We packed, donated, sorted, stored, thew out, and repurposed everything material thing that I've had in my life for the last four years. I moved eight separate times when I was in University so was an expert in the art of boxes and organizing and hauling my stuff around. I've always been conscious of clutter and try to keep things to the minimum, but when you stay in the same place for four years it is somewhat inevitable... things are going to accumulate. Uugh, some days were really rough. I didn't think I'd ever get through the mountain of work to be done and I just wanted to set a match to the place and call it a day. Doubt my neighbours (or insurance company) would be too impressed with that solution, however.
On top of packing, we had events going on almost every night of the week. They were mostly organized by Danny's staff sending the graduating PGY5s off to their fellowships with congratulatory dinners and what not, so you can't exactly say 'no thanks'. It was really fun to visit with the other docs and honour the grads without the exam looming over everyone's mind.
But the majority of my energy was still focussed on the move. After a few late nights and early mornings, painting drop offs, car drop offs and final farewells, we finally finished. The moving company showed up in a huge, may I emphasize, huge, 53 foot moving van on a Thursday afternoon during the middle of downtown rush hour. Instead of stressing out over it I just laughed and hoped my couch wouldn't get side swiped by oncoming traffic.
The next morning we stopped at Tim Horton's, picked up a couple coffees and hit the open road; destination Toronto! We weighed the options of shipping our vehicle by train and flying over ourselves but decided a good cross-Canada road trip would be good for our souls and a little lighter on our pocketbooks. I've never driven past the Saskatchewan-Manitoba before so this new journey would be quite the adventure.
4000km, 4 days, 2 people, 1 car, 1 really long road trip playlist and a GPS.
We were so fortunate to have fantastic weather the whole way through. Sunny skies, little rain, and lots of daylight. We took it pretty easy, not pushing ourselves too much until the last couple days. We travelled through the prairies, the badlands, and along the edge of Cypress Hills. We saw deer, eagles, ravens, moose and antelope (which prompted a semi-heated discussion where I insisted that no, antelope are not isolated to living in Africa and proved my point by not only singing 'Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam'....but also googling it on my iPhone). We stopped for an impromptu picnic on the beach in the Canadian Shield, drove along the Great Lakes in Northern Ontario, and down into the drier lands further south. We stopped in Regina, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay and Sudbury to stay overnight. Some hotels were a little a bit nicer than others but the people were generally friendly and wished us well as we continued on our way.
I was delighted when we hit the outer limits of the Greater Toronto Area. We had done it. The traffic was absolutely brutal but that is to be expected for a long weekend, or I suppose any day for Toronto! We finally made it to our new downtown condo and crashed on the carpet that night, a little tired, a little road weary, but mostly happy to be in our new home.
We finished our cross-Canada road trip on Canada Day itself. I say that earns us a maple leaf or at least some maple syrup for our pancakes.
So now that you've made the long road trip across and above the Great Lakes you can truly call yourselves "Canadians"! That's a special drive; part of what makes us a country.
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