On The Road - Day 3

   Today was great! We spent much of the day driving across Missouri and what a hoot it was. First, we crossed the Mississippi River and were greeted by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis:

  Then we started scanning our Atlas Obscura app for weird and wonderful sights. Of course, what would a trip be without the world's second largest rocking chair?

  As you can see, we were in the vicinity of the famous Route 66 for much of the day and that seems to attract a lot of curiosities. One particular spot seemed to have more than its share of such curiosities, a small spot curiously named Uranus. You won't find it on any map since it doesn't exist, being a small plot of land in an unincorporated area. It is, though, worth a visit as we found out.

  For example, I give you the World's Largest Belt Buckle, authenticated by Guiness:

  

  Then, because it's Uranus...

... you get the picture. Laughs aplenty were had, for sure.

  We completed our tour of Missourian oddities in Springfield where we found the World's Largest Fork. My kids will get this:

... and for our granddaughter Zoey, from the Kraft factory:

  That was it for Missouri. The next four hours in Oklahoma were boring. No World's Largest Anythings. No laughs. Just a long, straight, boring highway all the way to Oklahoma City where we're spending the night. Tomorrow we're off to Santa Fe, NM. If we find anything interesting in the rest of Oklahoma you'll be the first to know!

On The Road - Days 1 & 2

   Well, here we are, two days into our Grand Adventure, and I'm sitting in a third-rate motel room in a second-rate town in Illinois. When we decided to stop in Vandalia we thought there would be some history, given Abraham Lincoln started his political career here in 1836. The reality is, after three years he managed to convince the state legislature to relocate to Springfield. After three hours in this burg I can understand why.

  We started out Monday with a short stop in Sarnia, ON, to visit our long-time friends, Jeff and Vel. We had a nice lunch with them then left for the border crossing which, Google informed us, would require a 29 minute delay. Well, the delay turned into 90 minutes under a blazing sun, so no fun there.

  Our first night's target was Delphos, OH, where we had spent the night 5 1/2 years ago during our drive from Atlanta, GA, after buying the Corvair. We ended up there purely by chance but ended up discovering a terrific Mexican restaurant so we decided to stop there on this trip. Unfortunately, it was Memorial Day in the US and the restaurant was closed. In fact, all the restaurants were closed so our dreams of margaritas and tamales were dashed and replaced by a reality of Pizza Hut and light beer. Not such a good day, Monday.

  Today promised to be much better. We took a scenic drive through backwoods Ohio on the way to Wapakoneta, the home of Neil Armstrong. We didn't stop to look at any of the sights but we just wanted to say we'd passed through Wapakoneta because, well, have any of you? See? 

  From there we headed south to Dayton where our target was the US Air Force Museum. If you ever get near Dayton it's very much worth a few hours if aircraft interest you. We visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC, last year and, as big as it is, it's dwarfed by this place. Here are some examples:

The Wright Brothers Model B: 

The Avrocar flying saucer (made in Canada):

The "Bockscar" B-29 that delivered the second atomic bomb to Nagasaki:

... and Fat Man (Nagasaki) and Little Boy (Hiroshima), actual production atomic bombs

  They also have a display of the various airplanes used to transport all the Presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, including the infamous "Air Force One" that transported JFK to Dallas in 1963. All in all, a very impressive collection.

  That brings me back to Vandalia, IL, where I'm currently typing away. The margarita and tamales weren't bad but I wouldn't recommend spending any time here. Push on to St. Louis and catch a Cardinals game.

  Tomorrow we'll be on the first of two longish driving days to Oklahoma City, and Santa Fe, NM. I have no idea if we'll see or do anything noteworthy but stay tuned as we might encounter the World's Biggest Door Knob or a museum dedicated to suspenders. Until then, we remain your intrepid travelers.

Moving Day

  It's been a long, hard slog but Moving Day was completed successfully. Well, Moving Three Days, actually.

  For the past two months we've been looking at everything we have with a critical eye. Do we need this? Am I ever going to fit into this again? Why do we have three of these? You haven't used this in ten years! I hate this picture!

  Reducing our lives from filling a 2,500 sq ft house to a 200 sq ft storage unit has taken patience, objectivity and a degree of ruthlessness. How many of those things we've collected actually mean anything to us? How much of what we had was there because we had room for it? When we sold our house in 2017 we actually "downsized" to a bigger house! As a result, we ended up buying more furniture to fill it, more art to go on walls and stored more stuff in our unfinished basement.

  This new adventure has forced us to pare our belongings down to essentials. When your belongings can be measured in cost per sq ft it forces you to re-evaluate what is really important to you. For us to rent a bigger storage unit would have cost an additional $100-$150/month. How much is that box of books you read twenty years ago worth to you when you measure its worth by the cubic foot?

  Since we started this I've made five trips to the Salvation Army with a minivan loaded to overflowing each time. By now I think our discarded belongings could fill a good portion of their retail outlet. Add to that a bunch of things sold on Facebook Marketplace, a load of bric-a-brac from deceased relatives that went to a collectibles dealer and three loads to the local dump and it's been quite the weight loss journey. The kids have taken some stuff as well, either permanently or borrowed until we settle back down. All of it has helped to shrink our footprint to where we are now.

  So you have an idea of how that all went I present you with this:

  To fully appreciate this requires you to immerse yourself within it. We'll call this the All-Immersive Jenga Experience. You must be over 54" tall to ride this ride. Don't touch anything unless you want a microwave or a box of hats to fall on your head. I guess a box of hats wouldn't be too bad although the box has corners that might hurt, but I digress.

