Abbotsford

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Out of the Fishbowl

What a difference this morning…

I didn’t want to blog too much about this when I was at Nk’Mip, but the long term residents there were nosy and gossipy. At first, I thought it was just me, being a young single woman with Yukon plates, but others experienced the same thing. I couldn’t do anything without someone in the park commenting on it. When I opened my blinds in the front room to paint, someone knocked on the door to comment that the yellow would affect my resale value! When I had all pallets and the mattress down in the library, someone knocked to find out why I was making such a mess! My water management strategy was always under scrutiny, and when someone saw me watering my batteries he made sure to come over and treat me like I’m an idiot. Couple that with the lackadaisical management and I have no intention of returning there. It’s a shame because it’s a truly lovely park in a good setting and reasonable prices.

Tradex, located at the Abbotsford Airport, has thus far proved to be surprisingly quiet. I awoke to sun and minus 4, so, being out in the middle of a big open field, I was able to open the curtains to let some of the golden rays in. Looks like we’re supposed to climb to plus five today and keep climbing. Yaaaaaay.

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Appearance at 2011 Early Bird RV Show in Abbotsford

And now for the big reveal of my OTHER secret project, one that has been in the works since early last summer.

I have been invited to talk about full-time RV life in Canada at the 2011 Early Bird RV Show at Tradex in Abbotsford, BC.

The show will be on from Thursday the 3rd to Sunday the 6th inclusively. I will be speaking twice a day over the four days.

I attended the Early Bird RV Show in 2009 and can attest that it is a fun place to spend a weekend. There are tons of RVs to see, new products to try out, and loads of interesting seminars. The show is a non-profit organization, so all proceeds are donated to charity. Come check it out if you’re in the neighbourhood.

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A Day Out of Time

Oy… If it was a long day for me, I can only imagine how my friend, who got up at 4AM EST must be feeling!

After a morning of work, I drove out to Abbotsford to pick her up. Abbotsford International (YYX) is just about equi-distance to the Richmond Airport (YVR) from South Surrey/White Rock but more convenient to get to and flights on Westjet are cheaper. The terminal is tiny, making the airport easy to navigate, and parking is inexpensive. I’m really glad that the RV show I went to in January was at the Abbotsford airport because I would have otherwise not known that it would be so convenient to pick up my friend there.

She is staying at the Seacrest Motel and RV Park in White Rock, a location I scouted out for her. It is a great spot. It’s almost right on the ocean, but much cheaper than places directly on the main drag and still walking distance to touristy Marine Drive. She has a huge suite with bedroom, living area, kitchenette, and bathroom. The kitchenette is fully equipped with everything she could need to make a meal and everything is spotlessly clean. I’m a bit fussy when it comes to motel cleanliness and this place passed muster. First order of business, then, was to go get her a few groceries.

What about the RV Park, you ask. Well, I checked it out and didn’t feel it was worth moving to it just to save a hundred fifty dollars. The ‘park’ is really an uneven and extremely unlevel slab of asphalt with very tight spots. They admit to this fully, marketing themselves as a cheap place to park your RV while you enjoy the beach. It would have been okay for a month if they had wi-fi, but since they didn’t I decided to stick to my current cushy digs.

I hadn’t had lunch and her body had no idea what time it was, so we decided to go for an early dinner. The day had started off cloudy, with threats of rain, but by four o’clock it was sunny and warm. We decided to park my car at the motel and then walk down Marine Drive in search of food.

It’s a good thing I hadn’t checked out restaurant reviews prior because if I had there is no way we would have gone to Charlie Don’t Surf. I don’t care what the reviews say, I would give up cooking and eat there every night! I have rarely enjoyed such a perfect meal. My friend had lobster ravioli in a mildly spicy sauce, all of which was delicious. I had a huge salmon steak seared to perfection with cajun spices served on a bed of rice seasoned with cumin (an inspired combination that I will try at home!). With this, I had a heaping helping of glazed carrots and perfectly cooked broccoli, cauliflower, and asparagus. I thought that I didn’t like asparagus but as it turns out, I’ve just never had it properly cooked! Nearly replete, we stopped off for ice cream on the way home.

According to my friend, this day is going to be hard to top, but we’re just getting started! I have big plans for tomorrow, which is supposed to be the nicest of the weekend. Even if it ends up raining all weekend, just having this perfect evening was enough.

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Living in a Gangsta’s Paradise

Since moving to Surrey, there has been almost daily news about new gang-related violence and mayhem and more murders than I am accustomed to hearing about in a whole year!

I was warned before moving here that Surrey is renown for its crime rate. As I expected, the violence is pretty much localized to a particular part of town. I am glad that I made the decision to remain in the southernmost part of Surrey and do not believe I would feel quite as safe in a ‘mid-town’ RV park such as Peace Arch, but I don’t feel threatened. That said, I am very aware of where I travel and at what time, and I have to confess that one of the reasons why I’ve decided to stop taking public transit is that the Skytrain Station is located in gangland and waiting for a bus in the dark made me nervous. Petty crime is also a major problem all through the GVR, so I am doubly cautious when parking the car, taking the GPS with me and leaving the trunk cover (I have a hatchback) open to make it obvious that I’m not trying to ‘hide’ anything. A BC politician recently stashed all her personal gear (passport, Blackberry, wallet, etc.) in her trunk and lost it all, so I’m not being overly cautious!

