Day Minus 2 of #Bouchercon2025 and exploring New Orleans

The PolyBlog
September 2 2025

I’m in New Orleans this week for #Bouchercon2025, and although it doesn’t start until Wednesday around midday, I flew in early so I could explore New Orleans. Fortunately for me, the side effect of problems checking in with United the day before leading to a change in flights meant that I arrived on Monday 7 hours earlier than I expected.

I was checked in and in my room, unpacked, by 12:15 p.m. After two weeks in August travelling around BC and staying in different hotels almost every night, it was a welcome respite to actually put things in drawers so I don’t have to root around in my suitcase every day for underwear and socks.

With an extra half day available, I decided to explore. I’m staying at the Marriott, which is the Bouchercon hotel of choice and the site of the conference. Looking at a map, I wanted to head down Chartres or Decatur street to get to the French Quarter and eventually Jackson Square.

So, of course, with my relatively decent sense of direction and my map on my phone, I completely walked a block in the wrong direction before realizing it. At least, I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, not pants and polos for the conference days. One about face, and I was heading right. Which left me thinking two things. First, that I had thought it was the other way in the first place and then decided the map was right and I was wrong, forgetting of course that the map likes to reorient itself (as told by me in the settings) to rotate for the direction I’m walking. Second, and far more important, I don’t have Jacob and Andrea to play navigator. Normally, when I’m travelling, one or both are in charge of the map. I drive, they navigate. Thankfully, I learned orienteering at elementary school; unfortunately, I don’t have a compass or lines on my map.

But I digress.

It ain’t the heat, it’s the humidity

The day ranged from 86 to 89 degrees Fahrenheit , a measly 30-31 degrees Celsius for Canucks back home. And 71 percent humidity.

It doesn’t sound bad, I know, but it was like walking into a wall of heat. I’m reminded of Robin Williams as Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning, Vietnam describing the weather.

I got two blocks from the hotel, dying in the heat and realized that my nice cool water bottle was still sitting in front of the TV back in the hotel room where I forgot it. Damn hot, indeed.

Oh, wait, what’s this? A place called The Legendary Milkshake Bar? Well, alrighty then. (I know, I know, that’s Jim Carrey, not Robin Williams…work with me, people, work with me here).

Apparently, the woman in the place ain’t used to being tipped or felt bad as I was looking for a single texture experience, not all the bells and whistles they offered. I bought a simple Gatorade for the road, and she gave me two, just in case. Cause it’s hot, damn hot! Don’t think I won’t go back for a bigger experience though. Ice cream experience, I’m not looking for THAT kind of milkshade, dude!

The two flavours are likely to be the ones not on the menu — simple vanilla and chocolate. Then probably caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, a cherry, and mini-marshmallows. With maybe a chocolate chip cookie on top. Of course, there were preset monster options:

The ones with bananas are tempting, even for a texture-plebe.

It hit the spot, and not only because it was now about 1:00 p.m. local time, 2:00 back home, and I’d been up since 4:00 a.m. but tend not to eat much when travelling. Small overshare … when I am travelling for something like this, my body goes into stress mode. Which affects lots of things, but most tellingly so in the, umm, digestive sense. I get to experience the equivalent of mild IBS, and so I’m often searching for toilets. Four different ones in airports on the way here, even with Imodium, although most were just gas. Enough details, I know. But the POINT is that I hadn’t had much to eat yet today, and I was dehydrated. The milkshake got me back in the groove while I looked for a restaurant.

As I walked through the French Quarter, I had deja vu. Often when I travel, and I’ve been to Asia, Europe, good portions of Canada and the US, and the Caribbean of course, I find that when a city refers to a Latin Quarter, or a French Quarter, or even a Chinatown, they’re referring mostly to the food and inhabitants. The buildings themselves rarely seem like the original.

Not so in New Orleans. Someone turning a corner in old Quebec City, or even Paris itself, could easily be forgiven for not realizing they’ve been transported to Louisiana. Sure, the offerings in the shops are different. Lots of pseudo-voodoo shops for tourists and mask shops for Mardi Gras. Reflexology, massage, and other services are available everywhere. Some are obviously “real”, some are obviously “covers”, and some are somewhere in between. I ain’t a vice cop, nor experienced in the genre, but if **I** can tell it’s more than a foot rub they’re offering while passing by, it’s not exactly “hidden”. Ignore the fact that some only open up around 7:00 p.m. and stay open until 2:00 or 3:00 according to the signs, that might be a clue as to their service offerings. And seemingly mostly Asian staff. I digress.

The streets are not wide, they’re quite narrow with cars parked. Not super narrow like Paris or Rome, but narrowish. And all the buildings look like French tenements. It felt so much like Paris, I felt like I should be walking with my head down, trying to avoid piles of dog crap on the street.

I had my headphones with me, and I often like to listen to music while I walk. No way could I do it here. I wanted the sounds, the sights, the smells. Everything. It was awesome.

