Home

My brain is hardly working now. After leaving Drummondville, Quebec, we spent two days driving back to Moncton and two nights sleeping in the van in Wal Mart parking lots.

At first, I felt stiff and cramped in the van when trying to sleep and I didn’t sleep very well. Plus, Morgane kept crying and kicking in her sleep and we could hear it since her bed is our roof! By the third night, I felt more like melting cheese. I could ooze into practically any space and fall asleep.

We spent a bit of time in Fredericton. Then it started to rain, hard. It was crazy trying to set up the van without putting anything or anybody outside. We put up the pop-top, put Morgane in it, folded down the back seat, pulled the clothing bins from the back and piled them in a stack as high as the roof, tried not to step on the dog, folded out the rest of the bed, sweated (it was bloody hot!), swore as Ghis unfolded the mattress in my face, pulled out our bedding and made the bed, then decided there wasn’t space to do anything but sleep, went to bed without an inch to spare!

We spent a lot of time this morning looking for a place where we could fill the van with propane (for the fridge, stove and furnace). At almost all the places where there was propane, something was broken or out of order or it was closed. It was crazy! We must have tried ten places. Finally we got it filled. Luckily, it shouldn’t need to be filled very often at all.

Now we are in Nova Scotia, in Amherst, on our way to Cape Breton. We are in the library where Morgane has the kid’s section all to herself. And free internet for us!

Can’t think of much else to say (brain is too numb), but we are hoping to find somewhere nice (not Wal Mart) to settle down for the night, somewhere we can hang out and cook and enjoy ourselves. We are also trying to start Morgane’s homeschooling. She’s reading now, so I can’t complain about that!

Morgane lost another tooth tonight. We’re all glad because for the last two days she refused to close her mouth for fear of dislodging it and she kept making these slurp-slurp noises. It came out on a piece of corn. Unfortunately it got wrapped in a napkin and then tossed out with the dinner trash. I found a rock that resembled her lost tooth, but felt bad about fooling her, so I told her the truth. Now that she knows I’m the tooth fairy, maybe it doesn’t matter. So that makes two teeth lost in Quebec and two on Prince Edward Island.

Tonight we are all sleeping in the van for the first time. We’ve taken it out to the park for a couple of meals, but tomorrow we are hitting the road again. Back to Moncton (ack!). Morgane is already installed in the pop-top. My only fear is that the bed below will be a bit narrow for Ghis and I to share. On cold nights, it will be a blessing though.

A bit of a scare regarding the transmission. We thought it needed work that would cost $4000 and couldn’t be scheduled for another three weeks. But it looks like it’s not necessarily a problem. So, off we go to Cape Breton.

Before we go tomorrow, we have to clear out a place in Ghis’s dad’s garage so we can store our car. And we finally have insurance for our van after almost every company refused to insure us if we were going to be out of the province for more than 7 weeks. Oh, the challenges of the road.

The upside of having a van is that you can let your child sleep in the parking lot of the hospital while you wait 8 hours for a doctor to see her. All right, it wasn’t even 8 hours, but that’s what they warned us it would be and that’s what I was steeling myself for.

It was Morgane’s third night of fever. The advil worked during the day, but she had trouble sleeping at night. We decided it was time to see a doctor. We got to the hospital at midnight and Ghis and Morgane went to sleep in the van while I watched a movie about Quebec explorers in Antarctica. Then I looked at old photos, ate a few snacks from the vending machines and finally stretched out and dozed a bit on the waiting room chairs.

The doctor saw her at about 4am. She said she has hand, foot and mouth disease (not the same one that animals get). It’s a virus and a common one for kids under age 10. What it means is that Morgane’s throat is really sore and her fever may last awhile longer.

Today she was mellow, but mostly off the Advil. Tonight she had chicken soup and is watching retro cartoons on TV, curled up on the couch with Ginger, Anne-Marie’s dog. “Uppy-Puppy,” she says when Ginger gets off the couch. Anne-Marie has been our host for the past week and a bit. We are very grateful – even though she is in the middle of renovations, she has fit us into her basement and on top of that, she has great front-loading washing machines!

In the meantime, Ghis has been spending his days getting a few things on the van looked at. Today he got the propane system cleaned up – the fridge, stove and heat run off of propane.

Everything seems long lately. It’s hard to get things done when you’re not in your own space and own stuff. But hopefully that will be over soon.

This may be our next woofing location: www.marklandresort.com

It’s in Cape Breton. It seems so far away right now, but we could be there soon.

We were all sick today. Ghis got a cold first. This morning I felt it and went back to bed. During the night, Morgane woke up with a fever. Hopefully, we’ll be in better shape tomorrow.

