Travels With Miranda

All summer, I managed to avoid any serious driving in Montreal. Today, I made up for that in spades!

I had a lunch date with one cousin and a dinner date with another. Lunch was on the east side of town and dinner on the west side of town. The west side drive wasn’t scary; I barely consider Lasalle to be in Montreal even if it’s on the island and officially part of the city. But the east side drive was a little worrisome as I would be taking the Jacques-Cartier bridge and going into the heart of the city to the Plateau sector, an artsy and bustling part of Montreal with lots of narrow one-way streets that is one of the mostly densely populated neighbourhoods in Canada. Great place to live. Horrible place to drive and park!

Surprisingly, my GPS cooperated and took me straight to my cousin’s. Her street had cars parked on both sides. The road was so narrow that a delivery truck the width of my RV could not squeeze through and ended up having to back out. My truck had about a foot clearance on each side. I was kicking myself for not having looked for municipal parking on a busier street when I found a nice clear section of open street that looked very tempting. I tucked myself along the curb and then went to read every single parking sign on the block. They were confusing, but it looked like I was clear to park where I was till 3:00PM, which was ample time. Great! I found parking, I was early, and now I just had to find my cousin’s building. I glanced at the address in front of which I was parked to get my bearings. Oh! This was her building! I had found parking right at her door! Something had to be wrong and I reread the parking signs one more time to be sure. I was fine! Talk about good luck!

It was nice to catch up and meet my cousin’s daughters. They have a menagerie of animals and I found myself accosted by one of their friendly cats before having a ginormous bunny plopped into my lap! I had rabbits when I was really, really young, so I couldn’t remember what they were like. Basically cats with giant ears and back paws. Very cute!

Our visit done, I carefully navigated my way out of my suddenly tight parking spot as someone had parked behind me, then I almost painlessly drove out of the neighbourhood and onto the autoroute to cross town. Almost because it’s illegal to turn right on a red light on the island of Montreal and people behind me were adamant that I risk a ticket to save them a few minutes. *shakes head*

I was a little early for my dinner engagement, so I stopped at the Angrignon Walmart to pick up some cat litter and salad fixings for dinner. Lasalle is now part of Montreal, but it feels more like suburbia, so driving around there is a non-issue. Parking on her street was another matter, however, as both sides were crammed with cars. I squeezed into a gap then had a glance at yet another confusing parking sign. It looked like I was clear. Great, now find the address, which surely had to be the only one with a lit porch that just happened to be across from my truck! I must owe the parking gods a goat by now!

Dinner with this cousin and her son was another lovely catching up affair. She does something I find very interesting; hosting foreign exchange students. I wouldn’t have the personality for that if I had a settled life, but it seems like a nice fit for her and she gets to meet students from all over the world.

I thought that getting home from her place would be a cinch as she is very near the Mercier bridge and I could get to my mother’s from that bridge with my eyes closed, but I forgot about that wonderful Montreal construction. The bridge had only one lane open in each direction and there was a detour to access the open lane. I missed one of the detour signs, but in trying to inexplicably reroute me to the Champlain bridge, my GPS got me back on the detour route. It might be slightly longer in mileage to take Mercier than Champlain from that area, but it’s an easier drive and generally quicker timewise.

It’s been a rich full day. Now that I have seen just about everyone I wanted to see on this trip, it’s time to get into packing mode. The plan is to pull out with Miranda tomorrow and then park her on the street. My truck goes into the shop in the afternoon. Things are going so smoothly, but I’m not waiting for the other shoes to drop. I think I’ve earned an easy pull out…

When the phone rang at 8:30 this morning, I knew it had to be the shop calling to let me know my base plate is in. It is! They wanted to install it on Thursday.

I called the Ready Brake folks (they’re great!) to confirm that my tow bar was shipped on the first as promised. It was, it has cleared customs no man’s land, is in Buffalo, and will be here Wednesday!

So if family stuff hadn’t been going on this weekend, I could have gone ahead and done the installation Thursday and left Friday. But I do want to make these two last family dinners, so I called the shop back and asked to move the appointment to Monday first thing. The best they could do is first thing Tuesday, which is fine, two days ahead of the previously set date, and a couple of days before the no street parking because of winter ordinance comes into effect. It’s also not a moment too soon as the weather has turned and the nights here are COLD!

So if all that goes smoothly, I’m pulling out on Wednesday the 14th, just under six months since my arrival!

I found both a dump station and propane right on the way to the shop, so I’ll go take care of those matters on Tuesday before going to pick up the truck and get the final adjustments made with the rig on site. As for gas, I’m only putting in enough to get across the border!

So, I have to be ready to pull out by mid-day Tuesday. I’ll park on the street Tuesday night and pull out Wednesday morning, probably a little later than I would have liked to let some of the morning traffic pass.

