Homeless and on the Road
13 October 2019 | CANADA
Paul and Laurie Jones
What did we do all summer?
In early June we decided to list the house for sale again. We didn't have any action on the listing in 2018 and had taken it off the market before departing for the Bahamas last year. This year there was lots of action and the house sold in less than ten days. To say we weren't prepared for that is a bit of an understatement. We looked at tons of houses for sale and could not find one to suit. After much angst we pulled the trigger on a new build not far from our old house. The new house is scheduled to be ready shortly after we return in the spring. In the meantime, we moved our belongings into storage, picked out all the finishes for the new house, bought a trailer (affectionately referred to as our tiny home) then hit the road. We visited every province save for PEI and Newfoundland!
We helped Ben move into his new home in Arnprior at the beginning of July. Volunteered, as usual, at the Kemptville Live Music Festival in mid July. Then hit the road west to Fernie, BC to visit Sarah and Chris in their new home. We had a fantastic time taking in all that beautiful Fernie has to offer summertime visitors. We looped back via the Icefields Parkway. The scenic drive across the country in both directions was beautiful. To top it off there was no traffic and very little construction on the Trans-Canada highway.
Upon our return it was time to put in some more volunteer hours at the Live at the Falls Music Festival in Smith's Falls. It was the first year for this festival and we had a great time! We moved the last of our stuff into storage then did a bit of driveway surfing for a couple of weeks before setting out with the trailer for Virginia. We had a few projects to accomplish on the boat and thought we may as well get a jump on them. We were houseless after all. We spent a little less than three weeks working on the boat. And man was it hot! The temperature was in the nineties the whole time and extremely humid. We were very thankful to have the trailer with air-conditioning!
When departing Virginia we made a last minute decision to take the long way back to Ontario via Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec! It turned into a great little camping trip combined with visits with family and friends and a little more driveway surfing along the way. Parts of the trip were done during the peak of the fall leaves and the drive through New Brunswick and Quebec were spectacular. We spent about two weeks with Ben before getting the trailer ready for winter storage and setting out once more for Virginia. 18,000 km on the truck since July 28!