What is sad is to listen to how hopeless people feel about the violence in their city. Neighbouring Abbotsford is facing a similar challenge the police have admitted their powerlessness to deal with this growing problem. There is also the concern that the perpetrators are getting younger and younger. A boy of 13 was arrested this week after stabbing a man on the Skytrain!

Despite all of this, I am getting less and less timid about this place that scared me so much. The next nice weekend (definitely not this one 🙁 ), I am going to downtown Vancouver! I’ll just make sure I stay on the west side of Hastings!

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2009 Early Bird RV Show in Abbotsford

I was up up and at ’em at first light and in line to enter the 2009 Early Bird RV Show in Abbotsford at 10:11AM this morning. Game plan was to spend two hours poking around and visiting various rigs, do some shopping, have lunch, revisit some exhibits, and then catch the 2PM seminar on travel to the Northwest Territories. The day went according to plan.

Since there was a lot of ground to cover, I decide to stick to visiting class As and Cs and leave curiosity visits of Bs, trailers, 5ers, toy haulers, and campers to the end.

The first thing that struck me is how unimpressed I was by the offerings. I toured class As worth a quarter of a million dollars and couldn’t believe that they have particle board doors and cheap RV-style faucets, not to mention cramped bathrooms and no oven. The class Cs weren’t much better; there was nothing that could be considered an ‘upgrade’ to Miranda. Except one. Of course there had to be one.

I didn’t even have to enter this rig to start getting shivers down my spine. It looked exactly like what I’d envisioned my next motorhome would, with a chocolate brown base paint and sandy accents. Touring it made me realise that I could have my ‘dream rig’ for at least a third of the price of a bus conversion. It’s a Jayco Seneca HD 36MS. This coach is a diesel class C.

I’d looked at diesel class Cs last summer, but there just weren’t that many on the market then and even a used one was cost prohibitive. The 2009 Jayco Seneca isn’t cheap, but I could easily see myself being able to afford a gently used one in two or three years. This model I looked at was a long term, full-timer’s home, complete with two bathrooms (ensuite plus powder room), huge kitchen, and a couple of places to set up a home office. It has slides, something that is a bad idea on a gas class C, but a non-issue on a diesel model because the carrying capacity for this unit is a whopping 3,000lbs and towing capacity is 15,000lbs. It is fully winterized and is a 50 amp rig.

While I was touring it, a salesman came up to me and I asked him about some specs such as the CCC and we started to chat. I told him that this was the only rig in the whole show that had even remotely impressed me. He replied that I must be an RV owner then (something that surprised everyone I talked to today) and I acquiesced. He complimented me on doing such a great job with buying my first rig. We had the following conversation (paraphrased, of course):

Him: So, what do you have?
Me: A Glendale Royal Classic.
Him: That’s what I used to sell until they stopped making them!
Me: (yeah, right)
Him: It’s no wonder you’re not impressed with anything else! Let me guess, you have the 31′ model? Computer desk set up in the back bedroom and you sleep in the cab? (question based on my asking him earlier if the Jayco Seneca was available without the over cab entertainment centre)
Me: Yep.
Him. Oak floors, oak cabinet doors, solid room doors, normal proportioned bathroom, house-style faucets… Geeze, the next guy who’s going to try to sell you an RV is going to have met his match.
Me: (holy cow, this guy actually was telling the truth)
Him: Do you have the puke green or the purple interior?
Me (laughing): Puke green. Purple was the year after.
Him: Sorry!

LOL!!!

I gladly took his brochure and card (who knows, hell could freeze over tonight and cause me to buy a lottery ticket which could wind up a winner!), then went off to shop at the mini Camping World-style store set up near the entrance. I had my wish list with prices on it, so I knew it wouldn’t take long to determine if the prices at the RV show were inflated or not. To give you an idea of what prices were like, I got my Dri-Z-Air AND a huge jug of crystals for less than the price of one Dri-Z-Air at Canadian Tire! I also picked up a rollable cutting mat and a step stool, as well as other small kitchen sundries.

Lunch was also very good and very reasonably priced. It was nice to sit for about a half hour and catch the tale end of a seminar on sustainable RVing.

After lunch, I sated my curiosity by touring campers, class Bs and one really impressive toy hauler that would make me reconsider my love of motorhomes! The unit is a full home with a garage in the back. The garage actually looks like a garage and is accessed from the kitchen like a garage. I saw some other models where the rear of the unit could be converted to garage-like space by moving bunks and rolling a special floor covering, but this was the only unit that had a dedicated garage. Very cool! I found the campers had really neat bathrooms where the shower was the bathroom itself. I guess you can’t leave anything on a counter in one of those!

The seminar on NWT travel was disappointing since the facilitator wasn’t a skilled public speaker, the content was too general, and there really wasn’t anything about RVing per se. I still got an idea of some places to visit and how I should structure my summer (be in the Yukon by the end of May, work all of June, travel all of July, and start heading back south in August).

Finally, I discovered at a booth that there is such a thing as an RV Technician Apprentice Programme!!! I’m going to do quite a bit of research on this because it could be the key to full-timing freedom… even if it would mean spending next winter in the Okanagan again (cue in music from ‘The Shining’).

So, in short, a very nice, full day at a great and affordable RV show, and lots to mull over as I continue to accept the fact that I am truly in this for the long haul.