  Suffice to say loading everything we own into the unit was a challenge. It was a bit like a magician pulling things from his hat. Just when you think he can't pull anything else out of there, POOF, a rhinoceros! Whenever I thought I couldn't add a wafer-thin mint to the organized chaos I'd find a crevice or some other hole that needed filling. Fortunately we don't live in an earthquake zone or it would be a disaster movie in the making -- "Shockwave: Storage Unit Hell", now playing. Enter at your own risk.

  After living with Jen this weekend we hit the road Monday. Our schedule is:

• May 29 - June 3: Wandering from Newmarket to Arizona
• June 4 - 27: Prescott Valley, AZ
• June 28 - June 30: Wandering from Arizona to San Francisco
• July 1 - 16: Richmond, CA
• July 17 - 18: Drive from San Francisco to Vancouver
• July 19 - August 19: Surrey, BC
• August 20 - 27: Wander from Vancouver to Minnesota
• August 28 - September 13: Montgomery, MN
• September 14 - 16: Wander from Minnesota to Toronto

  We plan to see as much as we can see, do all the things we can do and eat all the different local foods as we can eat. We'll golf, hike, walk dogs, ride horses, visit museums and other points of interest and visit far-flung friends and family. We have tickets for the Jays at Seattle July 23. We may get tickets to see the Savannah Bananas in Des Moines, Iowa, August 25/26. As you read along with us you'll see where we went and what we did, good or bad, because this is the unknown and you all have told us you want to know how the adventure unfolds.

  We know you want to communicate with us while we wander but know that our Canadian cell phone numbers won't get you any joy when we're in the USA. We'll be using US SIM cards with different numbers so the best way to reach us is by Facebook Messenger. If you absolutely need to reach us urgently the kids will have our US phone numbers. If you send us a text on our US numbers we'll call you back as we can call you free but you can't call us free.

  Also, since we can call/text you without charge you might see a call from a 520 area code. That's us, not spam.

  By the way, if you're leaving comments on this blog please don't be anonymous. Google can tell us who you are if you let it and we want to know what you think about all this. Also, if you click the "Follow" button on my posts then you'll always know when there's a new episode when you look at Blogger. For the time being I'll post new episodes on FB but it would be easier if you just follow us.

  Monday we hit the road. Can't wait!

Penny and Mike's Excellent Adventure (Apologies to Bill and Ted)

 

  Up there? That's us. Penny's on the right. This photo was taken in November 2022 during our last adventure, backcountry hiking in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Earlier that year we had embarked on another Great Adventure, sailing to Antarctica. For both of those trips our traveling companions, Ben and Sandra, accompanied us and shared in all the fun. Now it's time for a new, different kind of adventure -- house sitting.

  But first, some background. For those of you who don't know us well, we LOVE to travel.

  At the outset of our relationship, back in 1982, we were still in university... and very broke. With a two week break between semesters and needing some R&R, I asked my on again/off again girlfriend (Penny) if she would like to drive to Florida. She agreed the idea sounded attractive but, she asked, how can we do it if we're both poor? Short story, I lied to my parents about needing money to eat or pay rent or some such boring thing and we piled into my borrowed car and off we went.

  It was a wonderful trip filled with sunny beach days, much drinking and delicious restaurant meals while we slept in her aunt and uncle's condo near the beach. It was such a great trip that we both kind of arrived at the idea of getting married over margaritas and guacamole at El Gordo's on the beach at Clearwater. Four months later it was a fait accompli and we embarked on a life of many adventures.

  Like many newlyweds our immediate concerns were money, home and family, all of which we took care of in short order. Three years later, with two little girls in tow, we moved into our new house. We loved that house. It was new, had all new furniture and appliances and sat in a sea of mud. It was heaven. For six months.

  Before I go further it's important to know my wife describes herself as a "travel slut". I prefer to think of her as a "travel junkie" so I guess that makes me her enabler. Whenever she needs a travel fix we meet behind the high school and I deal her the next hit.

  Early in 1986 I came home after reading a job posting at the office. "How do you feel about moving to Australia for two years?", I asked semi-seriously, expecting a resounding "NO!" only six months after moving into our new home. Her response? "When do we leave?" This pattern would be repeated many times in the future.

  Now, back to present day and I happen to read an article about house sitting. It seems to tick all the boxes we look for like, free housing while we travel the world. Oh, did I say "boxes"? I meant "box"... a BIG box. The free housing usually requires pet care as part of the bargain. Penny and I have spent almost our entire adult lives with animals of one sort or another while our kids grew up so we're ok with that. After that it might entail cutting the grass, cleaning the house, bringing in the mail; no problem with any of that. So, once all this was explained to her Penny responded with, "when do we leave?"

  Since we have no idea if we'll like this house sitting thing we figured it would be best if we minimized cost and risk. Therefore, we've selected sits in North America, specifically, Arizona, California, British Columbia and Minnesota. That allows us to drive everywhere and avoid air fares, visas and language barriers. We'll drive our car in a big circle for three and a half months and, by the time we return to Toronto mid-September, we should know if we like it.

  The adventure begins May 29. Until then you won't hear from us as we'll be busy packing a 2,500 sq ft house into a 200 sq ft storage unit. Stay tuned.