The border crossing will help me set my destination for Wednesday night. If I breeze through, then I might make a huge push and get to Pennsylvania. But I will more likely just go to Saratoga, even though that’s barely any distance, just to lessen the stress of driving my new rig for the first time.

I am concerned about potential hurricane devastation along my route, but a check of the roads indicates a clear path, even on the New York Thruway. As long as the weather holds, I should be fine. Thankfully, I’ll have a nice big buffer of time in case my plans get waylaid.

My biggest regret about this summer is that I didn’t get to go to Toronto. I would have liked to have gone east, too, but that was really a dream. At least, I got to see my family and friends from Toronto, so there’s that. No sense looking back. I am now looking ahead to that magical beloved moment when I cross the Mason-Dixon line and, just like that, spring will return to my world. It’ll be my fourth time and I bet it won’t get old any time soon!

I was just drifting off to sleep last night when the weirdest thing happened. Miranda shifted ever so slightly. I really felt it up in the overhang. It didn’t last and I shrugged it off as being a particularly bad gust of wind.

No, as it turns out, I just experienced what a magnitude 4.5 earthquake feels like in an RV. If there hadn’t been reports of the quake all over Facebook, I would have completely forgotten about the weird event last night.  So I wouldn’t call a magnitude 4.5 earthquake particularly memorable!

It’s Thanksgiving this weekend, but you’d never know it in Quebec. I saw exactly one Thanksgivingish promotion at the local IGA (they had a few whole turkeys available), but that’s it.

Thanksgiving was never a big deal growing up, but I do remember celebrating it on my dad’s side of the family several times. Looking at the holiday through adult eyes, I have to wonder where the heck we got the supplies. Do Quebec anglos have a Thanksgiving black market to turn to?

This holiday gained more meaning for me on the road as I found myself a few times with friends for whom not having turkey on Thanksgiving is unimaginable. And now that I’m eating meat again and love a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, I am surprised to find myself a little bereft this weekend.

But it’s all good because I will be in Virginia at my friend’s for the US Thanksgiving, where I have been assured I’ll be able to eat myself into a crazy turkey stupor. So all is not lost!

I was awoken by heavy rain this morning that let up by the time I got up. But the wind has been roaring ferociously and there’s a severe thunderstorm and high wind warning for the region. So bummer, no working on the battery bank today.

That said, I did pull out the battery monitor connection kit instructions and schematics and, *gasp*, they all made perfect sense! Finally!

After lunch, I decided to brave the mighty winds and the threatening clouds and walk to the grocery store since I was out of pita and tomatoes. On the way there, I decided that I wanted to make fettuccine Alfredo with steamed broccoli for dinner, so one of the first things I did was grab a head of broccoli on the way in. I also snagged a mini ciabatta baguette for lunch tomorrow.

Quebec grocery stores being, generally speaking, more refined than other grocery stores in Canada, you often can’t pick up a block of shrink wrapped Parmigiano Reggiano, but rather must order it by weight at the deli counter, the way you would at a fine cheese store or Italian deli. Needless to say, the taste is much better!

The line at the deli was long, so I had a lot of time to look at the offerings. The lady ahead of me got some Polish sausage that looked absolutely divine, so my dinner plans changed. I’ll have the fettuccine tomorrow and will be dining on baguette, cheese, sausage, salad, and white wine tonight. Thank goodness you can buy wine at the grocery store here! I don’t have wine glasses or a cork screw, but I can run into the house and get some.

I always like to get a treat for the walk home from the grocery store and try make it a fruit I’ve never had before. Today, I noticed something called a pluot, which I’ve since learned is a cross between a plum and an apricot. Looking at the Wikipedia page, I am certain that the variety I had was a ‘Dapple Dandy.’ I wish I had bought more! It was so sweet and juicy, merging the best attributes of the plum and the apricot.

I’ll send the rest of the afternoon firming up my plans for the electrical upgrade. One of the things I need to decide on once and for all is where I want to locate the charging station for the small electronics, like the cell phone.

Part of me really wants it in the study, but my original idea of the living room makes more sense. I want to add a 120V outlet to the passenger side of the rig. If I’m going to do that, I might as well create a charging strip using a power bar that I can plug into the new 120V outlet or the inverter. My mother has a couple of ideas that sound good, so I will definitely listen to her input.

Whatever I do, I am bringing 120V power from the inverter to the study via a hardwired connection. We’ve traced the best path for the wiring under the rig and I’ll be putting under my desk a 120V outlet powered by the inverter.

So when I am off shore power, I’ll be able to unplug my power bar from the 120V outlet fed by shore power and plug it into the one fed by the inverter. End result, no more extension cord running from the inverter in the living room to the study. A whole house inverter continues to be an enticing idea, but this plan is less expensive.