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
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