Wednesday, June 22

OMG. I cannot believe we are a week away from embarking on our trip. I feel so unprepared. In fact, I’m feeling pretty terrified (censured for grandparental approval, hahaha, ugh. Can you tell I’m going squirrely?).

As our followers on Facebook already know, we took the van in for a general tune up last week. The mechanic has been so busy though, he’s not had a chance to look at it yet. He is doing us a favour, so I can’t blame him. By the way, our mechanic is AWESOME. If you live in Ottawa, make sure you use him: Mehdi Auto Service, 36 Bentley Ave, 613-727-0555. He’s super honest and very fair. He and his team are very friendly as well.

So anyway, haven’t had the van for a week and a bit now. We’ve purchased all the stuff to make it more habitable, but don’t actually have the vehicle to do any work on it! So frustrating!

Guess what I scored yesterday though? COUCH CUSHIONS! I went dumpster diving cause I saw these beautifully white, clean-looking, thick, comfy couch cushions just tossed in there like they were useless. But they will make a perfect mattress for our bed. And we’ll be able to top it with the memory foam mattress Julie and I got a week or two ago (only paid $70 for it and it was 2 weeks old. Sick deal huh?). As Julie said at the time, we’re never gonna want to get out of bed!


-Nicole

Chrysler is not a visionary...

Wrote a proposal that I sent to Chrysler a two weekends ago I'd say. It was pretty ballsy but I personally think it offered Chrysler a pretty sweet deal. I didn’t ask for money in the initial proposal, just proposed a “partnership” where Julie and I would give them all the free advertising they could want, in exchange for something we want. If they took the “bait” I was going to ask for about $2,000 and a guarantee that Chrysler would fix our van if we had to tow it to them.

Personally, I thought it was a good deal. I mean, Chrysler would have been able to attach names and faces to their brand. They would have been able to allow their viewers to follow a Dodge adventure by featuring our “story” on their website, in their advertising, etc. It could have reminded North Americans what a true North American car experience is – something that only Chrysler would be able to give to the average consumer if only the consumer would invest in a Dodge.

They didn’t go for it. They said “Our decision has been taken in the belief that such an undertaking does not complement our current marketing plans and strategies.” I suppose it was a bit of a far-fetched dream that they might go for it. Could also have been our late timing in asking (maybe the anti-green image our van kinda promotes might have added to it?). Anyway, doesn’t really matter. All that I can say is that they are clearly not visionaries because we would have given them some sick advertising! I was even going to paint “honk if you think our DODGE is sexy” on the back of the van…

Well, c’est la vie of course. They’re gonna need some seriously great marketing plans and strategies to shake their “mediocre” image:

Wish we could help them with it!

Lol, I shouldn’t be so bitter. And don’t worry, I’m not. Just thought I should share my experience. At least they got back to Julie and me within two days of faxing them! (Sad that this is technically marketing for them...hahaha).


-Nicole

The First Shopping Trip

Julie and I are both blondes. Okay, it’s out there. (Did you know Julie’s dying her hair before our trip? I think she’ll look good as a blonde) You know what we did on our first shopping trip? We measured the interior of the van, but didn’t write down the measurements. Then, we forgot to take the measuring tape into the store with us, so we couldn’t measure things to see if they would fit before buying them. Finally, we spent a whole bunch of money on tents and coolers and shelves and whatnot, only to find out things didn’t fit or weren’t what we were looking for. AHHHH!

It WAS nice to take things back though and have money in my pocket again. This trip hasn’t even started and I’m already beginning to feel the money crunch. For those of you who don’t know (but you all probably do), Julie and I are both heading to Queen’s this September for our masters. Sure, sure, we both got a $14,000 scholarship (yeah, I’m bragging) but it doesn’t exactly cover living expenses.

Ahh well. The point of this trip is to have an adventure. A MasterCard adventure. Sorry guys, lame joke. I’m signing off!

-Nicole

A Conversation Starter

So now the blog writing style will be changing, and hopefully you’ll be seeing some posts from Julie soon too. We’re pretty much at our most recent adventures (maybe a week or two behind, but we’ll try to catch up before we leave).

