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GO WEST, OLD LADY
Dec. 23rd, 2022 02:37 pmWe’ve been here for a month. It seems like a good time to write about the journey to British Columbia, now that I’m pretty much over the trauma of moving. Here’s my story:
I had known for more than a year that it was time to sell the big house near Toronto because it was becoming too expensive to run, what with both of us on fixed incomes. Once prices of everything started to rise (except our incomes) it became too difficult to handle everything on our own. We tried having our son and his girlfriend live with us for half a year, but when my daughter and her crew arrived from B.C. they couldn’t get along with the others and a big fight ensued, which resulted in my son and gf leaving. *sigh* I have many regrets, but I can’t dwell on that now.
My daughter and her husband, who had been living in Kelowna, B.C. for the past 5 years, talked to us about how great it was to live there – everything was better – the climate, food, activities, everything except prices – it convinced me that since I was looking to sell anyway, we may as well give Kelowna a try. I had been looking for a new home, downsizing of course, in many areas around Toronto but farther into the countryside – with the Muskokas being the most likely target.
I enlisted a real estate agent in September. It would have been sooner, but my poor husband suffered another mini stroke at the end of August and after spending a week in hospital, came out with worse dementia than he had before. I thought perhaps it would be too difficult to try to move him, but then I realized it might be better for him to be living in a place where he might thrive rather than diminish. That made me decide on Kelowna after supplementing my daughter’s stories with some research of my own.
I was born in Vancouver and have always thought about returning there to live someday. Kelowna isn’t Vancouver, but it’s not that far away, and the Okanagan Valley climate-wise does make more sense than living in Vancouver, which gets too much rain for my daughter’s liking. It can be depressing there, which wouldn’t suit my husband at all.
The Okanagan is on the tip of a desert and is also situated in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains. Not huge like the Rockies, but lower and covered in pine trees. The climate here is dry and one of the warmest places in Canada, with short winters and an early spring.
My real estate agent in Ontario knew an agent in the Kelowna area that she hooked me up with, and he sent me many listings, which I scrutinized and considered in much detail until I landed on the house I bought. He took us on a video walk-through of the place before I made my final decision. The house was built in 1975, so it’s quite old, but it had many upgrades – the central air conditioning and the plumbing was all put in a year ago. It looked like it had new copper wiring as well, but I am supposed to get an electrical inspector in for the insurance company, because the house is so old. I’ll do that right after new year’s.
There are 3 bathrooms, all newly renovated and much nicer than the ones in our old place. The kitchen has also been somewhat upgraded, with stone countertops in flecked white, which was actually my favorite color, and new stainless steel appliances, not that I cared much about that.
The house has a definite 70’s vibe which I don’t mind at all. It needed new flooring, which I had put in before we moved, with all new laminate and carpeting. It also needs painting, but I’ll have that done either this spring or maybe in the fall.
It’s smaller than our old house so I had to get rid of a lot of our furniture and other items. Our old place had 4,500 square feet of living space (that included the finished basement) but the new house is a ranch bungalow style, with 2,500 square feet on two levels. It sits on a 9,000 square foot lot, so the yard is pretty big. One thing that sold me was this place had 5 bedrooms, so just enough for all of us, including my daughter’s family.
I want Sean to come, and he said he might fly out next month. I miss him so much and there’s plenty of room here for him.
Our old house was brick. This one has a white exterior, probably aluminum.
Our old house sold in 4 days with a closing date two months away, November 23rd. I put in an offer on the Kelowna house and its closing was November 25th. Then I arranged for my husband and I to take the train while my daughter, husband and two kids decided to drive. She has a nice BMW that she wanted to keep, so driving was the only option for her. Our grandson Sean didn’t want to move with us, so he ended up moving in with his other grandmother in Peterborough, which is between our old place and Ottawa.
We have 3 cats and I found a lovely man who took them to Kelowna for us. He picked them up on the 21st and my daughter and family left the same evening.
I couldn’t get train tickets until November 27th so I booked my husband and myself into a hotel until then (we vacated our old house on November 22nd ) and I was there that last day along with the cleaners. I had also arranged to have our old Cadillac transported to B.C. by a company that specializes in that. First, I took it to the dealership to have a diagnostics test run and to fix a crack in the windshield and give it an oil change. Luckily there wasn’t much that needed doing and I got the new windshield.
