Travels With Miranda

If you can find a copy of Ian and Sally Wilson’s Gold Rush: Reliving The Klondike Adventure In Canada’s North you will be able to quickly ascertain that I am a perfectly rational person.

I read this book straight through. It was funny, though provoking, informative, and incredibly entertaining.

The authors decided, on a whim, to try to relive the Klondike era. They spent a few months gathering the info necessary to set off for the Yukon via the Stikine Trail on horseback, with pack horses in tow, even though they had never ridden before. Their year led them over the Chilkoot Pass, down the Yukon River in a homemade barge, through the dead of winter in an isolated cabin, camping in forty below weather, and finally making contact with a modern-day miner living life 1890′s style.

The more I got into this incredible tale, the harder it became to scrape my jaw off the floor in amazement at what Ian and Sally Wilson did during their adventure.

Like me, the authors are people not afraid of doing something radical and not entirely well thought out, of setting off into the wilderness in search of their dreams, and of treating life like it’s meant to be one great big adventure after another. And, like me, a good attitude ensured a positive outcome.

I’ve got to find myself a husband like Ian.

Luxury is a relative term.

This concept is beautifully illustrated in one of my favourite books of all time, The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig. It is a memoir of the Siberian exile of a young Polish Jewish girl during WWII.

Ms. Hautzig wrote:

We were one of four lucky groups: Father found us living quarters in a corner of the room. In an utterly bare room, two walls to lean against, a corner to curl up into, were luxury.

I  was ten when I first read those words and they have followed me for twenty years, helping me appreciate what I have even while longing for more or better.

Tonight, I came home to find Tabitha in the study looking out the back window while Neelix was in the lounge looking out the window on the passenger side. Rather than disturb the cats by shutting the blinds, I was able to slide closed a solid wood door with a satisfying ‘thunk’, stretch out an accordion door, and change into jeans in a private room large enough to move about comfortably. I’ve discovered that in a less than 300 square foot RV, a dressing room is luxury.

Second only to Eureka, Peggy McDonald’s RV Packing Tips is a fantastic resource for full-timers trying to organize their couple of hundred square feet into a home! It is chock full of tips from real RVers for making the most out of the little space you have. In my case, I’m not desperate for space, but I’m desperate for ideas to better organize the space I have.

But this great ebook isn’t just about organizing; it is also filled with really useful RV tips. For example, the writers explain how to turn a broken fridge into a fancy icebox, information that I used in my early days on the road when I couldn’t get the fridge to work because of battery issues.

What I like best is the amount of life experience that is expressed in this e-book. The author isn’t afraid of sharing her mishaps so that others can avoid making the same mistakes. At only 12.95$, it’s a bargain, and it once saved my car.

Have you ever heard of ‘shunpiking’? I hadn’t until I read Marianne Edwards three books about frugal boondocking and shunpiking through the southern US, appropriately called RV Travel Guides: The Frugal Shunpikers Guides To America. They will show you how to winter cheaply in the U.S. in your RV.

I was very impressed by all four of these books, one each for New Mexico, Arizona,  Texas, and Utah. They detail suggested routes for touring these states, complete with boondocking spots along the way.

Of particular interest to Canadians is that fact that Marianne is a Canadian! I’ve heard great things about how cheap it is to boondock in New Mexico, but her book on the state is the only resource I’ve found that explains in detail how a Canadian can benefit from the New Mexico parks policy.

Complete with a comprehensive table of contents and index, maps, and pictures, these e-books are very professionally designed. My favourite part is the ‘tips’ sidebars.

The books will also appeal to campers (ie. tenters) as Marianne offers plenty of information for them, too.

In addition to boondocking information, she also offers suggestions for what to see and how to get there. In short, all four books about frugal shunpiking through the southern US are comprehensive tomes on how to get to the state and tour the state frugally while making sure that you see what needs to be seen.

Even though Marianne writes from years of experience on the subject, she still doesn’t purport herself to be an expert on the subject, but rather makes it clear that the books are based on her family’s experience. They therefore make good travelogues also, even if they are not written in that style.

As a bonus, if you buy all four books at once you get a fifth bonus book, Basic Boondocking: A Frugal Shunpiker’s Guide!

Marianne and her husband travel in a small class B camper van, so different from my spacious class C. I still found a lot of the information to be relevant to me. Ontario boondockers and snowbirds will benefit from reading the section about OHIP coverage. Two pictures in this book will sell you on the concept of boondocking and alone are worth getting this book. One shows the view when boondocking in the southern US, while the other shows the view when staying in a campground.

The holiday season will soon be upon us and I believe that RV Travel Guides: The Frugal Shunpikers Guides To America would make a fantastic gift for the RVer in your life or even the armchair traveler.

Reading

I’ve been spending the bulk of my ‘on duty’ hours in the evenings sitting in the front room. This is so I can see who comes in after hours and greet them without their having to come knock on my door. The other after hours host is right in the entrance, so she can be anywhere in her RV and see who has arrived. I’m worried that I’ll be asked to move Miranda since one day new arrivals had to knock at my door (I got caught in the bathroom, but what proof of that do I have?!). So, anyway, there isn’t much to do in the front room other than reading. I’ve therefore been going through books at a speed I haven’t since high school. The day before yesterday, the other after hours host caught me raiding the bookshelf in the laundry room and informed me that the Oliver library gives cards to RVers wintering in the area! I went there yesterday and had no problem getting my card! They have a decent collection for such a small library, including a teeny French section that held the most recent book by my favourite author, Arlette Cousture! I came out with a pile (okay, seven) books; some novels and some non-fiction, including a pictorial history of Cary Grant. WOOHOO!

Writing

Sunday morning, I have to write up my first newsletter as Guests Activities Coordinator. This is the part of my job description I’m lukewarm about. I’m not convinced that a twenty-something year old is the right person to figure out things for retirees to do. Hopefully, I’ll find enough inspiration in previous years’ activities folders to satisfy the requirements of the position.

Arithmetic

I was at Walmart this morning looking for two more heaters: a teeny, inexpensive one for the toilet room and a larger oil-filled one for the main room (recommendation from the other after hours host who has been here for a year). Croft brilliantly suggested that I plug one of my heaters into the 15A receptacle on the my pedestal, so I just had to make sure that the oil filled heater wasn’t going to be more than 15A. A lot of heaters I’ve looked at had the wattage printed right on the box, but not this one. So, I had to completely unpack it to get to the manual at the bottom of the box (who packs these things?!). I got some strange looks from other customers, but no one from Walmart bugged me. The heater wound up having a wattage of 600 to 1500, or 5 to 12.5A. So, it would be fine on the 15A circuit. Now, the second heater. My current heater uses 12.5A. My iMac uses 1A. That leaves me 17A. The little heater I bought has a wattage of 900 to 1500, or 7.5 to 12.5A. Obviously, I’ll need to leave that one on the minimum setting, but that still leaves me with 9A for operating anything else; enough, but not so much that I’ll be able to turn on ‘anything else’ without thinking about it (note to self, unplug a heater before running the vacuum cleaner or printer!!). As I was figuring all of this out at Walmart, I kept flashing to the scene in ‘Apollo 13′ where the Gary Sinise character is trying to figure out how to reduce power consumption on the crippled ship. I finally understand what that scene is all about now.