Big news: Cloud 9 and I are no longer parking ticket virgins. In fact, we received TWO tickets for parking on Maria Goretti Cir. for longer than three hours. I was mad about that because someone living on Maria Goretti had to have called for me to get a ticket. I know it’s an eyesore people (for those with less refined tastes of course), but come on! You don’t need to call bylaw and have me ticketed just because you don’t like her look. I have a feeling that we are going to be a giant “pull us over” billboard to police on this trip. I wonder if Noni and her friend had any issues with that.

 

So yeah, got TWO parking tickets. See, I was moving out of my place using the van to move the big items like the dresser and my desk, but I didn’t move out all in one day, more like, over the course of two weeks. I only used the van for the last few days of the move though. I was supposed to pick it up on Monday and take it back to my cousin’s place, but Doug’s car decided to die, right after being at the mechanic's, so I spent the better part of my night stranded at an Esso gas station in Nepean.

Tuesday, I bused over to my old place, but I knew in my gut that I’d probably gotten a ticket. Sure enough, there were two little pieces of paper under my windshield wiper. Great start to another eventful day with the van! I wish tickets were hand-filled out still. The last time I got a ticket, the officer didn’t sign it, so I didn’t have to pay the fine. It was awesome. Not so much luck with these tickets. I had to pay both of them, but the fine wasn’t terrible…$35 each.

Anyway, got in the van after removing the tickets, stuck the key in, turned, and…nothing. She didn’t make a single peep. (You’re probably thinking, dear god, why did she purchase this thing???) I thought, for crying out loud! I mean, is this van going to be such a hassle every single time I climb into the driver’s seat? Because I’m really starting to wonder if it’s me...

The battery was completely dead. Clearly, we’d forgotten to turn something off when we left the van overnight. Doug thinks it might have been the ignition…the van is special and doesn’t always turn “off” even when you turn the key in the ignition to the off position. I think that the last time we drove the van, we turned off the engine but didn’t turn off the ignition, so it’d slowly drained the battery over the past day or so.

I texted my landlord since I’d seen her car in the driveway when I’d walked up the street. She came out almost right away, as did my awesome neighbor, Jeff. Together, we collaborated to get the van going again. My landlord brought the cables, and Jeff provided the expertise and the car.

With the boost, the van started perfectly. We let her run for a little bit, and then disconnected the umbilical cord. Jeff was asking me all about the van, and my trip. He was looking at her like a kid in a candy store. I laughed when he asked if he could take her around the block. He was so excited when he got back. My favourite line was “Giver hell girl!” This coming from my big construction-type neighbour…Too funny.

With the first boost of the day behind me, I drove over to Doug’s place to move the last of my shit into his apartment. I turned off the van and then my phone vibrated. Doug: “Make sure to take the van for a long spin before you turn her off”. Woops. I turned the key in the ignition. Sure enough, she was dead again. I wasn’t going to let it phase me though. I got the remainder of my stuff into the apartment with the help of Julie, who had arrived shortly after I had, and then we met our first stranger-now-friend (I’m sure we will be meeting many of these over the next few weeks!).

She was a young mother living in the lovely house across the road from Doug. We saw her van in the parking space behind the house and thought, perfect, a mom will totally be sympathetic to our plight! (Doug lives in a really hoity-toity area where everyone drives fancy BMWs and has three cars per person…lol). We were right. She was a lovely lady, and she was totally willing to help us out. So for the second time that day, we boosted the van.

As we waited a few minutes for the battery in the van to be “charged”, we gave our new friend a tour of the vehicle. I have to say, I am EXTREMELY proud of Cloud 9. She’s beautiful and I love showing her off to people, even if she hates me and tries desperately to get me to take her to the junk yard. I won’t do it. I’m not ready to give her up!

Anyway, we learned from my previous mistake and drove Cloud 9 out to Nepean before taking her back to my cousin’s. Julie and I then frequented the Local Heroes up the road and savoured a much-needed pitcher of Rickard’s White and some burgers.

P.s. We’ve had to boost the van only one other time since…I think the mechanic is going to tell us the alternator is dead. My conclusion: Cloud 9 is trying to sabotage my dream trip. My feelings about that: Bring it on Cloud 9.