My main destination was Jackson Square, named in honour of Andrew Jackson. There is a huge cathedral there, and I figured if I made it to the Square, and had lunch along the way, I could come back along the water and meet my quota for the day.

We have a friend, Vivian, who is a super-experienced and super-motivated traveller. She has a philosophy that is both inspiring and terrifying. When she’s in travel mode, and playing good tourist, she sets a goal of “three fun things by noon”. Then, as I understand the philosophy, she can slack off a bit more in the afternoon as the day is already full of fun and new experiences. Not a philosophy of tick boxes, just a way to push herself to be up early, out the door, and seeing what she travelled to see before the crowds hit or the weather changes or motivation flags.

I figured I got here at noon, so if I did three things by dinner, that should MORE than be worth the good tourist badge for the day. 🙂

About two blocks from Jackson Square, the sounds picked up. I could hear a band playing swing and jazz. I couldn’t see them, there was a construction block or something on the street, but as I neared the streets around the Square, I could finally see them. A small band set up under a portable awning, playing for tips, just off from the cathedral (the blue awning).

I know, I know. It’s not very inviting if you only see the picture. Hang on a second. Open Flickr app, upload video, synch over to my WordPress app…and…nothing. Hmm…Let’s see. If I install PhotoSync on my laptop, then synch without deleting aka just copying, and then try to upload from my laptop to Flickr. I’ll eventually put ALL of the photos in an album for Flickr, but I’m not ready to sort and weed yet. But if I can get the video over here…and then to there? Voila.

IMG_7550

Jackson Square
Jackson Square

Nice trumpet work, for the little I know about trumpets. Music. Performing. Anything, really. But it was nice. 🙂

Yet the stomach was rumbling, and my energy was flagging in the heat. I needed sustenance and somewhere to cool down again. I was only about ten blocks past the milkshake bar, or about six voodoo stores and 4 massage places, but it was hot. Did I mention how hot? Damn hot.

Oooh, what is this place? The upper floors don’t feel french to me, but the lower level? An open brasserie? Giddy up.

Cocktails to go? Umm. Okay, wasn’t expecting that as an option. But the cuisine options sounded intriguing enough (okay, everyone offers cajun and creole, I know, I know). The menu had lots of cocktails, which normally don’t interest me. I average about one alcoholic drink every 4-5 years, if you exclude weddings where they serve wine or champagne at the table with dinner, which I try but often don’t finish myself. Don’t get me wrong, I like mixed drinks. Mostly ones with milk or cream, and rum. Or occasionally fruity drinks on a hot day. Like this one. But I’m usually driving and don’t really want it bad enough for the prices involved. I’m fine with simple pop/soda and/or water.

My wife is looking at that photo and thinking, “Who IS this guy?”. That’s how rare it is for me to order a cocktail. But it’s called Voodoo Juice. It was described as “A blend of Malibu Coconut, Banana, Passionfruit and Pineapple Rum with fresh fruit juice.” Quite tasty. Oh, and if you look beyond the drink, past the blurry other patrons, you can see a blurry area where the band was playing and the Cathedral. I drank my drink, read my book on my Kindle, listened to the music (a pretty good version of The Saints Go Marching In is likely de rigueur as their last song). And awaited the food. A po’boy sandwich with deep-fried shrimp seems to be on every list by every website of something to try. So I did.

That picture is a terrible ode to the sandwich I ate. It came diagonally cut and I had already ripped through the first half without thinking much, after devouring fries. For the second half, I followed the official plan, aka “Dressed” in the local language, which traditionally means to add lettuce and mayonnaise to the sandwich that is po’boy bread with deep fried and battered shrimp on it. Oh, and pickles. I mustn’t forget the pickles. I skipped adding the tomato. So maybe only partially dressed. Rar!

Can I digress for a second? I normally like simple combos, few toppings, purer flavours. I would almost never think to add mayo to, well, just about anything by default. My condiment use doesn’t go much beyond ketchup, relish, mustard (although the Great Mustard Incident back in Mexico numerous years ago has me fearful of condiment dispensers), and salt or pepper. Pickles? Sure. On shrimp? With lettuce? When in Rome or the French Quarter, as they say. OMG. The combo raised it from simply good to ravenously awesome. Just a perfect blend of flavours. Surprisingly so.

I finished my drink, had a coke to clear the flue so to speak, and off again. The Cathedral is under construction, and didn’t seem readily available to enter. I was surprised there weren’t more tourists out and about on Labour Day, but I suspect many are doing the “back to school” readiness dance (if not already in school). I took some pictures of the church and square.

I found something odd about the cathedral, and I qouldn’t quite figure it out. Something was nagging at me. It wasn’t until I posted the photo above that it came to me. Almost all of the photos that I saw online were carefully cropped. It showed the magnificant cathedral, from the front (many taken from the Square), and it looks like there’s almost nothing around it. Big, majestic, imposing even. Then I took the photo above and realized there are buildings almost pressing up against it from three sides. Suddenly it seemed less majestic, disappointing almost.

