My sisters & I are going for a week to Prince Edward County (did you know it’s technically an island, but the name ‘PEI’ was already taken), Kingston, and Gananoque in June.  I’m trying to make this a trip they both will enjoy, as well as showing them some of what my life on the road will be like.  So I’ve booked three nights at a provincial park, two nights dry camping (boondocking) in a winery, and three nights at a very nice KOA near Kingston.

This has been the easiest trip to plan: I know the area, I know my sisters, and after 60+ years with me as their big sisters, they know to just do what they’re told.

Some of the things factoring into planning my big trip:

My sisters aren’t retired, so can only get away certain weeks (understandable)

My retired friends have families with demands on their time (of course)

Several of my friends have already booked other trips, but want to join me at come point on my travels (I get that)

I have a conference in Montreal I want to attend in mid-July (my choice)

And what is quite possibly the biggest challenge of all?  People who think they’re being accommodating with sentences like: “Oh, anytime works for me.” “I don’t care where I go.”  “There’s nothing in particular I want to see, you choose.”  In my Scotland blog, I talked about one of my visitors, a woman I didn’t really know well, who turned out to be one of the best guests.  This was because, while she was easy-going and accommodating, she started our visit by saying, “You know what I’d really like to do while I’m here?” And proceeded to list 3 or 4 perfectly do-able, interesting-sounding, activities.  Now that’s actually helpful!

For the last month, I have had maps and calendars taped up on my office walls – Google maps, Rand McNally road maps, blank calendar pages filled with location options, and lines showing hours of driving crisscrossing the maps.  It’s starting to look a bit like a war room just before a major incursion. 

Speaking of incursions, DJT has just wandered into Iran, and now my gasoline budget for this summer has gone through the roof.  Splendid.

But back to spreadsheets.  I now have a colour-coded, carefully laid-out, 2 page (legal length) Excel spreadsheet set up for the dates July 6^th to October 13^th.  This has become my master planner, my bible, my cornerstone of travel planning.  Each morning, before I do anything else, I try to make at least some progress on firming up our travel plans. 

It’s a work in progress.

This will be the year of all things east.  I intend to spend this summer in eastern Quebec, the Maritimes, and Newfoundland (Labrador is too hard to access).

My sisters plan to join me for one Ontario trip (well, one sister does, the other is less of a fan of camping but will have a good time nonetheless).  I have several friends who want to join me at various points along the way, so it should be a fun summer.  Can’t leave until after our club’s annual summer picnic in early July, which is just as well, as I’m not a big fan of Ontario’s springtime blackflies.

I like travel planning – one friend is so confident in my skills that when she was still working, she would just leave it to me to check out cities, and book restaurants and tours. The choices (all of which I have registered for) are: Provincial/National Parks, KOAs, private campgrounds, and Harvest Hosts.  I learned last year that Harvest Hosts does not have great representation in eastern Canada, particularly Quebec, so I have signed up with a similar Canadian-based service called Terego  A bit of duplicating costs, but worth it for this year at least.

I worked out a whole plan for my first week, one that would allow me to test out a whole bunch of different things on my first trip.  I’m intentionally going solo on this one, so I can focus on learning the basics.  So the itinerary is as follows:

Two days at Heidi’s campground near Barrie.  I’m only packing the bare minimum for these two days, as I will (a) be practicing my driving by going to the local Canadian Tire, Home Hardware, Dollarama, and Metro to load up on supplies; and (b) stopping off at my house on day three to pack bulkier items that I can do without on days one and two.

On the way south from Barrie to my place I will stop off at IKEA Vaughan to do some more shopping – I am a bit nervous about that, but I’m hoping that on a mid-week morning, and by parking in a spot on the perimeter of the lot, it shouldn’t be too bad.

Then two days at a conservation area just outside St Mary’s, to show off my rig to my sister’s family.

Then four days of boondocking in southwestern Ontario (more on that to come).

Then one night at the campground just outside town, 15 minutes from my house, for reasons which will become clear in time.

It’s a plan.

I leave in six days on my first adventure.  My contractor, who started working the first week of February, is still here.  Still to be done: re-install my bathroom vanity & shelves; install office bookshelves; paint my back door frame; and hang an 8’ x 5’ wall hanging in the stairwell.  I’ve given him until 4pm Sunday to finish.

Update: Saturday at 6:45pm he was almost done.  I’m not satisfied with the wall hanging (not his fault), but I can’t.  I just can’t.  I can’t do this anymore; I want him to leave.  I will deal with the wall hanging another day, I just need this whole renovation to be done.  So after a bit of a Duncan good-bye (as the Scottish Reids call a prolonged farewell), I shoved him oot the door. 

Great – 36 hours until I’m off!

My RV is 25’ long.  My driveway is not.  (Although, by February, it seems longer as I shovel the drifts).  It seems that I can park in the street up to 25 days each year, which will be handy for the occasional I-want-an-early-start trips, but doesn’t really address the big questions: Where do I keep my rig between trips? and Where do I over-winter my rig?

I sent out a blast email to about 30 people I know, not asking if I could park in their driveways, but rather, did they know anyone with a long driveway, or who owns a business with its own parking lot.  This was a long shot, and I really had no idea what I was going to do if no one answered, but I figured, just write to anyone you know in the GTA or even as far afield as London.

Well, much to my surprise, I had two replies within 20 minutes.  (Interestingly, they were the only two replies – I had half expected people to at least write and say, ‘sorry, can’t help, but a new RV sounds fun!’. But maybe they thought it was a scam email?  After all it did rather come out of the blue. But I digress.)  Two wonderful ladies from my women’s group each came in with a different offer (I will refer to them as Bee-lady and Gardener respectively, for privacy’s sake): Bee-lady has a patch of unused land tucked away on her property 8 minutes from my house, which will be perfect for between-trips over the summer; and Gardener has a massive covered barn about 25 minutes from my place when I can over-winter the rig. How wonderful this club is; I really do owe MB a lot for recommending CFUW when I retired.  And of course, I will be paying both of these ladies rent for their property.

What a load off my mind.

I don’t want to say I hustled my nephew out the door on his last morning at my place (internship ended last week), as he had been a delightful house guest.  So as a courtesy, I waited 15 whole minutes after he left before I started piling RV stuff in the guest bedroom.  I should have taken a photo – the room looks like a cross between the Marketplace at IKEA, and the Outdoor Department at Canadian Tire. 

Everyone is giving me ideas of what to buy, and my incredibly generous friends who spent the last two years in their own RV touring North America have been giving me tons of their old equipment.  But I don’t want to do too much shopping up front for two reasons: 1) solo travelling means I am going to have a lot of free time on my hands, so why not use that time to shop; and 2) picking things and learning what’s needed will be half the fun!  (Edit 31 May 2025: fun? Hunh.)

So apart from one indulgent trip to IKEA with a friend (that’s my Strandskata laundry basket, which is going to dictate the colour scheme in the motorhome), I am just making lists to fulfil once we’re underway.