-Nicole

Creating a Safer Camper

The first order of business back in Ottawa was again a parking space. We researched parking at Julie’s apartment building, but Cloud 9 was too tall to fit. We looked at parking lots where you could pay a monthly fee to park, and we put ads up on Kijiji and UsedOttawa, but we couldn’t find anywhere to put the van. I emailed my Aunt Kim, who used to live in Ottawa, to ask if she knew anyone with space in a driveway for a large van. I also emailed my cousins Jason and Nancy. They were the first to respond with an angelic, resounding “yes”!

With our parking issues solved, the next step was to clear out and clean the van. We drove it to an empty parking lot in the Nepean area and pulled a ton of crap out of the back. The mouse carcass was one of the first things to go. We threw out old food and drinks that were left-over from the previous owners, we tossed all the bedding and couch cushions (they were wet from a leak in the ceiling and were probably moldy as a result), and we ripped out some of the shelving we thought was dangerous to drive with. As we cleaned, we made some interesting discoveries, such as the drawer full of tape cassettes. We’ve decided that we’re probably going to get sick of Bon Jovi pretty quickly, but Brian Adams will be our anthem singer…summer of 69 baby. Lol

We cleaned the carburetor at the end of the day. It was actually in really good condition. Julie and I also got our first real lesson on how our vehicle works. I’m not sure how much of it stuck with me. This is one of those topics that makes me feel a bit like a blonde…lol. Anyway, we learned where our oil stick was, we learned about how the carburetor works, we reviewed how to jump a vehicle (this didn’t stick, but now that we’ve done it three times, I think I will remember it), and we checked out our wiring situation. The gauges don’t work at the moment, so we’re going to build a part that will hopefully fix the situation. Yay soldering!

We forgot a broom and we were running out of daylight, so we skipped the full clean. We’re going to take Cloud 9 to a gas station sometime soon to vacuum her out. Then she should be as clean as she’s gonna get! I wonder if she will fit through a car wash…

-Nicole

Six Months Later...

…We were back in Smith Falls again, this time to pick up the van and bring her home to Ottawa. On exactly the 30^th of April, Doug and I arrived in the storage yard, this time during the day. The van was a sight for sore eyes. She was huge compared to what I’d remembered, but she was still beautiful. For enduring the elements for six whole months, she was in great condition. When we started her up, she turned over without a hitch. We let her warm up while we explored and reacquainted ourselves with her contents. While Doug was pulling up the bed, he found a deteriorating mouse carcass. That got me worried about any other furry friends that might be waiting to skitter around my feet while driving, but thankfully, there were no live mice in the van.

Doug and I set off almost right away. Again, I was following in the van. This time the trip wasn’t so cold. I cranked the tunes and sang at the top of my lungs as we cruised along at 90km an hour. As we came up to a slight rise in the road, I had a line of cars behind me, itching to pass. Someone finally went for it, so I took my foot off the gas a little to make sure he could easily get around me. But when I put my foot back on the gas, it didn’t matter how far I pushed it, the van felt like it was dragging. I realized that the gas wasn’t making it go anymore, so I put on my blinker and pulled over to the side of the road. I waited until everyone passed, and then I tried to pull out onto the road again. The engine roared as I pushed the gas pedal right to the floor, but I barely moved more than a few feet forward. I pulled over again and turned off the van. This time I found my 4-ways.

When Doug came up, we opened the hood and investigated. We couldn’t find any issues so Doug suggested he drive the van and I take the car since he would better be able to feel what was going on. We made the switch, and off I went, assuming Doug would follow. I pulled over around the bend, waiting for him to come around the corner. I waited for ten minutes. Nothing. So I drove back and there he was with the van; it hadn’t even budged.

We checked the engine again, tested the oil, and then, when we finally found it, the transmission fluid, which we discovered was basically completely empty! At that point, I was starting to wonder if the van had a hate-on for me. It was already such a hassle, and I wasn’t even half-way to heading out on my trip! My faith was slowly being eroded. But, Doug and I drove the 40 minutes back to Smith Falls, leaving Cloud 9 on the side of the road, and returned with a funnel and a big bottle of transmission fluid that she guzzled greedily. After about ¾ of the bottle was gone, we figured we could try the engine again. She roared to life and was mobile in a matter of minutes.

