Hello, Goodbye
A tale of two sailors trying to figure out life ashore
Saturna Island is turning out to be a magical place to live. Yes, it rains a lot. Yes, it is gray much of the time during this season. But when the sun comes out, who knew this is what happens!
We spent one half of January getting to know our beautiful new Canadian island home, and the other half crossing the United States from one coast to the other, and one country to the other. It appears that our lives are now being defined by duality. Canada/America. Life on Möbius/life after. Atlantic/Pacific.
The title of this post comes from a song that those of us from my generation will remember, and I’ve found myself humming lately.
“You say yes, I say no, you say stop, and I say go, go go.”
It seems that when Paul McCartney wrote the song Hello, Goodbye, he was exploring not only duality as it appears in the universe, yes/no, stop/go, right/ wrong, man/woman, hello/goodbye; but also the randomness of it all.
Certainly part of embracing Serendipity means being willing to roll with the Randomness. That’s what I think about when I consider the past few weeks of life around at this place we’ve come to call RavensRidge. The original owners and builders named the house/cabin Raven, but we wanted to give the whole property a name, hence RavensRidge.
One of the things I have been adjusting to is cooking on the antique stove that came with the house. Called the Tappan Fabulous 400, it has a slide out set of four burners and was once the most modern technology available.
In order to get fully moved in here, and to eventually update this kitchen (sorry Tappan), we needed to go back out to Portsmouth, Virginia to collect our stuff that we had put in an 8 x 10 storage unit when we moved off Möbius. If you read the last newsletter I wrote, you will know that we were surprised right after Christmas when our offer on a used ambulance (that we intend to convert to an RV) was accepted. The ambulance, which we have named Lance, was located in Sterling, Illinois, so we devised a madcap plan to rent a small truck on a one-way rental, collect our stuff, drive to Illinois, move the stuff into Lance, and then drive back to Saturna Island in British Columbia… in January. What could go wrong, right?
First of all, we needed to get the tag and title for our new vehicle, and we were determined to get it registered as an RV. Technically, we remain residents of Florida, and we use the mail forwarding service St. Brendan’s Isle located in Green Cove Springs, FL as our address. Wayne spent weeks going through the DMV site and filling out forms, so we flew to Jacksonville, then drove to Green Cove Springs with all our paperwork. It was still a bit of a challenge, and it required getting new documents overnighted from Foster Coach in Illinois to us in Florida, but we did prevail! After successfully registering and getting our Florida license plate for our “Motor Home,” we flew to Norfolk, picked up our rental truck first thing in the morning, and drove to the storage place.
While we did have lots of crates and tools, having no furniture really does make things easier. We got away just past noon and we made it to Lewisburg, West Virginia before it got too dark, and too cold to continue.
As it was mid-January, we had resigned ourselves to having to stop for weather somewhere along our cross country trip. Our next stop was at my brother’s house in Indiana, and he had been warning us about the plummeting temperatures, school closings, and lake-effect snow storm that had just come through. Normally, we choose to avoid the Interstate highways, but for this trip we knew that was the best place for us. We found the roads were well-plowed and dry (mostly) all the way to Sterling, Illinois.
Lance is a 2016 medium duty ambulance on a Kenworth T-70 chassis with a Horton box. The engine is a Paccar PX7 300hp diesel engine (built by Cummins) with an Allison 5-speed automatic transmission. The truck was commissioned by the Pewaukee, Wisconsin FireDepartment and Foster Coach was the builder.
We are the second owners. Most fire departments have a set length of time their vehicles are in service, then when the FD is budgeted for a new vehicle, they sell off the old one. In this case, the original builder Foster Coach was selling it on behalf of the PFD since they were building the new rig for them. Sometimes the vehicles have a second life with another Fire Dept. or they go to work in the patient transport business.
HELLO LANCE
When we arrived Monday morning at Sterling, Illinois, Shawn Foster, one of three brothers who run the company their grandfather started, met with us and then walked us over to this huge garage where Lance was waiting. We had asked Shawn to have his guys remove all the decals that indicated it was an ambulance, and this was the first time we were seeing the vehicle we had purchased sight unseen.
After a couple of hours of walk through with Shawn, learning about the truck, he went back to work and we started transferring our stuff. We were so happy that we were able to work in a heated building.
