The swan song is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. Hopefully, we’re not dieing, and technically, we are retired. But we are retiring from the RV life. We have moved into a condo and will sell the RV.
It’s been an interesting few years. The life of a vagabond is not for everyone. We’ve met many people along the way who say they’d love to do what we were doing but…….For one reason or another, they stayed where they were. The RV parks, in Canada at least, are often nearly full of people who live there permanently. Our idea was not to stay anywhere for too long.
The first year on the road started in November 2013, 2 months after retiring from our full time jobs. We sold our condo faster than expected so moved into the RV in June instead of just before hitting the road. There is a lovely, well maintained, but expensive park in Burnaby, full of German tourists and a few full time residents from before the laws changed. At one time, anyone could move into a RV park and live there. Then one by one the city planners decided that was a no-no and only those grandfathered could stay for more than 6 months.
So, we moved into the RV and Cariboo RV park and continued working for a few more weeks. We took our inaugural RV trip in August, to Edmonton, Alberta to visit Al’s oldest son. Hardly out of town and a tire blew, taking out the wiring system and the black water tank. Uh-oh. When we got back to the park a week later, we discovered that the black water tank would have to be manufactured, no one had any in stock. That meant a few months wait. Oh, joy, every morning before work, we had to go to the main washroom for a shower.
We left Canada mid November in driving rain. Into Washington state, the storm was hideous. We had an appointment with a Camping World business to have a macerator pump installed. That is a system that chews all the waste into such small bits it can pass through a garden hose. The storm delayed us so that we arrived at our reserved overnight RV park too late; the office was closed, there were too few lights to find a spot to stay, so we went back to Camping World, pulled inbetween some of the RVs on the lot and spent the night. Turns out there is an actual lot at the back. Good news for another time.
We dawdled our way down the west coast. Beautiful country. Oregon coast is still our favorite place on any part of the planet we’ve explored (close second is Super natural British Columbia). Eventually, we arrived in Galveston, Texas and booked into Jamaica Beach RV park. That park was recommended by another traveler we met along the way. In Jamaica Beach, we made friends who remain so, with whom we’ve visited in their home states in the next years and who have come to visit us in Canada.
We took two cruises out of Galveston, into the Caribbean. Oh, boy, is cruising the best way to vacation. Just love it. After a few short weeks, we were on the road again, heading further east, right to the Atlantic coast with sojourns in Alabama, Louisiana, and on the Florida panhandle, again from suggestions from fellow travelers.
From Florida, we took another cruise – Turks and Caicos that time. Did you know that those islands have twice applied to Canada to become part of our federation. Oh, that they had succeeded. We could move there and have lovely weather all year round (except for the occasional hurricane). Florida is far too expensive to spend much time there. The keys were fun and we’d go again, but wow, the pricing. Yikes. When we checked it out, it was cheaper to leave the RV in Ft. Lauderdale, rent a car and drive there. RV spots, if you can get one, are in the range of $90 and up. Not for this retired couple.
We worked our way slowly up the east coast, visiting new places. Love, love, love Savannah. Not the RV park we stayed and left earlier than what we’d paid for. It was terrible, to say the least.
Then a visit to family in Ontario once we’d crossed back into Canada, and back west across the prairies to our home province of British Columbia. But we weren’t finished with travelling for that trip. We drove up north all the way to Alaska, Hyder to be exact. It’s just a whistle stop on the way to no where but we’d been to Alaska and could put up another sticker on our map of travels. There’s lots to see and experience in BC’s interior.
On the recommendation of friends who are also full timers, we booked into the Peace Arch RV park, just above the US border. Lovely park, reasonable. We stayed there until it was time again to go south. That winter, we spent most of our time in Jamaica Beach RV park. Obviously we liked it a lot. The park is family run and that family adopts everyone for the season. Wonderful people. Dora makes cookies every Christmas for the firefighters and police officers. She also makes personalized gifts for every person in the park. Creative, giving lady.
We didn’t travel further east that year but on our way north and home, we spent a week in Hemet, California thanks to an on-line special. When we enquired about a longer stay, the price went up to double what we’d just paid. So, off we went again, further north to Arizona. We had discovered a park called Val Vista just outside Casa Grande, midway between Tuscon and Phoenix. Fabulous place. Just about the best place we’d ever stayed. On the way south we stumbled upon this park for one night and determined to go back. We spent 2 great weeks there despite everything more or less closing down for the coming summer. That park has a full time activity director who has only July and August off. There’s just so much to do there.
But unfortunately for our long trip travel plans, Al developed spinal stenosis. We crossed the border back to Canada and went straight to the hospital. My poor long suffering-in-silence spouse spent a miserable summer but thanks to good chiropractic treatments from a wonderful doctor, Khalid Alibhi in Surrey, B.C., he could once again sit behind the wheel in some comfort. Regardless, we determined that was basically the end of our long road trips.
About the end of the summer, Al’s daughter Angella, who lives in the Okanagan, told him about part time work as a tour bus driver, AL’s forte. We spent a wet, cold winter in Peace Arch park and determined never to spend another winter in Canada in the RV. Thousands of people do it, but we would no longer be part of that.
Summer of 2016 saw us in Oliver, B.C. at another great park: Apple Beach on Tucelnuit Lake. Can’t say enough good things about the owners of that park who were as new to the park as we were, arrived the same day we did; we were their first customers. Oliver is the wine capital of Canada, so says their ‘hello’ sign. There are quite a number of wineries in close proximity.
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Because we did all of our major shopping in Penticton, we moved there for this past summer. Despite the poor reviews we read on Trip Advisor about Oxbow RV park, we had no issues and were quite happy to stay there for 6 months. If we hadn’t found a great condo we decided to make our permanent home, we were booked back in there for 2018. Wine country is a great place to have friends come to visit.
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A 17 day cruise to Hawaii for the first part of October rounded out a busy year for us. We came back to Canada’s Okanagan valley and determined to stay here.
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So, this is our very last post, our Swan Song to full time RVing. Because we both enjoy writing, we will likely post again under a new moniker, no longer CUSIYC (catch us if you can). If you are interested, we’ll be found somewhere under a title about Canada’s Okanagan one of these days. There is so much going on here, along the valley, there will be lots of fodder for our ‘pen’.
debea debea that’s all folks.
Al’s QOTD: Enjoy yourself; no one gets out of this life alive.
CUSIYC 