Let the planning begin!

Now, most people, when they are new to something like RVing would plan a couple of short, weekend rips to get used to living aboard and properly supplying the rig. Not us!! Our first real trip is a doozy! From home in Ontario to Grand Prairie Alberta. A whopping 4000 kilometers! But then Connor is at the end of that adventure.

One might think that travelling in an RV is as simple as just jumping in and driving off. Nothing is further from the truth! When planning our big adventure the first thing that we had to do was plot a route. Originally we planned to go west to Toronto then north through Barrie on the way to Sudbury. From there the shores of Lake Superior and on to Thunder Bay. From there it would be a diagonal cut through the Prairies. I got our first 3 nights planned and then Rick talked to some friends who had also traveled out west and we started to look at cutting through the upper US states.Ultimately that was the route we chose and I spent hours with Google maps and various web sites sorting out places to stay over night. Going across the border complicated things a little bit as there are restrictions around what foods you can bring into the US. I had to plan a shopping trip for as soon as we crossed the border so we would have enough supplies to last the trip.

The week before we were to leave was a flurry of activity with lots of last minute things to do. Deciding what to bring in terms of clothing was, in itself, a challenge. September can be a fickle month where you are in shorts one day and long pants and a sweatshirt the next so I had to pack a mix of items. We also had to be sure of our route as I could only have enough meat on board to get us through Canada, Anything more would likely be taken by US Customs. That lead to the first modification of our travel plans. We decided to make the crossing at Sault Sainte Marie on our second night instead of waiting until the next morning to cross.

Then we discovered that someone had broken into my car some time over the Labour day weekend and took our GPS. We contacted the police and then the GPS company. We kept the box so still had the serial number and all of the information we needed to have them lock it down, making it useless to whom ever now has it. Small comfort when we had this big trip ahead and no GPS. A friend who saw our post on Facebook offered to lend us his so we did not have to worry about getting another one right away. Thanks to Don the day was saved!