T and I decided to make the big move back to the west coast, where we both definitely belong. Toronto is a great city for what it is, and I’ve made some really awesome friends there, but… I can’t handle another 8 month long stint below zero. That’s just too cold. I remember when I first announced that I wanted to go to Toronto to my dad:

“I’ve decided that Toronto would be a good place to finish my studies.”
“That’s great! But… you do know, it gets cold there.”
” …right. Snow, cold, yada yada.”
He paused and looked me straight in the eye as I passed him the salad bowl. “No.. It gets cold there.”
“I know! I know! I’ll have to buy a better coat.”
He stopped everything, took a long pause and burned a hole through my head with the seriousness in his stare and said, “You don’t know. It gets COLD.”
“…um.”

Well, he was right. A San Franciscan has no business living in Toronto.

Day One: What do you mean it takes 18 hours to get out of Ontario!?!?

First thing in the morning I grab Mr. Gray’s fancy harness and pop him in the truck with the both of us. The vet recommended that we keep him in a carrier with food, water, and some sedation to keep him less stressed… but being the crazy outdoor stray that he actually is we decided that he was more stressed out in the carrier than out, so we set up a nice pillow for him in between us and he turned out to be an angel. So off we went on our trek.

Going through the states with a cube van full of the three of us and all our belongings, regardless of the fact that it would’ve taken fewer days, was something that we decided might’ve been more trouble than it’s worth (customs is that much more annoying these days). So, going around Lake Superior was the thing to do. Obviously the universe wanted us to really hate Ontario by the time we left it so that we’d know we were making the right decision. We managed to get pulled over twice— once for speeding (and we were, so we deserved that) and once for not having a logbook. Wait, what…? Isn’t that only required for commercial drivers on a job? If he gave us a ticket for that then he’d have to give tickets to RVs and passenger cars who didn’t have logbooks. Well, he decided to take advantage of the fact that it would be near impossible for us to get back to Thunder Bay, ON to contest it so I guess he figured that we’d be like most Ontarians and just pay it even though there was no reason to give it to us. Douchebag. We’re not paying it, and instead launching a formal complaint against him. Ugh, there I go again…

Anyway, we stayed for the first night near Timmins, ON, which is just where it started to look like what Canada is supposed to look like.

Day Two: Okay, let’s aim to be in Manitoba for the night!

Fat chance. At least this arm of the trip was nice to look at… Northern Ontario is straight out beautiful. Nothing but trees and forest and more trees and forest. I got very excited because we kept seeing those cute yellow “moose crossing” signs. We managed to see one (very large) moose hanging out in the middle of the road at one point— he was just chilling out there and didn’t seem too phased about the large white truck that was slowing down in front of him (he was easily taller than the cab of the truck) but freaked out and ran into the bush once a bicyclist came up on the opposite side of the hill/road. I was too slow with my camera to take a decent picture.

The closer we got to Thunder Bay, Ontario, the prettier and more hilly it became. I’ve never seen so many lakes in one place in my entire life. The entire landscape looked like this picture to the right. I could definitely live there for the beauty, but that’s about it. No worries, I would soon be living in Vancouver— one of the most desirable places to live in the world, according to some polls I keep hearing referenced but still don’t know where they actually come from.

We also managed to see what I think must be the world’s largest Loon (though it’s missing all the pretty speckles that dapple the back of the actual bird, which sucks big time). I don’t remember what the name of the town we found it in was called, but it was very tiny and it was on Canada route 1 and hard to miss. Yes, you are in Canada now, kids.

By the end of the day we just barely made it to Kenora, Ontario. Whew… I wondered if we took the long way but no, it does actually take somewhere from 18-20 hours to get out of the province of Ontario. They weren’t kidding. In any case, we crashed and geared up for a major push the next day.

Day Three: Four Provinces in One Day! Beat That!

The next morning we awoke early and set up fresh kitty litter for the big push. Finally, we made it out of Ontario. We seriously were beginning to think that it couldn’t be done. I was pleased with the “Welcome to Manitoba” sign because it was shaped like the province. Unfortunately that was the only interesting province sign there was on the entire trip. Lame! In any case, Manitoba is a pretty… flat place. Everyone kept telling us that but really, it’s exactly the same as my dad telling me that I really don’t know anything about cold. That said, it was still fun to drive through, and we could see Winnipeg from a distance. PS: I had no idea that perogies were such a staple in the prairies.

Next we went through Saskatchewan, another very flat province. Unlike Manitoba, there were virtually no trees whatsoever but it was definitely more interesting. We passed salt flats which pressed on for miles in the distance. That’s a lot of salt… The amount of salt there was could probably season the dinners of every person in the world at least for a week. That is a good example of something that I definitely didn’t expect from Saskatchewan. Another surprise was just how beautiful flat can be when you’ve got a nice sunset. Epic!