The Square was lovely though. Old gnarled trees, the statue of Andrew Jackson.

A marvelous area to people-watch. Ladies fashion in the area ranges from ho-hum beach+ to prom dress sheen to amazing combos of dresses, footwear, and wrap-around tops with ties. Quite striking and unique, but I don’t get out much. 🙂

As I got to the end of the Square aka my goal, I noticed Cafe du Monde across the street. I had miscalculated distance, as I thought CdM was another few blocks and in the heat, I was going to take a pass. If po’boy shrimp sandwiches are on food lists in most guides to New Orleans, CdM is on EVERY list. To buy beignets. From the descriptions, and pictures, they look like a doughnut without the hole, with some sugar added. Oh, the pictures lie. They lie like cheap rugs.

The beignets are little slices of heaven hidden in fluffy clouds of sugar. First, they are not a doughnut. That is clear with the first bite. It is more like a cross between a fritter for shape and texture, with the taste of a warm soft bun, and a hint of sugar coating. Second, they’re served warm. I thought they would just be cold, pre-made, grab and go. Nope. They’re served warm, so the bun part melts in your mouth. It’s exquisite. Now, I have to confess, the sugar is daunting. They serve 3 beignets for $5 and it came covered in powdered sugar, served at an outdoor — all cash — cafe. I’m not sure the business model, but I suspect all of the waiters are actually self-employed contractors. CdM focuses on making them, the waiters and such serve. Hard to tell, but the business model is probably only of interest to me.

Okay, I confess. I cheated a bit. I picked up the beignet, tapped it on the plate from the end, and knocked most of the sugar off, back onto the plate. Three beignets later, I was STUFFED, and this was still left on the plate.

At the bottom of the pic, you can see some of the powdered sugar got on my shirt, my shorts, the people sitting next to me, two people having lunch in Baton Rouge eighty miles away who thought it was snowing, etc. You get the picture. A delightful mess. The people next to me were a very white couple with two young daughters, one dark and one light in tone. Ah, genetics, I have questions. One might have been a friend of the daughter, hard to say. They ordered them to go, and as I left, I chatted them up. They hadn’t tried them before either, and I had to rave to SOMEONE. The daughters were amused by the old guy covered in powdered sugar, I’m sure. I’m sure it was amusement and not derision. But I digress.

I headed over to the shore next to the great Mississippi River, and checked out options for boat tours, took in the sites, etc. I confess, my energy was starting to lag.

I’m not sure how long the cruise ship had been docked, but it was heading out when I was there. The angle and distance are misleading as it doesn’t look like it will fit under the bridge, but it did without any issues.

I started the route back to the hotel, continuing along Decatur Street (Chartres and Decatur run either side of the hotel — if I continue along them, I can’t get lost!). On my mind as I walked was a desire for sundries. Water, other drinks, snacks. Things to get me through the week, stock up my fridge, etc. I hadn’t seen anything resembling a corner store going along Chartres so when I saw a CVS (basic pharmacy and sundries), I jumped for it.

Apparently, my brain was mush. I got a bag with two bottles of Gatorade (to add to the two the milkshake lady gave me, only one half gone), plus some chocolate. And a bundle of 8 bottles of water for the fridge. Then I started lugging. I thought I was only a few blocks back? Nope, I was still about ten. When we were in BC, I really liked having extra stuff for snacks and drinks every day, but of course we had a car and a cooler. I am sherpa, see me schlep. It was a long walk back along Decatur in the heat.

The street isn’t a good impression of the French Quarter, as the roads aren’t narrow here, but it was a nice wide shot of the buildings.

I got back to the hotel and was feeling a little overdone. I read for an hour, and then napped for two. Only to wake up sick. Andrea had a cold all last week, Jacob got it early weekend, and I had hoped I missed it entirely. Either I didn’t miss it, or I got sick on the way here. Either way, woke up with sore throat and congestion starting. I felt like crap. A bottle of Gatorade later, and I was willing to go out. I strongly considered room service, but my friend’s Vivian likely disapproval inspired me out the door. 🙂

The hotel has what they call a “Burger Bar” in it, which is completely misleading. First, it’s not really “in” the hotel. It’s in the overall building, sure, but it opens up out on Canal Street. Second, it sounds like a restaurant, but it’s about the size of a food truck. Maybe a little bigger. It DOES have electronic ordering like McDonald’s. I passed.

I wandered down the South side of Canal Street for a few blocks, checking out places. Massage parlours were more openly aggressive, lots of drug dealers hanging out on corners although they didn’t seem to be doing an active business, and a number of homeless sleeping in doorways or on the street. Most of the restaurants had their chairs up on the tables, or bars, and were closing up. I saw lots of chicken places, but I was looking for something basic and comfort food like. I wasn’t sure WHAT exactly until I came across an IHOP. Huh. Not what I was looking for, nor what I was expecting, but eggs sunny-side up with toast, hash, fries, and bacon? Sure, sign me up tonight. The food was decent, service below average for IHOP, but about average for a lot of fast food places these days. The woman serving me was very nice, but she was not a candidate for Tulane or Xavier or LSU. Maybe she was just new. The food arrived warm and fresh, except for the fries. I had to ask for them twice more before she remembered there was an extra side.

