigating through Toronto and Montreal traffic were the first two stresses that had kept me up at night. We we able to bypass Toronto traffic by taking the 407 as far as we could. And Montreal also proved not to be a problem thanks to some advise from Gayle Redmond who suggested the Autoroute 30 which allowed us to sail right past any traffic. We had a hotel room booked in Riviere Du Loup and pulled in for a few hours of sleep at 11pm.

Day two was equally, gratefully, uneventful. Here we met my third big worry with the truck...hills. The highways in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are very hilly and I was quite concerned about getting the loaded truck up the hills. It turned out to be no problem at all. That u-haul had some guts in it and I never had even one moment of concern. Well, no concern with how it drove. I was disappointed that the truck I was given to drive approximately 2000 kilometres was older than me. Okay maybe not that old, but it did have a compartment to hold cassette tapes!! And I was not very happy when at 2 pm in 28 degree weather, with a cat roaming around, the air conditioning stopped working! So while the truck did get us to Nova Scotia, it was not without a fair amount of sweating and swearing!

We had an Air B'n'B booked in Barton, Nova Scotia for Wednesday and Thursday night. We rolled in late Wednesday to The Dog House and collapsed in exhaustion. I have to add here how proud I am of my 20 year old son, who has never taken a long distance drive, on his success with this long haul. He was very aware of his limits and stopped as needed, but he was so determined and showed the ability to get it done. At 20 years old I took my first road trip and was unable to drive for longer that 2 hours at a stretch! I am very proud and very grateful because not only did it mean that Brandon got to see our new home (both province and house) but it solved a lot of logistical concerns with how to get my truck to Nova Scotia!

Thursday we slept! We did meet with the lawyer who talked more about Zoe starting school, where he also coaches cross country, than actual house lawyering details! Again, super friendly, wonderful experience with people of Nova Scotia.

Friday September 7th 2018- move in day!!! Here we also felt the differences between Nova Scotia and Ontario. We had our final walk through inspection at 10am and signed off on that paperwork. Then when to move in? The realtor said wait for the lawyer, the lawyer said wait for the realtor, but the keys were at the house. So after a bit of confusion and no ceremony - we unlocked the front door and walked into our new home at noon!

There is so much work to be done it is very difficult to know how to move in. We didn't want to set up rooms only to move everything again as we tear up carpet or tear down a ceiling so we chose three rooms and put everything in them. Then we set up a mattress and a futon on the living room floor. After eight weeks - we are no longer living out of a suitcase, and after seven weeks- we are no longer "Two homeless girls". Big, huge, ecstatic smile!!

My parents had arranged to come for a work visit at our two week mark. Next Thursday's blog will be an account by my mom of her first impressions.

Thank you Sandi Risi for making us feel at home!