Le voyage

The last week has mercifully flown by. January 11, exactly one week ago, three men arrived at our house to painstakingly pack each one of our belongings into boxes. We have been packed and shipped several times, and it has never taken two whole days to pack our stuff before. Yes, I’m sure we’ve acquired a bit more stuff than we’ve had in previous moves, but not THAT much. I’m glad we made all those trips to Goodwill and the ReStore, and unloaded so many other things to those willing to pay a fair price (or less).

I don’t remember being SO exhausted after having someone else pack our belongings before moving. The packers asked a lot of questions (No, they did not ask why we had so much crap). By the end of Thursday I was ready to throw everything away-or just leave it with the house.

We had grand visions of having the house clean by the time L arrived home after his last day at school. We didn’t finish cleaning and leave our house for the last time until 7, however. The drive through Michigan was fairly uneventful...especially if you ask L. He remembers nothing of the dog puke and several stops along the way for dog potty emergencies. Apparently we hadn’t made our travel plans clear to Ellie as well as we had assumed.

 After visiting with my family and dropping off a few items we won’t need for a couple of years, we headed for the border. Although we thought we had all of our papers in order, we were still a bit nervous about making it through Customs. Nick was “interrogated” by a Canadian customs officer to determine what made him think he was more suited to do his job than a Canadian.

The area between Sarnia and Toronto is surprisingly rural…kilometers and kilometers of nothing but landscape. They could at least put up some billboards, eh? We stopped just east of Toronto for Nick to meet his new boss. On the way out of the office building, L bumped his head as he was wiggling his loose tooth and popped it right out! The handful of paper towels Nick grabbed to help L tidy up after his tooth extraction became useful when we got out to the car and  discovered Ellie’s intestinal discomfort spread throughout the interior. Note to self; when traveling with a dog, always use old (potentially disposable) towels for bedding. I am now extremely fond of leather car interior. Although it was surprisingly easy to clean the front seats, I’m still hesitant to turn on the seat heaters.

We arrived in Montreal on Tuesday afternoon just in time for rush hour. We were able to unload some of our stuff into a storage locker and ditch the trailer. After picking up Nick’s company car and finding some dinner, we attempted to find the hotel (1) in separate vehicles, (2) at night, (3) in a new BIG city, (4) in a snowstorm. Oh, and one of us had a child who felt the need to announce a potty emergency 10 minutes before our ETA at the hotel. He did not entertain my idea of relieving himself in the empty drink container next to him. Thanks to Garmin, we both arrived at the hotel without incident. We felt like the Wisconsin Hillbillies hauling in bags and bags of clothing, food, and other various needed items. Poor Ellie got her foot stuck under an opening door in the commotion. Although she did not utter as much as a wimper, her poor little foot left little red footprints on the carpet and white bedspread of our hotel room…which we ended up leaving after a few minutes when we discovered that the room had no stove.

After settling into our final destination (for a couple of weeks anyway), Ellie closed her eyes and pretended she was back in her outside kennel where everything was predictable, and therefore better.

We are settled in our hotel watching the Simpsons in french. Trailer returned, stuff in storage, and Nick's car obtained. Tomorrow: meet with St. Lambert Elementary school and get our wireless router out of storage. This is our second hotel without wifi....