But I experienced a small miracle in the IHOP. They have a lovely mocktail called a Blue Raspberry Lemonade Splasher. Whatever they have in it, it was like nectar to my sore throat. I had three of them. And when she brought the bill, she treated them all as refills. I am pretty sure they are not “unlimited refills”. I tipped her well instead of arguing, and drank the nectar of the gods.

Afterwards, I crossed the street and headed back. It was about 10:30 at this point, and almost everything on the North Side was closed. Except the Walgreens and CVS, only a block or two from the hotel. Son of a … yep, I lugged stuff way too far. And there’s even a mini mart about a half-block past the hotel, although I haven’t checked it out. I grabbed Ricola for my throat and some Coke to get me going in the morning, and ignored the con artists and homeless people who wanted to engage on the way back. The two cop cars that showed up at the same time and parked in the middle of Canal Street next to the street car areas seemed to clear out the drug dealers. Or at least put a serious crimp in their business.

I returned to the hotel, wrote my blog for the trip to Orleans, and played with uploads here and there. Vivian saw a few posts on Facebook and gave me her seal of approval as a good tourist. 🙂

For me, I took some big things off my Louisiana list. I had a po’boy sandwich. I ordered a local cocktail. I walked around the French Quarter. I visited the Square and saw the outside of the Cathedral. I managed to make it to the shore and to Cafe du Monde. I bought the stuff I wanted for my mini-fridge. All because I got up at the crack of stupid to fly only on Air Canada and thus got here 7 hours earlier. I thought Monday, Labour Day, would be a write-off and Tuesday would be my big day. Apparently not, in a good way.

I still have jazz, the Aquarium, and BBQ shrimp on my must list, although I’d like to do either an airboat or a cruise perhaps too. And wander around the French Quarter again at night. Hopefully with some people from the conference.

I’m not yet ready to embrace the local motto of “Laissez les bons temps rouler” (let the good times roll, which seems like a harsh anglicisme), but if someone asks me “Where y’at?”, I will at least remember they’re asking me how I am doing, not where I’m from.

The Big Easy and the trip that almost wasn’t

The PolyBlog
September 2 2025

I’ve always wanted to go to Bouchercon, all the way back into the late ’90s and I was in various writers groups online. It just never seemed worth it enough, as my writing hobby is mostly blogging and will be so until I retire and have more time to devote to it. And even then, there are a bunch of non-ficiton pieces at the top of the writing to do list.

But I’ve trying to think ahead, “prep” my retirement, and this year’s Bouchercon is in New Orleans. The Big Easy. And a destination that has long been on my bucket list. I pulled the trigger back in late Spring and registered, booked flights and reserved the hotel. I was in.

I was trying to keep the arrangements simple, and I booked with Air Canada from Ottawa to Chicago, and then Chicago to New Orleans. On the return, I had the same connection. There were options through Toronto and Washington, but Washington’s times were odd, and for Toronto, I wouldn’t clear customs until Toronto. If I went Ottawa to Chicago, I could clear customs in Ottawa. All good.

Almost immediately, Air Canada threw me to the wolves. Within days of the booking, they changed the time of my outbound flight by a few minutes and my return, plus switched me entirely to United and United Express. There was a small tweak to one of the elements, something with baggage or seat bookings, as I recall so in effect, they changed the price. Other than the days and the routings, everything changed. No big deal. I had a 4 hour layover in Chicago that I wasn’t too happy about, but whatever.

I just got back from another trip with the family to BC. I couldn’t worry about the New Orleans one too much in advance, other than to plan to do it only with a single carry-on rather than checking any luggage.

This past week, I got the Air Canada app set up with Andrea’s help, and my stress started to rise. It is a REALLY long time since I travelled on my own on a plane. So long in fact, I can’t even reliably think of when it was. I think it was before Jacob was born, come to think of it. Wow.

Anyway.

So the app was flagging things all over the place about my flights. Namely that there had been multiple changes to the flight times. Which I knew and didn’t worry about. And the app didn’t like them. They wanted me to log into my Air Canada account and accept the changes. Except there was no place I could find to say, “Yep, all good.” Whatever, I wasn’t complaining about them, I was fine with them.

Except when I went to check in to my flights on Sunday, Air Canada said “Nope, you have to check in on United”. Okay. When I pulled it up on United, it said, “Hey, we can’t pull up your reservation as there are duplicate flights. If you booked with a travel agency, call them; if not, call us.” Except it wasn’t really “call them” so much as try chatting with them.

I tried chatting. It’s an AI-driven virtual assistant at the start, asking me for my confirmation number, my eticket number and my last name. Only to tell me that I should checkin online or use their app. I had to tell it to transfer me to an agent three times before it did. Then 20 minutes online for them to tell me they couldn’t do anything, talk to Air Canada.