Doug drove her to Ottawa while I took the car, just in case. But she was good for the rest of the trip home…go figure.

-Nicole

Mission Impossible: Procuring Parking

When you are a poor university student and the first vehicle you purchase is pretty much ten years older than you are, you’d better be prepared for a few mishaps. Being the vehicle-ownership virgin that I was, I was certainly not prepared for my first experience owning a vehicle. I am so thankful for Doug, I must say, but I practically caused the guy a heart-attack the whole time I was dealing with Cloud 9’s little, ahem, ticks.

After my breakdown about the insurance issue, Doug was really wary that I was going to have another freak-out. Back from Paris (awesome trip), I was plunged right into final projects, grad school applications, a job hunt, and the pressures of keeping my grades high enough to be accepted into my masters programs. On top of all this, I had to find a place to keep the van.

We had initially stored the beast at Doug’s grandma’s place, since her sister, who usually lived there, had gone to Europe for a month and therefore didn’t need the driveway. She was due to return a week after my trip to Paris, so Doug and I had to get rid of the van stat. I asked around, having some friends who live in Ottawa, but no one had extra space for a vehicle, especially an “eyesore” like mine. Doug’s mother’s place was an option, but we didn’t want to burden her with a packed driveway for the duration of the winter. And then I remembered that I had a parking space at my apartment. I dug out my lease and there it was in black and white: One parking space included in the rent.

My landlord, however, chose to interpret this amenity differently than I. Upon texting her about the location of the parking space, I received a reply explaining that my roommate Stefanie Ligterink and I had told her we didn’t need a parking space and that was why she agreed to lower the monthly rent for us. I was confused. Why was it in my lease that I had a parking space when we’d apparently had this conversation before signing it? And why didn’t Stefanie or I even remember this conversation?

Conversation or no, according to our lease, we had a parking space. I wrote my landlord an email explaining my situation – that I needed a place for my van and that it wouldn’t move over the course of the winter. She wrote back saying that the driveway was too small for three cars (she and her boyfriend both had vehicles) and that my van would take up too much space. I wasn’t going to press the issue, not wanting to cause any bad blood between myself and my landlord, who lived right above me. But she came through with a parking spot in the end.

Luckily enough, her boyfriend was the son of a storage-yard owner, so my landlord arranged to have the van stored at this storage lot, except it was in Smith Falls. I was okay with the arrangement since I had nowhere else to put the van, so I contacted the storage-yard owner, Judy, and set a date and time for drop-off.

The day of, I bundled in a million layers, unsure as to whether the van had a working heater or not. I climbed behind the wheel, set up my iPod, and started her up. Then we were off. We took the back roads, not sure how she would fare on this, her first long-distance trip since arriving in Ottawa. She drove fairly well, but as I quickly discovered, she did not have a working heater. My iPod promptly drained its batteries in protest of being subjected to such cold environmental conditions, so I drove in silence with the sound of the non-working heater as my only company. Being the beginning of November, it was quite nippy outside, but I kept my windows up and my thick mittens on, and drove into the night. I was following Doug, who was following a GPS.

It took us about an hour and a half to get to Smith Falls. I was freezing by the time we got there, despite my many layers. Just as we were coming up to the turn that would take us out to the storage yard, the van stalled. I had nowhere to pull over, and in the dark with no dash lights or overhead lights to speak of, I couldn’t find my 4-ways. I coasted to a stop in the middle of a busy road and put on my right blinker, hoping Doug would realize I wasn’t behind him anymore since I couldn’t honk my horn with the car engine off.

Angry drivers, not realizing I was completely stopped, swerved around me, honking their horns as if I didn’t know I was a hazard to traffic. I tried desperately to start the engine. Nothing. Again and again, nothing. I couldn’t figure out what to do! About fifteen minutes later, Doug realized I had disappeared from his rear-view mirror and he came looking for me. “I think I’m out of gas!” I told him. He didn’t think that was the case, but when we got the van started up again, we went to the gas station just in case. We were now running fifteen minutes late for our meeting with Judy at the storage yard. It was around 6pmish, but it was already dark out.