We drove right through Regina and Moosejaw (Moosejaw having not only one of the coolest names, but probably the biggest moose statue in the world. This trip is all about oversized Canadian animal statues), and we can safely say that we got a feel for the town by driving through. According to my handy dandy Canada Lonely Planet guide, there’s a tonne of cool history revolving around Moosejaw (and consequently some cool things to do to learn about that cool history) so I’m sorry that we weren’t able to make the trip more of a mosey through the country rather than a straight move, but it was important not to stress out Mr. Gray too much. Although as you can see here he obviously didn’t care much about most things that were going on during the trip…

Day 3.5: Mr. Gray’s Escape

We stopped for the night in Medicine Hat, Alberta, which turned out to be quite the party town. It didn’t help that we were there on a Saturday night and that we had all had a long day, but Mr. Gray was really ready to be outside and not be in the truck any more so he was threatening to bolt. I had a good grip on him until we got into the hotel room where I figured that we were buckling down and not going to have to stress the poor cat out more. That was when there was a knock at the door and before I could get a hold of the cat T opened the door and he was gone in a flash of gray! Before I realised what happened, we began to run out to get him and remembered that we were in our underwear. Throwing on clothes as fast as we could we ran out and yelled for him. There was so much traffic and chaos that it aggravated the situation unbelievably. We searched almost all night but decided that it was impossible to find him in a city that we don’t know and that was that crazy.

Early the next morning we awoke from a pathetic attempt at sleep and looked again, hoping that the calm of the early morning would make it easier to find him and hear his little collar bell jingle, but we came back with nothing. I was hearing cats in my head and could’ve sworn that I heard the jingle a bunch of times, but it was definitely my imagination and my extreme hope of finding him.

Disheartened, and sure that we would probably not hear about him for months, if ever (he did have tags on him so if someone finds him they’d call), we left Medicine Hat hoping that he was at least okay.

200 kilometers later we stop the truck for fuel at a station/rest stop and get out. The drive was somber and quiet— I was holding back tears all morning and we were both exhausted from searching and a lack of sleep. Terrance got out to start fueling and I got out to stretch my legs and pee, when I heard a meow. I was pretty sure I was still hearing things until I caught a glimpse of Terrance’s face, which was sporting a look mixing confusion with awe that I’d never seen on his face before.

“…Did you hear that, too!?” I asked.
He nodded, “Yeah! Mr. Gray??”

I ran over to him and we both looked under the truck synchromoniously. I immediately burst into tears and started laughing/praising the gods— “Meow?” said Mr. Gray curiously. He was sitting on top of the gas tank underneath the box of the truck. Terrance was speechless and stood up with his hand over his mouth for a good minute, and then proceeded to tell everyone at the rest stop the miraculous story of Mr. Gray making damn well sure that we didn’t leave him behind by coming back, finding the truck, and securing himself on the gas tank for 200 frickin’ kilometers! I was still beside myself with relief that the crazy cat didn’t get hurt or thrown off on the highway and that the universe obviously wanted Mr. Gray to stay with us for some reason, so I sat on the floor, cried, prayed, and then talked with Mr. Gray until I could get him out and put him back up front in the cab with us.

Day 4: B.C. BABY!

Once again we were one complete happy family, so we continued on our path to our new Vancouver home. Alberta turned out to be a very nice province, and at first glance it reminded me very much of southwestern Germany’s cow fields full of super green grass, dandelions, cows, and alps (or in this case rockies) in the distance.

Calgary was another city that Canada’s route 1 basically just goes right through the downtown core, which I think is totally weird and not particularly useful when you’re trying to get somewhere beyond the city and you have to deal with downtown traffic and stop lights. But hey, it’s obviously a cool city and I’m sorry that we didn’t really get to spend time there. Everyone that I’ve known from Calgary is pretty awesome, and from Vancouver you could potentially get there in a long day of driving, so I can see myself going back there at some point. Alberta has some really cool dinosaur museums and that’s totally up my alley.

From the road just west of the city you can see the ski jumping slides from when the Olympics were in Calgary, which is crazy— I’ve never seen these things in real life and they are freakishly huge. I’d be terrified up there. Well, I will probably be seeing more and more of these silly Olympic things as the year wears on because this February the Olympics are being held in Vancouver. I’ll probably be sick of the event when all is said and done— let’s hope it creates some work for me! Mr. Gray on the other hand obviously didn’t care (as usual) but he was very happy not to be under the truck any more because he being cuter than he’s ever been before. What a dork.

Day Five: New Home Sweet Home

We stayed the night in Revelstoke, British Colombia, and I daresay that I’ve found the place that I want to live for the rest of my life. That little town is by far the most beautiful and peaceful little town and I fell in love with it right away. The only issue is that it’s kind of hard to get to unless you drive (if that can really be considered an issue in the long run), but once I’m all established in my career choice then I can be more flexible with where I live, and that’s it, baby.

The drive through the Rockies was beautiful. In fact it was so beautiful that pictures really don’t do it justice, so I’m only posting one of a particularly cool-looking crag to encourage you to drive through it yourself. Besides the beauty the ride was uneventful, and frankly we were glad for it after the day before.

We made it! Greetings from Vancouver! The road to real life lays ahead and I’m totally ready for it.

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