Sigh.

Called Air Canada, and actually made it to a real person in about five minutes. Nice. Okay, so they go through, tell me about all the flight changes since I booked, I say yes, they finalize it all, shows up in my app all perfect, no flags. So I should be able to check in with United immediately.

Nope. Same problem. I fought through chat agent algorithms and eventually got to a live body who basically told me that I should contact the travel agency “Air Canada” and get them to reissue the ticket.

In United’s defense, they were showing my return at 10:25 a.m. even though Air Canada was showing 9:40 a.m. So legitimately, it wasn’t lining up.

I called Air Canada and got Nick. Bear in mind that I am now less than 18 hours from boarding and in the midst of packing. Nick couldn’t solve it, and he even reluctantly called United to work it out between them. They couldn’t fix it. But he assured me that if I went to the airport on Monday, they could fix it at the airport manually.

Yeah, I’ve read lots of posts online from people who had VERY SIMILAR problems and lo and behold, it was not easy to fix manually at the airport nor even clear if Go Jet, United, or Air Canada was the one to fix it. AC told me United; United told me AC.

My stress has entered the chat

I was not wanting to go to the airport in the hope they could work it out. It would have just stressed the absolute f*** out of me. So I got to thinking.

Weren’t there OTHER flights that I had not chosen because of routing, times or whatever?

“Hey, look, Nick. I see there is an early morning option to fly AC-only through Toronto to New Orleans. And similarly coming home.”

Yep, he saw it. And since he could treat it as a schedule change, he could rebook me all the way through the trip on AC only. Done. Goodbye United.

Oh f***. I was leaving at 6:00 now, meaning up at 4:00, at the airport for 4:45 a.m. Crap. Well, sleep was overrated. I made it, everything went swimmingly in Ottawa. Interestingly, there was a flight to Toronto that left while I was in the gate area and nobody asked us if we wanted to go early (they did for ours as there was lots of room). I thought about asking, give me more time in Toronto to make a change, but nah, it’ll be fine, right????

I got to Toronto, my new departure was also in Terminal 1, all good, right? RIGHT????

Right, 90 minutes between flights. With walking a mile or two it seemed to get to security, where they decided that we were doing FULL security without any of the bells and whistles that makes it easy at Ottawa now. No, this was old school. Shoes off, laptops out of their bag, CPAP machine out of its bag, separate bin for my carry on, etc. I had 5 bins go through the scanners and then it took me almost 10 minutes to reassemble everything back to where it needed to be. I am NOT looking forward to the return, but I’ve got way more time.

Then I had to clear customs who wanted to know why a government guy was going to a writing conference without a business visa. HOBBY was the key word they were looking for, fyi.

Then 12 more corridors and I really NEEDED a bathroom. No choice at that point.

Got to the gate finally, second last one to board — which was stressful except for the fact the flight was half-empty. So they had boarded REALLY fast. After takeoff, I moved back about 10 rows, nobody in front of me or behind me, easy to recline seats, spread out on the seats beside me, etc. It was great. We also picked up tail wind or something, and we arrived at least 30 minutes earlier than expected.

I texted Andrea as I finished various “stages” and sent some early pics of the Big Easy on landing.

Then a VERY long trip through the New Orleans airport to get to the exit, with another bathroom stop, only to find out that apparently NOLA doesn’t like taxis??? There were about 10 different signs up for various types of transport from the airport, with NO indication at the first 9 where taxis might be. But I found one, $40 and 25 minutes later, with a swing by the Superdome, and I was at the hotel.

Then I got a really nice surprise. I was supposed to get here around 7:00 p.m. at night, but I was now here at noon. I arrived at the hotel a few minutes before but there were a couple of guests ahead. I assumed I’d have to drop my bag and go wander, but no, they had a room of my type available. Sweet. By 12:15 p.m., I was in my room, and unpacked even. Seven hours ahead of schedule.

I have Monday afternoon now, plus all day Tuesday, and some of Wednesday morning before Bouchercon 2025 starts.

This is my home for the next week. Let the fun begin!

Retirement Prep: 2 years to go and I’m off-track

The PolyBlog
August 27 2025

I started writing about my retirement plans almost two years ago. I worked my way through some health stuff, end-of-life stuff, finances, etc. And then I did my big reveal for travel. A huge plan to travel all over North America in stages over several years.

The first stage would be 25,000 km, starting in Ottawa, heading for Alberta and then the North, over to Alaska and down to Vancouver, touring around as I went, finally ending up in San Diego before heading for New Orleans and then back to Ottawa. Lots of criss-crossing as I went. I skipped the Grand Canyon area for a future trip with the family — this would be, relatively-speaking, a solo journey with Jacob likely in university and Andrea still working. I’d cover Western Canada, Alaska, two territories and most of the US west of the Mississippi.

Stage 2 would be Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, PEI, New Brunswick, a bit of Maine, and back home. Stage 3 would be New England all the way down to Florida, over towards the Mississippi again, and back home. A fourth stage would head back to the US midwest and back up into Canada for Glacier National Park (both sides of the border) and then back home.