We were ready to hit the road around noon, and we took off for the 80-mile drive backwards to Aurora where we had to drop off the rental truck. I drove the rental and followed Wayne in Lance. After a quick stop, I climbed into the cab and got my first chance to ride in our new rig. I pulled up our destination and Google Maps told me we had 35 hours and 2,207 miles to go to get home.
We’d be taking I-90 all the way. Wayne did almost all of the driving, but I wanted to see if I could manage the big rig. I did, but I gave up after about an hour. I have almost zero experience driving in snow and ice, so it probably wasn’t a good time to learn.
I had purchased RV/Medium Duty truck Roadside Assistance policy and it turned out we needed it on Day 2 when we discovered that our rig is out of fuel the minute the low fuel light comes, before it even gets close to the Empty line. We were 10 miles from our intended stop at Blue Earth, Minnesota (real name, I swear!) We called our service and the lady helping us called us back just as darkness was falling to tell us that she couldn’t find a single provider willing to bring us a can of diesel and the local police were not answering their phone! The temperature was about 28F and falling. I was starting to calculate where the down comforters were in the crates in the back, when she announced the was going to call 911. With us on the line, she called the local police, and they told her to call Doug and gave her the number.
We were parked about 200 feet from an off ramp and it turns out that the closest places were all 10+ miles west of us. Once they got on I-90 they would have to drive more than 20 miles past our location to make a U-turn to get back to us. She called Doug and he said hell, yeah. No problem. He’d just drive the wrong way down the off ramp and along the shoulder of I-90 and bring us our diesel in about 10 minutes. Wayne hung up with a smile and said, “I like Doug. He’s my kind of guy.”
The days were short and South Dakota is very long, so the next day we made it to Rapid City and called it a day. The weather was holding great and though it was cold, the roads remained dry and clear
One thing that driving across the US does, especially through the beautiful sparsely populated parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, it impresses upon you how huge and beautiful the North American continent is. We ended up being incredibly lucky with weather, even through the Rockies. Actually, it was only in the Cascades that we saw a bit of wet and dicey weather.
We had departed Sterling, Illinois on Monday, and we made it to Vancouver Saturday evening, too late to take the ferry to Saturna, so we stayed with our dear friend in the City. The next morning we were up early and waiting in line for the ferry with Lance’s big brothers and sisters.
RavensRidge has two driveways, and while Lance couldn’t quite make it up the main dirt (mud) drive, he has found his new home tucked into the trees on our second driveway.
Wayne has already started the interior demolition, but we have a long way to go. We have decided to completely gut the ambulance box down to the bare aluminum, so we can really insulate the heck out of it. He is working in Fusion 360, a 3D modeling program, to design the interior now that he has the actual vehicle here to get measurements as he needs them. It’s amazing how similar this process is to what we did in building Möbius. We need a water system, electric with solar, insulation, cabinetry, etc.
GOODBYE BARNEY
By now some of you might be wondering about the title of this post, Hello Goodbye. Life is serendipitous and random, and after Barney made this trip as navigator and co-pilot all across the US, one week later we had to say goodbye to the Yorkshire Terror, our dear boy due to an inoperable brain tumor. He had sailed the Bahamas with me on Talespinner, and he was the reason Wayne and I met. On Learnativity, he sailed from Majuro to Fiji to New Zealand, and on Möbius, he crossed the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The little guy probably had more miles under his harness than most bigger dogs and people. All I know is he has left behind an abundance of wonderful memories and a permanent hole in my heart.
Fair winds!
Christine
Hi Chris, what wonderful memories of Barney's amazing adventures. That he made it all the way home to Saturna before passing is poignant, yet seemingly important to have the serenity and tranquility of your island home to help ease your loss.
Wishing you all the best,
Sean
I'm sorry for your loss. I know how it feels. My two best friends (Twins Bichons–a boy and a girl) crossed the Rainbow Bridge last year within weeks of each other. They run free now in their doggy heaven. The boy was in a similar situation. I miss them everyday. They were the best as were the memories I made with them. They'll stay with me forever. Today, I have a new dog. She was a stray at some point and now he wakes me with kisses in the morning and a enlivening joy that makes my day. They all have a forever place in my heart. I love the place you two settled in, by the way. Happy writing!