Ghis wants to drive the van to Sherbrooke to get the radio installed and get the box put on the roof. We also have to buy plastic bins for our clothes and a few other things. If all goes as planned, we’ll be ready to hit the road Wednesday. I can’t wait!

Today we went to Montreal to see Morgane’s best friend from school last year. The girls were happy to climb the monkey bars, eat pizza and cake, and play with their toys together. We went to the cupcake shop and there were no cupcakes today! So we had to eat cake. Sigh.

Morgane and Ghis headed back to Drummondville while I met up with my great friend, Guylaine, who I hadn’t seen for far too long! We had a kid-free picnic in the park eating empanadas from the little place she’s been telling me about for ages. It was a lovely spot except for the little dog who, wet from swimming in the pond, kept romping all over our blanket and food while his owner didn’t seem to care. I would’ve liked to torpedo the dog across the pond, but it’s really not its fault and the owner was too heavy to toss.

Ghis slept in the van in Rigaud and left at 5am to arrive in Montreal as we were waking up this morning. We are going to take it to a park and eat corn on the cob with Ghis’s family to celebrate Morgane’s birthday.

Yesterday Morgane turned seven. “You’ve been waiting a long time for this,” I said. “Yeah, seven years,” she replied. One of her presents is a French knitting kit. She is proud of herself for learning how to do it. Our friends also got her markers for drawing on the windows of our Westfalia (special markers, of course).

And today we picked up a package from grandma and grandpa in Vancouver and Morgane loved her new puppy and pink silk plaything. And thanks to the pirate party kit, we will make pirate cupcakes and snacks for Saturday! Maybe we should have a party titled: “It’s all fun and games till someone loses an eye,” and we can all wear pirate eye patches. Ha ha! Her grandpa in Toronto sent her a present, too, but it is on PEI, so we will get it forwarded to our next destination.

Today Ghis is picking up the Westfalia. He has already signed the papers so it’s ours. Now he has to wait for the mechanic to finish working on the air conditioner and then he can drive it back to Drummondville where we are patiently waiting. We can’t wait to be inside it!

On our second day of shopping, we found our Westfalia. It’s a ’99 and we’re going to pick it up tomorrow. We found it in a beautiful corner of the world in between Ottawa and Montreal on the Quebec side. The pop top has windows on both sides and the front. There is also a mosquito net room that attaches to the door, air conditioning, a thermostat for propane heating, a fridge, gas stove, etc. We are going to take VERY good care of it.

There are two tables that can be installed in front of the bench and the driver and passenger seats swivel around so four can sit at the table. Morgane already has dibs on the pop-top bed. I forgot to take a picture of the pop-top. Will send one soon.

After we saw the Westfalia, we had to drive back to Drummondville. We wanted to avoid Montreal because of rush-hour traffic, so we ended up taking a route that was very pleasant and included a ferry ride. Unfortunately, it took us six hours! So we were pretty wiped by the time we arrived.

Today is Morgane’s birthday and we are going to do fun stuff. Sunny and beautiful out. My allergies are killing me. I remember why I can’t stay in Quebec in September.

We’re back in Drummondville after an eight-hour drive from Moncton. Tomorrow Ghis and I are going to visit a bunch of camper vans and hopefully buy one soon!

Surprise party for Morgane on Saturday. She sort of knows, but has promised to forget.

Saturday Ghis found out that we’d need to go back to Quebec if we bought the van – a temporary permit would only last a month. So we realized our plans would have to change. Would we buy the van and go back to Quebec? Or would we go shop for the Westfalia we really wanted? We didn’t know, so we went to the movies.

When we came out of the movies, it was raining hard. In the afternoon, water had gotten into Morgane’s tent and we were sure it would only be worse now. Plus, the campsite had posted a warning to boil all the water. Also, the weather office had issued an extreme rainfall warning for the night.

We got a room at a nearby Hampton Hotel where everything was extremely luxurious. We stayed dry and comfortable and had some time to ponder our situation.

In the morning, Morgane got to try the waterslide in the hotel’s pool. She and Ghis also met the owners of nearby Magic Mountain waterslide park and they generously gave us free tickets for the afternoon.

In the end, we decided to rest one more night in the hotel and then to drive back to Quebec. We are making appointments to look at Westfalias (or Eurovans) with pop-tops. Once we have one, we will be better equipped for our trip and we will re-evaluate our plans to go to Newfoundland.

The bad news is that we have to backtrack and may not get to Newfoundland, but the good news is Morgane will get to spend her birthday (Sep. 3) surrounded by familiar faces.