I figured the most likely scenario would be to get an SUV large enough to pull a small trailer…more than a teardrop, but still within the weight limits for an SUV. It would give me SOME options for extra sleeping space for Jacob and Andrea, but more importantly, gave me the best option for a bathroom. This boy don’t poop in a bucket in his kitchen.

It was a really good plan.

Life entered the chat

Within weeks of my writing those posts, with plans for more, our life changed. Or more pointedly, Jacob’s life changed, and ours adjusted to his big change. Over the last two years, what started as a suspected concusssion ended up being something else, messing with his day-to-day experiences a lot. The thought of planning for ANYTHING kind of went out the window.

For much of the last 2 years, we have been in some form of survival mode. Not thriving, not growing, just figuring out how to get through each day. What can he do, what can we do, how can we help, etc. And, to the extent that we thought much at all about future plans, it was more about “what are the long-term impacts of this, what does it mean for him and us?”. We could probably write a blog every day about what it was like, but that would be too much of Jacob’s story, as opposed to my portion of the experience.

A year ago, May 2024, after 7 months of adjustments, I was stressed out of my gourd. During that period, I was not thinking about plans for retirement, I wasn’t watching the countdown clock, I wasn’t focusing on the things I need to do physically to get ready for some of my long-term plans, I basically was chauffeur for Jacob to get to school and appointments and I worked. Outside of that, most of my hobbies went to the back burner. Binging TV shows occasionally, no astronomy, no photography, limited writing outside of some book reviews and the HR stuff. Every once in a while, I would get a burst of normalcy but it wouldn’t last.

So, I took a couple of weeks off to decompress just to get Jacob to the end of the school year. And then something weird happened. I realized that I wasn’t stressed about Jacob or his future or the challenges, I was stressed with our schedule. Every week, Andrea and I would work with Jacob on Sunday night to plan out the week. Jacob would plan to go to school for Monday morning, Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday afternoon, Thursday morning, etc. Andrea would go to the office Monday and Wednesday, I’d go Tuesday and Thursday, etc. We’d add in the appointments and who was going, etc. And then Monday morning would arrive, Jacob would have a flare-up, and our schedule was out the window. So we’d adjust. Then Tuesday, something else would happen, and we’d adjust again. I started describing it as “game day decisions”. We literally had no idea when stuff would happen. So, with us working in Gatineau, the schedule was a mess. I got permission to work from home and/or the satellite office until the end of the next school year, and we made it work. There was still lots going on, but with me working from home, game day decisions didn’t matter — I was there, I could take him to school or appointments, etc., without having to figure out a commute home to get him, etc. And Andrea’s life became more predictable, too. But that’s her story to tell, if she chooses to do so.

Until about May of this year, I began to wonder if my plans to retire in two years would work out financially and logistically. With Jacob’s life disrupted, I began to worry about needing to be able to be around Ottawa to help if he was still in the same chaos in a few years, what would it mean for high school, perhaps longer university time, the potential for jobs to earn money to pay for school on top of what we have saved, etc. I started to question my likely retirement date. I was still nominally planning for it, but the excitement went way down as every day was game day. I don’t NEED to retire in two years and staying on for another couple of years would put a lot more income in our bank account. I want to retire, but maybe I should go a bit longer, right? At least, that’s where my thinking was going.

Reality also decided to check in regarding my travel plans

Now, I mentioned a bit of this when I wrote about it, but my excitement gave me a false sense of confidence. Here’s the thing. I am NOT a handy guy by any stretch of the imagination. I can handle some basic electrical stuff, at least I’m confident enough to try some of it, but I am not a mechanic, nor a plumber, nor a general fix-it guy. Can I **really** drive an SUV and trailer all over North America without getting myself into a giant funk somewhere when something goes wrong and I have no way to fix it myself?

Even if I ignore the need for basic maintenance and repairs, such as plumbing and toilets, there’s an additional component: some tasks are really hard to do by yourself, even if they are straightforward. Take backing up the SUV and connecting the trailer. Most people are doing this with two people, one driving and one standing by the hitch saying, “A little more, yep, keep coming, keep coming, whoa, stop, go forward an inch, okay, let’s try it there”. Or if they are doing it themself, they are using backup cameras, extra sensors, or really cool mini-pulling machines that will let you move your trailer TO the hitch rather than the hitch to the trailer. However, for other things, even having someone hold a flashlight and angle it up, or to say, “Hey, did you tighten the left one too or just the right one?” Extra brainstorming or mental capacity.

I started second-guessing my confidence. I was still buoyed by the trip, but was it really DOABLE by myself?

As I thought about that, I started imagining breaking down somewhere in Northern Alberta on a highway and having to deal with the headaches all on my own. Even finding a place to stay while finding a mechanic while finding food solutions, etc. When we travel as a family, I do all the driving, but Andrea and Jacob share the overall load by doing most of the destination planning, route choice, and accommodations booking. In a trailer, I would probably have most of my accommodations set in 3-day increments, but it would still be nice to have someone share the mental load.