We embarked once again, the tank at least half full of gas, and the GPS leading the way. For twenty minutes we drove up and down dark country roads, searching for the storage yard. My phone buzzed. It was my landlord calling to tell me Judy was getting angry that we were so late. I called Doug, giving him the number my landlord provided me, hoping we would find the place soon.

An hour and a half late and a second stalling later we finally pulled into the driveway of the storage yard. Judy was far from pleased, understandably. She had been waiting in her car the entire time. Doug and I apologized profusely. I gave Judy the truffles and card I had made for her as a thank you for allowing me to store my van on her lot. Doug gave her $100 as an apology for keeping her so late. I signed a contract stating that I would remove the van as of April 30 and off she went.

I felt like an ice cube and Doug and I were both super stressed and grumpy, but we took a couple pictures with the van and then headed home.

-Nicole

The Government - Here to Make Life Difficult!

The morning I went to register the van was a beautiful one. I was feeling good as I made my way to the City of Ottawa Ontario Drivers Kiosk on Laurier Ave. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and people seemed friendlier than usual as I passed them on the streets. It was the perfect day to get Cloud 9 her first set of Ontario plates (she originated from BC).

The Service Desk at the City of Ottawa, however, was operating under a dark cloud. First, I waited in line for over an hour. When I got up to the counter, I swear I had the grumpiest person in the whole place serving me. I gave her all the paperwork. She grunted, “Do you have insurance? Do you have your safety papers?” I explained that on the Ontario Drivers website I read that I could register the van without having insurance and that I read I would have a certain number of days after registering the vehicle during which I would safety the vehicle. She grumpily stated that this was indeed the case, if I was willing to have the vehicle towed everywhere. “If you want to be able to drive the vehicle anywhere you have to have insurance before you register it. Otherwise you will not legally be able to drive it until after the vehicle has been safetied and has adequate insurance. Oh and you have a week within which you must register the vehicle and pay all fees.”

What a wake-up call! I had to get insurance, a safety, and register the vehicle, all within a week—and not just any week either. This was the week before reading week when I would be taking a trip to Paris! I panicked a little, I must admit. I went home and started researching insurance companies right away. But soon it became clear that getting insurance with no previous history with any Ottawa companies was going to be virtually impossible. Company after company, as soon as I mentioned the year, make and model of my vehicle, they would immediately chime: “Sorry, we don’t insure cars that are more than 20 years old.”

I called Doug near to tears, panicking about what I was going to do with my vehicle. I was terrified about having to call my parents and explain to them that I’d bought a vehicle that wasn’t safetied, for which I couldn’t get insurance, and that I had no place to store. It wasn’t a week earlier that my father had gently lectured me on not buying a vehicle “as is”, and making sure that I researched insurance on it first. I had gone against both those things, and I was in a bind. I cried over the phone to Doug, stressed to the nines wondering how I would deal with the van while also having to worry about exams and my trip to Paris all at the same time. When I was cried out, we decided that he would try to get himself insured on the vehicle.

The day of my flight to Paris, Doug, Julie and I went to the MTO in Vanier (recommended by Brian Johnson as the place with the nicest employees…and he was right!). In a matter of minutes, the vehicle was registered and paid-for. I had plates to put on, and a sticker that told the world those plates were valid. Thanks to Doug’s amazing mechanic, the vehicle was safetied, and officially ready to be driven legally. Finally, Cloud 9 was mine—my first vehicle ever.

-Nicole

The Birth of a Traveller's Dream

So we’re well into planning our trip, but before I get into the most recent of our adventures, I have to explain a bit about how this all started and where Cloud 9 came from (WARNING: I am long-winded…for those of you with weak eyes or short attention spans, you’d better leave this blog post now).

Now that we have only the dedicated readers left...

For the past, hmmm, I’d say two years (correct me if I’m wrong family and friends…), I have been talking about taking a trip across Canada as my graduation present to myself—my way of saying, hey, you plowed through the rigors (ha!) of university, and now it’s time to do something educational. I always thought this little dream would be something that would be really exciting to talk about, but that would never happen (like my idea of skydiving). Why? Because I’m often like that with my BIG dreams. For example, when I was in grade school, I was convinced that I was eventually going to be the rich breadwinner for my family…I was never going to have to worry about money again! Well I’m certainly well on my way in the opposite direction of THAT dream, what with my $22,000+ student debt that’s accruing ungodly interest as we speak coupled with my interest in working in the non-profit sector…but I digress.

