Road Trip: Heading North

In my last post I told you about the change of events. How we ended doing a 180 and moved north instead of south. Yukon was traded in for Cayman Islands. Staying in Canada was more ideal than enjoying endless summer, but we might change our minds come winter 😉

After a rush packing our things in Ontario we flew back to Calgary and drove from there. Our things were in a moving van and it could take 3-4 weeks to arrive! Our things would crisscross across Canada picking up and dropping off other big movers. We would not have more than what we could fit into a suitcase, so it was easier to buy a bed and other necessities and drive them up until our other items could arrive. I couldn’t imagine sleeping on a floor for a few weeks.

The drive from Calgary wound across the foothills and mountains between Alberta and British Columbia. The scenery was stunning and we lucked out seeing wildlife along the way. Most people might catch a glimpse of one animal if they are lucky, but we saw Canada’s finest. We saw bears munching clover, uncaring that we drove by and a quick dash across the road of a mommy and baby moose. We also saw mountain goats, porcupine, deer, lynx and elk. The most amazing was the large bison who take over the road for a long stretch of highway close to the Yukon border.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Willow was great for the 25 hour drive, which we spread over 2.5 days. She was quite surprised by the animals. She shivered at the sight of them. Once we arrived in the Yukon we made a fast trip to unload our things at our new house then drove the Whitehorse for my week of training.

Willow the traveling cat

Stay tuned as I fill you in on my of our new adventures. School life is not as busy as Shanghai, but with our new adventure comes more jobs and less free time.  I don’t have a chance to post weekly, or check daily, but I will get on-line whenever I have a chance.

Road less traveled… a new adventure awaits.

Long Lost CTB :D

Since we moved back from China I haven’t had the same connection to my blog. No time… not much is exciting… and I discovered Twitter. However, something exciting happened in late July and I am just now making time to share it with you.

As you know I am a teacher. I worked in Shanghai for 5 years and hoped that experience would help me get a job back home. No luck. No jobs! I applied outside of teaching and had some promising connections, but something would fall through at the last minute, plans would change, they found a better candidate or life happened. Hubby found a job in Cayman and finally we both had jobs lined up in Cayman, but he fell ill. With medical insurance so high and him now being classed as `at risk` and having a `pre-exisiting` condition (which is not true since it happened while working there; gotta love insurance) we decided to start to look for jobs at home. He found one quickly, but my joblessness continued. Bad Karma after having to bow out of the Cayman job? Then luck changed. I had applied to some jobs in early June for teaching. I got the usual email saying we have hired internally. At least I got an email, usually you never hear back due to large number of applicants. Then late July I got a call for a phone interview the next day. A few days later I was offered the job. Some glitches with HR kept us busy as I sorted things out, provided them with a ton of paper work, found housing, found movers, moved, had staff training, started a new job, unpacked (and still unpacking, well more organising and adding finishing touches). Phew! But here we are… in the Yukon! We are from Southern Ontario. To give you perspective, it takes 3-4 days to drive to Calgary, Alberta (depending on stops) and then 24-25 hours from Calgary to the Yukon.

Moving Day

We were in Calgary when this happened. So we flew to Cayman for 2 days to get the things we left, assuming in June we would be moving back in August. Then to Ontario for 4 days. We had most things in storage, so all that was packed onto a big moving van and driven across the country. We flew back to Calgary to get Willow and some necessities. It takes maybe 6-7 days to drive that distance, but 3 weeks to get our stuff! As it goes across the country they stop and pick up and drop off other people`s stuff. More efficient, but not convenient when you don`t have a bed! We bought a few necessities and a bed, packed up Willow and headed up.

Road Trip  – Yukon or Bust!

I went from a large city in China of around 26 million to a community with a general store, school and maybe 350 people! I thought it would be big culture shock, but I am loving it. It is so beautiful and quiet here. Some nights we see the aurora and so many stars. The closest city is 4-5 hours away, so that is hard to get used to, but other than that all is good. We are in Canada, an added bonus.

So I will start to blog about our new home. I might not get into the weekly routine just yet, but you can always check me out on Twitter. I post sometimes a few times a week, other times maybe every other week. I like it because it is quick and I use it to keep up with news and events, so I am more likely to be on it. You can find the link on my sidebar. You don`t have to have an account to view my posts.

Good to be back and `see`you again. Stay tuned….