Plus, to be honest, I am not always the most fun-loving guy when I spend too much time by myself. I am afraid that 2 weeks in, I’d be speeding through destinations just to get there, not taking my time, just bored and/or lonely. A family member suggested that one option would be to basically post my travel schedule to a bunch of people that I would be willing to travel with and say, “Hey, here’s where I’m going and what I’m doing, if you want to join me for a segment, let me know!”. My friend Stephan even suggested that if I wait a couple of years, he’d be interested in major parts of the plan.

Except then my squirrel brain started thinking, “Wait…travelling with the SAME PERSON for FOUR MONTHS? Am I nuts?”. 🙂 Yeah, it makes no sense to anyone but me.

But I started to wonder if maybe this travel plan is not the best solution. Maybe, instead, I could do what we just did…the three of us flew to BC, rented a car, and drove around the lower mainland. Awesome experience (and a bit terrifying, I’ll come back to that).

I had done Vancouver Island before, and Whistler, Abbotsford a bit, Vancouver. I thought I had an idea of what to expect. I absolutely did not. And it rekindled my desire for the giant trip.

Just before I left for the trip, I was reading an article that had been flagged for me due to alerts I had set, and it was about all-in-one van campers. Not the ones with widow’s peaks, etc., just the huge panel fans. There are three general models, one that sells about 120K units a year, another that does about 65K units a year, and a third that does about 55K units a year. Online fora are rabid about the differences in the models, and while I was interested enough to set an alert, I had relatively screened them out of my planning. Essentially, I wanted more space for a toilet…the vans were a bit too cozy for my needs.

Yet the article that I read was by a guy who had actually owned all three brands, and multiple models of each in fact, and he had come to a decision based on his experience. I assumed it would be about his preference for x or y, which might or might not be relevant to me, but it sounded cool. I like curation articles by knowledgeable people.

Except this was about something totally different. He was talking about repairs and reliability, and in part, the ability to run one by yourself. Hey! That sounds familiar! And here was his take. All three were good. You could come up with reasons to take any of the three, hence the rabid fans online arguing which is better. But for him, it came down to a question of whether or not you could get something fixed relatively easily or were you just “stuck”.

With a truck or SUV and trailer, you can always leave the trailer behind if you need to go get parts. There were a considerable number of trailers along the side of the road during our BC trip where they had a problem, maybe a flat, maybe something more serious, and they parked the trailer and off they went to get help or parts or whatever. I wanted the separated “drive” vehicle and “sleep” vehicle as it can be painful to pack everything up just to run to the store to get bread. I don’t have a lot of travel experience of that type of combined vehicle, but the little I do have made that clear fast. Plus I’m likely to want to go kayaking a lot during my travels, so a separate drive vehicle would work great.

But here was what he noted for repairs and parts, including with a test. He created a common scenario where each of the vehicles broke down with the same issue, and would require a certified tech/mechanic to install the parts. Something up on a hoist that you couldn’t do yourself, basically. He then called a few areas that he might regularly travel to that were a bit farther away from a big city, and thus not something you just run to the local store to deal with or get parts. For the 55K units per year model, one of the areas he called basically said they could get the parts in about TWO WEEKS, but they didn’t have a certified tech to install them. He’d have to have the vehicle towed quite a way to get to a proper dealership. Someone MIGHT be able to fix it local, but the garage owner wasn’t optimistic. For the 65K per unit model, it’s a bit more common in the US, so installation was more likely but parts would take several days at least to order in.

Then he tried the model that sells about 130K per year. The very first garage he called said they had the parts in stock, any of their mechanics could install it, and if they drove by that afternoon, they could do it before they closed.

Why the difference? Not the volume of units sold. It’s because the last model is the Ford Transit van. Which uses almost all the same parts from Ford’s F-150 and 350 series. So of course they had them in stock and of course the mechanics are all certified to install them. Ford sells more than a million of these units per year or something like that.

And suddenly, I was wondering if maybe the trip WAS manageable. Sure, I’d have to deal with electrical and plumbing and space. But it’s a smaller footprint aka easier to drive with no trailer, not much different from driving a large SUV or station wagon (according to some people, although I have some doubts that’s entirely accurate), and only one “unit” to go wrong. I’m not sure how kayaks would work for the height, and there are a LOT of options from DIY design to custom builds to existing commercial versions. Getting the passenger options up to 2+1 would be a challenge and there is NO extra room for sitting around, you pretty much have to be outside most of the time. But for one person, it’s easily doable.

I would be back to compromising on the toilet stuff, but well, if it means I can DO it afterall, maybe that’s the price.

Except the trip to BC threw an opposite curveball. I did the Coquihalla Highway in BC early on in the trip. And I discovered something I didn’t know about myself.

