People keep asking us how we arrived in Halifax in the middle of a pandemic……
Note to self….never try and plan your life more than 6 months ahead….the world will punish you for trying….
Over a year ago this past May in 2019…my wife and I hatched a plan that when executed, would allow us to spend a couple years working together in Calgary before I retired and after she graduated with her Bachelor Degree in Interior Design. The plan had merit…we had time to pack a few pennies away to allow for an easier transition into our role reversed life…choose which coast to live on and simply move when the time was right.
The first curve came just weeks after the plan was devised when the employer I worked for, decided that I would have ten months of “transition” into a forced retirement. Okay…we can do this…hopeful for a good retirement package and the possible need for a part time job…we forged ahead.
More scotch and more planning/research.
After deciding on Halifax, the next step was lining up movers and setting up the dates. We booked plane tickets and started looking into safe ways to get our asthmatic cat to Halifax in one piece.
Cue the ominous music….
Coronavirus …sounds like it might be an issue but no worries…we live in Canada….what could possibly go wrong?
First hurdle…movers notified us they weren’t available on our dates but could help us out in about 30 days…so the late April move now became late May.
Westjet decided that they weren’t going to fly direct to Halifax and cancelled our flight. Again…no issue and we booked for a later date…direct.
Our cat….our beloved fur ball already diagnosed with asthma…becomes diabetic. Now we have no choice but to fly direct as the vet wasn’t optimistic that we could keep the cat alive even sedated for more than 6-7 hours in a small carrier. No problem…confirmed with Westjet…all good.
Back to the movers…..yep….can’t make the date we wanted but gave us an absolute, positively maybe for June 3….good to go.
Cue Westjet ….ooops…did we say direct…we meant a connecting flight thru Toronto with a 5 hour layover….with a small asthmatic, diabetic cat……..in a carrier……..now for close to 15 hours……yeah no.
Plan B, C and D were quickly escaping us.
More late night scotch induced planning….why don’t we rent a small RV?….We can stay isolated and take our time?….cat should be good right? Google to the rescue and the momentum again shifted to the great Canadian Road Trip….sigh.
I planned the trip with military precision…camp sites booked…routes itemized out and even spoke to a couple of my trucker friends who were already driving the route so we knew where the best spots were to stop if we needed to. Now the good news was I planned this all out…but the bad news was that I had sold this idea to my beautiful wife as a leisurely drive across the country in our self contained home on wheels.
Needless to say once we started out and the anxiety of traveling in a pandemic set in, the leisure component went out the window and my eyes were fixed on nothing more than the Nova Scotia border. We had planned on sharing the driving but the cat was not as calm as we had hoped to start out so Jenn spent most of the journey sitting in the back holding onto the carrier keeping the cat company.
When we hit the Ontario border we knew things were just a little different than anywhere else and we had to question whether or not these folks even knew there was a pandemic on the go. Social distancing was non-existent and our anxiety began to climb even further. As we pulled into our campsite on day three, the manager from the campsite for Day 4 fired off an email to me stating that our reservation was no longer valid as he did not interpret the “transient” camping guidelines in the same way the other campgrounds had and we left Sturgeon Falls the next day with no where to stop that night.
In hind site it was at this point that I should have noticed that my wife was starting to look at me funny…not in a sense of admiration or caring….she was indeed plotting my demise. She had enough of my military planning but did not say anything at that point….not sure why.
So onward we pushed …driving across Quebec like we stole the RV and made it to the New Brunswick border just before 10 pm…………yes…….a lot of miles….in a not so leisurely fashion. After a 45 minute interrogation we finally convinced the border patrol to let us carry on and off we went into a moonlit night.
Ah the romance……..yeah……no.
I now noticed that my wife was truly agitated by my desire to move on so I started looking for a safe haven to park and rest a bit…she did not share my enthusiasm when I did discover a truck stop…pulled in and went to bed hoping for 2-3 hours of sleep. It was made very clear to us by the border patrol that we were not supposed to stop…but we needed to rest. Two hours later after a quick nap (and by nap I mean I slept but Jenn did not) we are on the road again…me feeling recharged and energized…my beautiful wife feeling trapped and homicidal. After my wife began to tell me she saw large rabbits running alongside the RV…I was instructed once again to stop. We pulled into Fredericton about 4 in the morning….I have now been instructed that if we don’t find a safe place to rest, my retirement might come to a swift and bitter end. So after a couple failed attempts we settled on the Regent Mall parking lot and crashed there until 6am.
After waking and back in daylight we realized that we were parked directly across from a MacDonalds and a Tim Hortons ….score! My wife has a gluten allergy and loves MacDonalds hash browns….I could get back in her good books with a coffee and some deep fried yumminess. Nope….they weren’t open even thought we could see staff coming in and out of the store….so we drove around the parking lot and tried to shame them into feeding us with no success. Off to Timmies we go!
So…back on the road knowing we are in the home stretch and I can sense the excitement. We power on not stopping for anything other than gas and the odd bathroom break …oh…did I forget to mention the military precision thing….yeah …I’m part camel it appears and can go for very long stretches without stopping….my bride……oh not so much.
Finally we see the big Nova Scotia welcome sign and line up expecting to be grilled again as we were in New Brunswick.
“Good morning sir…where you headed?”
“Halifax”, I replied… (At this point we fully expected to have to produce all the paperwork that the New Brunswick folks had requested but….)
“Here are your isolation guidelines…have a safe drive.”
The look of disbelief on my face must have been hilarious. I quizzed the officer on if they needed to see anything from us…but his response was simple…if you made it through New Brunswick you are good to go here.
Happy dancing in my seat and the journey continued.
So…we arrive at our new apartment and get all settled in as best we can. Two lawn chairs and a couple air mattresses were all we had….furniture was still 7-10 days out…but we were here, safe with the cat.
Now…if any of you ever meet my wife…please ask her for her version of the trip…it may be slightly more accurate and a great deal more humorous than mine….and I thank my lucky stars every night that she allowed me to live….kinda like it here….