Tomorrow is the day

This is it, the house is empty. I just have the mattress from the camper, and various clothes I am planning to take with me.
I am leaving on my road trip tomorrow. By the time I come back the house will not be mine anymore, so this is it: tomorrow I am leaving my house for the last time.
I've just checked my ticket and I am due to leave Calgary for Santiago (Chile) on the 16th of October, so I have quite a bit of time to wonder about.

Added later: I just looked at the weather forecast in Jasper... I thought I might go the Jasper way to start with a "bang" and the low at night is 4C ...Brrrrrrrrr! especially after a high of 30C here in Calgary today. Good job I have loads of blankets.

Meet Nicole

Here is Nicole, A and T's daughter.

She is totally easy going and very happy.
You know what is great about happy babies, they laugh at the smallest things.  She even finds me funny .... and not many people find me funny!
She loves when people sing to her. She loves "Old MacDonald" and she particularly likes the sound of the lion (I take liberties with Old MacDonald. Either this or he has a really unusual farm).

Good news

The friend helping store my stuff has to go back to China to work so all I want to store has to be packed, ready and loaded tomorrow preferably before noon. So no extensions for ever and ever. It will have to be done. And in fact apart from the mattress which I am going to use one more night I am packed. All that is left is taking stuff to the dump, to Salvation Army (yes, one more time), recycling and sorting out what I want to take with me (to Alaska and to Chile etc).

Other good news: I found places to recycle electronics in Calgary!!! One of them interestingly enough is a small business the others are city locations. I am tempting to go with the small business because it is such a good idea.

...and the weather in Anchorage is still decent (lows around 4C or 40 F, high 15C or 60F). Yellowknife has lows of 9C and same high (15C), so far so good.

Calgary River of Light Project

By sheer luck I heard about the River of Light project on CBC radio, googled it and found this.

The only part of it I was able to catch was the release of the 500 glowing globes last night.
It was actually quite nice.

I went to the 14th Street Bridge, where there is a view which I thought would make it interesting.

The view downstream from 14th Street Bridge

I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people came. Interestingly most of them went to the upstream side of the bridge.

Then slowly the spheres started to float down and it was great.

the first sphere, can you even see it?

Taking pictures of floating spheres turned out to be quite challenging.

the closer the sphere the more out of focus they are because of the  relative motion.

I like the blue spheres

It is quite nice.

Some kayakers helped "herd" the spheres

It was a cool evening but not too cold. There was quite a few people but not too many and most of them were on the other side of the bridge. All together it was a nice evening.

It was so nice to see something artistic in Calgary which isn't traditional. I am sorry that I only heard about River of Light late in the game. It was a nice break from packing.

Enjoying the moment

The house is a disaster but I am nearly packed. I just find myself with so many piles:
To go to Salvation Army
To the garbage
To go to Alaska
To go to Chile and forward
To pack still
To use one last time ans then pack (ex: coffee grinder)
To use but to be throw away or recycled afterward (ex: empty yogurt containers)
To go somewhere but no idea where (ex: 2 old laptops too old to be useful)
To use as wrapping material (ex: old sheets)

Anyway, I've packed the kitchen so tonight I am eating frozen pizza placed on top of the cardboard box it came in and cut with my Swiss Army knife and I am drinking G&T (as a celebration of the good work done packing today) in an old tomato sauce jar (the glasses are packed). And I am reading a second hand book bought this afternoon at the Salvation Army store where I was supposed to drop stuff without picking up anything.... but I bought quite a few books for my trip. Just for the books I am looking forward to it.
You would not believe the great books I picked up this afternoon!!!

All together I am enjoying the moment a lot more than I expected. I forget sometimes how simple things make me happier than complicated, well sorted out situations. I am enjoying camping in my own house (well not "my own" for much longer!!)

The move is coming up really soon

This is it I am down to the last few days. I am moving everything out of the house this Monday. I am packing madly. In the process I found all kind of stuff which I though were lost, like my reading diary (from 1985 to 1996, which I thought was lost), some old photos (not all of which I really want to see again) and all kind of old stuff. Truth is there are some boxes I had not unpacked in my last few moves. Some of them I would be willing to bet have been packed since 1997 so you can well imagine.

Slowly but surely I am getting through it all. In the first part of cleaning the house (before putting the house for sale) quite a few boxes were taken to the dump without being opened. Those were mostly left from my University days. In a way it was a lot easier.
I have cleaned the "mystery" kitchen drawer where pens, business card, strings, buttons, note pads, elastic bands are kept...and that was a big one...."was" being the key word in that sentence!!! I had over 20 keys on various key chains. There was not a chance of me being able to figure out what they were for. One of them looked like it was from the car I destroyed in an accident in December 1999 (not a joke, actually the year it did get destroyed). It was my first car that wasn't a pile of rust, my first "grown up" car, I guess that's why I kept the keys. Also originally I thought the car could be fixed !!!

My House is sold

This is it! It is done! There is no stepping back, changing my mind, having regrets or anything. My house is sold.
Possession date is September 10th but I want to empty the house and go to Alaska way before that. I hope to leave next Monday.... It might be tight to pack and move everything left and make sure I have everything sorted out, but I hope it is feasible.

It is a weird feeling. I am homeless, apart from the camper. I'll admit it is a little bit sad and scary but I am mostly happy and relieved about it.