I confess up front that I already knew that I am not a big fan of heights…I can go up in hot air balloons, I can fly in planes or helicopters, I can be in tall buildings, etc., but I don’t like being on walkways or standing at the edge of platforms. If I look down, my legs start to go jelly-like. I could never do bungee jumping or parachuting (Andrea jumped twice, she’s fine, but not me, and likely not Jacob either).

What I didn’t know is that when I’m driving on a highway that has a giant cliff next to me, I’m not that happy about it. I’m better if I’m on the inside of the road aka I’m not next to the cliff, there’s a whole other lane and then the shoulder, and then the cliff. But when it’s next to the passenger side of the vehicle I’m driving, I don’t like it. There are parts of the trip where I was on switchbacks for 10-15 minutes, not very fun, but manageable. And then there was one section where I was doing it for about 30 minutes and I found it a bit much. I knew that the “trick” is to relatively focus on the road ahead, do not look out at the gap, do not look down, basically ignore the cliff. Not perfect, but workable.

And then we went to Lilloett. The last hour to there was really quite painful. I spent about 30 minutes dealing with some switchbacks and some other bits that were a bit annoying, but not terrible. I had to focus, lots of speed changes, and some places where I didn’t like having a large truck bearing down on me even if the turn ahead was rated to 60-70 kph instead of 40 in some places. Just enough to ramp me up a bit for stress. Hands at 10 and 2, gripping a bit tighter than I would like, strong concentration. Particularly as I was driving a rental, a Chevy Blazer with some power that met the requirements for big hills and steep grades, but which I wasn’t completely comfortable with nor that experienced handling. But the last 30 minutes? It was hell.

Every single inch was along the side of a mountain with a huge valley gap beside us. And we were going around a mountain so that my view was almost 240 degrees of drop. If I looked ahead, I could see the drop after the road turned; if I looked to the side, there was a drop; if I looked in the rear-view mirror, there was a drop. And I don’t mean a hundred feet. It was more like 1000 feet down. The views at the rest stops were great, but driving, hell no.

I made it, there were no safety infractions, nobody was on verge of death, but I hated the drive. I followed the speed limits PRECISELY. If it said slow to 50 for a curve, you bet I did 50. If I came to a pull-off area, and there was anybody behind me or I had gone 10+ minutes without stopping, I pulled over and let my arms relax. I was gripping so tight. It was fine, but it wasn’t fun.

And if I was driving one of these vans? I’d likely be sitting about 14 inches higher than I was in the Blazer. Meaning that I would see over the edge even easier. It would be harder to ignore. I have never seen roads like this. I’ve been driving in Newfoundland, Quebec, New England, and never once felt uneasy. But the Coquihalla really freaked me out the first time, and the road into Lilloett was the least fun part of the trip for me. I felt some residual angst on the highway from Whistler to Vancouver, one section kind of hangs off the edge of the mountain, but it was relatively minor in comparison as it was a big wide road.

Oh, and did I mention that the majority of the roads with the huge drops had NO GUARD RAILS???? Frak me.

Sooo…95% of my various trips would be fine, nothing like what I did. But there’s a stretch from Alaska to Washington I’m not as sure about now. And I would want to make sure that whatever route I went through BC even for the mainland was much simpler. And definitely not in rain or winter. Never in winter. Not even a glimmer of a possibility of doing it in winter.

So, where is my headspace now?

The “trip” stuff is probably a distraction…maybe I do it, maybe I don’t. I don’t need to decide for two years. I really like the idea of having a contingency plan where I go to a bunch of the destinations, even if I have to rent a car and stay in a hotel.

In the same sense that I don’t have anything that tells me retiring in 2 years is financially “sounder”, I also don’t have anything that says it is bad either. Jacob is doing way better, or at least was at the end of his school year. He has things going on, such as school, mobility, and driving, but he’s handling it. Some of it is just basic teen stuff, with an overlay of some extra stuff. So maybe nothing to worry about now. Or nothing more than normal, anyway.

Which is also partly true on the retirement plan side. There’s nothing I have to tell work yet officially. I’ll definitely wait to see if there are buyout packages that look lucrative or manageable for me; I will still focus on writing when I retire; and, I’m hoping to do some special projects for work before I exit. All of that stays relatively the same for now.

I feel like I’m still on track for two years. As of today, August 27, my father would have been 98. Fast forward two years, and I suspect even you can do the math to realize August 27, 2027 would have been his 100th birthday. It’s still my target. Things may slip, I’m not hardcore planning right now, but I will return to some of the ideas in the coming months. I suspect I’ll make my real decision on January 1, 2027, or at least the decision if I’m going that year. If I choose no, I’ll decide again on January 1, 2028, or 2029, etc. I know I won’t go past 2030, that is my max for pension. I’d be 62 by then.

Two years. Start your engines!

Next up on my plans? A writing conference next week in New Orleans. Fingers crossed it goes well, it’s a bit more expensive than I would like but I have wanted to go for a very long time. And I get to try travelling by myself for the first time in a very long time. I’m not exactly Dora the Explorer, nor her cousin Diego. Well, for that matter, I’m not even her knapsack.