So I had this dream, and as my days at the University of Ottawa became numbered, I talked about it more and more but made very little progress on making the trip a reality (aside from securing one of the best CANADA road-trip partners out there—Julie Bourassa, as you will learn or already know, is a Canada aficionado).

But something in the October air of 2010 changed my “all-talk-but-no-walk” situation. Because, as I was talking about my big plans, two adventurous Aussies were trekking back across the country to Ottawa, where they would place their ad up on Kijiji to sell their beast of a van: Cloud 9.

My boyfriend Doug Rotar was looking for a car himself at the time, and he happened to come across the ad. It read something like “Perfect Adventure Van: comes with a bed, sink, camping gear…etc”. My boyfriend mentioned it to me, and though I wasn’t looking to buy a vehicle for my trip just yet, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of at least checking this thing out. So Julie and I set up a meeting with Noni.

The minute we pulled up, Julie and I were in love. She was everything we wanted and more. Her great, hippie blue frame was the height of a skyscraper while her bumpers were totally in-touch with nature; her stickers, scratches, and dents spoke of her long history as an adventuring vehicle, and her interior promised the comfort of a hotel (okay, a dingy motel) with a dash of BC relaxation mixed in. But as sad as it is to admit, it was the way she sang to us from her duct-taped-in speakers that sold her in our minds. THIS was the van that would carry us across the country. And why not? It had already done it once! Never mind that it had been sold from a Chrysler lot more than 10 years before Julie and I were even born. Cloud 9 was going to take us on our grand adventure, and it was going to be AWESOME.

Doug, of course, looked under the hood, checked the mechanics of the vehicle, albeit briefly, but I could see that he was under her spell too. We thanked Noni for her time, without even taking the vehicle for a test-drive (yeah, that was nuts) and mentioned that we would get back to her about buying it by the end of the day. When we got in the car, Julie and I couldn’t stop talking about how excited we were, but we kept our heads too.

“Did the engine look okay Doug?” -Me

“Yeah it looks like it’s in pretty good shape.” -Doug

“Do you think it will make it across the country and back?” – Julie

“Sure. It’s a good engine, I think it’s a 360. It needs some work for sure, but it would make it.” – Doug

“What about the price?”-Julie and me

Thank goodness Doug was with us. Julie and I were ready to scoop up Cloud 9 for a whooping $1200, with absolutely no idea of the additional costs that come along with car ownership, not to mention the actual worth of the vehicle itself (which, in the bluebook, amounts to about $100 in taxes…). As a 1976 Dodge Tradesman 200 that had seen countless kilometers, we would have been paying more than our fair share at $1200. Doug suggested that we offer $800. He said, “If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.” We agreed and texted Noni about it. Noni mentioned that she had other people coming back to see the van but that she would let us know if the van was still available after the meeting.

We waited. AGES it seemed. Almost to the point where we’d put it out of our minds. But then the text came: “I talked to my friend and we’re willing to give it to you for $800 as is”.

AHHHH! We were ecstatic! We arranged a time and date to buy the van, having them meet Doug and I at Doug’s grandma’s place in order to do the exchange. Noni and her friend were very nice. We filled out the paperwork, exchanged the money for the keys, and went outside so that Noni and her friend could say one last goodbye to the vehicle that had been their home for so long. We took a picture together and I promised to be a good caretaker, and then it was done.

It was a bit surreal having the beast sitting there in the driveway, no one to take it away. The little monkey on the ring that held Cloud 9’s keys looked up at me woefully. Would this trip actually happen?

YES. I got behind the wheel that night, just to see what it felt like to realize a dream, and steered her around the block. She was easy to drive, and she floated over the potholes as if they were mere cracks, even if she growled loudly the whole way. Suffice it to say, my first ride = totally groovy.

Doug and I left the van at his Grandma’s for the night, a pan underneath her belly in case she had an accident. I texted Julie about our new acquisition (she had an exam or something and couldn’t be there to buy the van with me). We went to sleep that night with V8 hippie engines rumbling through our dreams. 

-Nicole