Northern lights

This is not a photo from me it is from this blog

I love the Northern Lights. I have seen them many times before. In fact I have even seen them once from Calgary, which is rare and requires a very strong display. Since I am likely going north somewhat soon I was trying to find the level of Northern Lights activity but I get somewhat contradicting information.
It seems that we are in a sun spot (ie aurora) quiet have have been since 2007. I just read about it but can't find the source.
We all know that the auroral activity is related to the sun spot activity. I remember from my astronomy class that high and low activity of sun spot follow each other in typically predictable cycles but it appears that we are in an unusually long quiet period. The BBC News has an article about the sun extended quiet period.

But Yukon Aurora Forecast is predicting "moderate to elevated" auroral activity (6/10). Of course Yukon Aurora Forecast is a tourism thing so it is to their advantage to predict somewhat high levels of auroral activity.

The Geophysical Institute is predicting moderate (3/10).

SpaceWeather website mentions two sunspots erupting on August 14th.
.....so maybe it is the start of something. I have better hurry and go north, but I have to wait.

Ice News from Iceland is as optimistic as I am  and thinks that it is the start of something, but of course they are on the other side of the planet where the auroral oval seems to be stronger. I've wanted to go to Iceland for a long time...one day maybe. It is not a cheap place to visit.

Auroral Activity Report (updated every 10 minutes) has good maps of where to expect them. Unfortunately it seems that the northern oval of auroral activity is weak on the North American side.

This photo is from Travel-destination and the photo was taken somewhere form the Dempster Highway

map from The Milepost

I hope I do go north and I can then let you know. I should say that I have no plans to go to the Dempster Highway. It is a gravel road and has a reputation of having quite a few big trucks and being dusty and busy as a result. In fact tright now I am sort of leaning towards going to Yellowknoife and Wood Buffalo National Park mostly because I think that those are less popular destinations and should be quieter.I guess it is the difference between wanting to see the "Flat North" or the "Mountainous North". I've seen both before.

Next trip

After delays for various boring but real reasons I am now waiting for the last block to my next road trip to be removed.
I should find out tomorrow (deadline 9:00pm) whether or not the house is sold. If it is I will need to empty it before I hit the road. If it isn't sold I think I will sign a power of attorney to a friend of mine and take off. Both friends I have left in Calgary (everybody is on some other continent) have offer to do this for me.

I am getting seriously exited about this road trip but can't decide right now if I should go to Fairbanks and Delta Junction on the Alaska Highway or to Yellowknife and Wood Buffalo National Park at the end of the Deh Cho Route.
I am feeling a bit pushed to leave soon since I will have to be back in Calgary in early October to board my plane to Chile for the next leg of my Round the Word ticket.

The map from The Milepost website - link below

Also from The highly recommended  Milepost - link below

You can go and check out some of the northern routes at The Milepost. I bought myself this year's edition and I am spending way too long looking at it and daydreaming of places I could go. I highly recommend it as a great source of information if you wan to do the trip or for armchair travelers as a great source of daydreams.

Clean water with a tea bag ????

Look what I just found:

nanotech-tea-bag-creates-safe-drinking-water-instantly-for-less-than-a-penny

I honestly cannot say if this is true, valid, scientifically sound etc, but if it works you have to admit that this would be great.
I say Hurray for South Africa and Rooibos tea!!!!!

If this works it is fantastic!! This is the best "potential-news" I have heard in a long time.

I don't pray, but I am making an exception and I am praying for this to be true and to work.  Cheap safe water, this is truly unbelievable.
Things like this make me want to go back to university.

My New Truck Camper

Look what a friend (Andy for those who know) gave me. (the camper, not the truck, the truck was mine already. I use to need it for work and I kept it when I didn't need it anymore)

Of course when I say "new truck camper" I mean "new to me". It is old (1978) and used to be his Dadd's but it had some water damage after a tree fell on it at the farm where it was stored.

Andy and I spent three long days working on it to bring it back to a new life. Andy completely rewired it. We redid the ceiling after Andy framed it. Originally there was no framing for the ceiling at all which makes you wonder how it was able to carry the snow. We replaced the carpet and a all bunch of stuff. The hot water tank is split probably because it was left with water in it in winter and it froze but I decided that I didn't need hot water. It has a stove, a mini furnace which of course now brings to mind the idea of going to Alaska before I leave this continent.

Those things are such North American things to me. I remember seeing them on my first trip to Algonquin Park about twenty six years ago. It took me a while but now I have one of my own.
It probably seems very "red neck" to some of you but I am really happy about it. I love the idea of traveling around with my house with me. It reminds me of the van I rented in Tasmania but with a real North American twist.
I forgot to say, for some reason there was no mold in it and the thing does not smell at all which was the best part about it and is the reason why the "drastic make over" was possible.

I tell you though driving with one of those at the back is quite different. It makes the truck top heavy, slower, and a lot more susceptible to side winds, but it is nothing that cannot be handled.

Perseid Meteorite shower 2010

Just so you know: if you are in the northern hemisphere you should try to be in a dark place on the night of August 12th so you see the Perseid Meteorite shower this year.
 Apparently (this is from NASA) the shower happens at the same time than a planet alignment.

Here is an image from NASA:

This is what they say: "Looking northeast around midnight on August 12th-13th. The red dot is the Perseid radiant. Although Perseid meteors can appear in any part of the sky, all of their tails will point back to the radiant."
Check their full page about it at: NASA Science News.