But two days later I got a call from the transport company saying that they got delayed on another call and were going to be late picking up our car. They didn’t know when. I panicked and after much deliberation, cancelled our train tickets. My husband was starting to get antsy at the same time and wanted to leave, so I felt I had no choice but to start driving there myself. My husband had his license suspended so there was no way he could do it. I would have to do all of the driving.
The first day was fun. It was a lovely drive through the Muskokas and we ended up staying in North Bay the first night. It ended up being two nights because I was waiting for the funds from the sale of our house to be deposited into my account. It took a couple more days than I had thought but then it was done and we continued on our way.
All of us were lucky because the good weather was with us. However, we stopped in Sault Ste Marie on the third night and I got sick. It was also the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend and because Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario is directly across from the USA and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, it was very, very busy. But I found a good hotel called the Water Tower Inn (a Best Western) and checked in there.
I hadn’t noticed until I was unpacking that I had left most of my clothes behind in North Bay! I remember packing the used ones into a large bag in the motel we stayed in and I must have forgotten to put it into my suitcase! The receptionist at the front desk in the Water Tower Inn told me there was a big mall across the main street with a Walmart and other stores where I could buy clothing, so after I settled my husband, I walked over there for a shopping spree.
It was fun and I liked Sault Ste. Marie a lot. The hotel had a Casey’s Restaurant on their main floor, which served great food – it was like homemade and not at all expensive, at least I didn’t think so. The portions were huge so we would order only one meal and share it. It was more than enough!
My husband got panicky after we ate in the restaurant the first two nights and for breakfast. He found it too noisy – they did play their music very loud. I took to going downstairs by myself every dinnertime and taking the food back upstairs. During the day I’d go over to the mall or just go for a walk around the area and bring lunch back from Booster Juice.
I contacted the people who were supposed to pick up the car and they said they’d come and get it from the hotel in Sault Ste Marie, so we stayed there for a week and waited for them. However, at the last minute they called me to say they were on their way from Thunder Bay and unfortunately ran into bad weather and road closures, so they were going to be late again.
At this point I panicked. I knew we had to get out of The Soo, as people call it. But I got very fond of the place and if I had to move back to Ontario I’d consider living there. First, it’s beautiful, maybe not at this time of year, but in the spring and summer it would be awesome. There’s lots to do and explore and it apparently has great food everywhere.
I started looking for apartments there. My husband was also having episodes of right arm numbness accompanied by an inability to form words to be able to talk properly, so I was worried that I’d have to take him to a hospital, and I didn’t want to leave him.
The weather also turned bad for a couple of days, with blowing snow. When we looked out the window it was blowing sideways! I knew I couldn’t drive any more by myself.
In the meantime, my daughter and her husband had reached British Columbia. I told her she could pick up the keys to the new house from the realtor and go there to wait for the movers. They arrived just after my daughter did.
I decided the hell with the car and booked a flight for my husband and I. Luckily Sault Ste Marie has an airport. It’s a small but lovely one. We took a plane back to Toronto from there and then on to Kelowna from Toronto. It took just over 5 hours altogether plus an hour or so waiting time at Pearson, Toronto’s airport.
Before we left, I gave the car keys to the receptionist at the Water Tower Inn, with the name of the transportation company and instructions to give them to the people who were to pick the car up from there.
Everything worked out. My daughter picked us up from the airport. My husband traveled well (I was afraid he might not) and was mesmerized by the sight of Kelowna, surrounded by beautiful mountains. Our cats arrived the same night we did – it was 2 a.m. the next day. At first they were very confused, but it took them only a day or so to get used to the new place.
On the Sunday morning we saw a herd of deer grazing on the rose bushes under our living room window. I took some photos of them. It was a small herd of 5 females. The next day we saw a lone male with huge antlers across the street.
A few days later we went for a walk with our granddaughter and saw the same herd again a few streets over. Since we’ve been here, we’ve seen the deer 5 times and a squirrel only once! Back home the squirrels are very plentiful and the deer very scarce.
After we were here a week our car finally arrived! The couple who run their own transportation company were lovely people. Very interesting to talk to. They had quite an adventure getting here but finally made it.
That’s it for now. We are gradually getting settled and getting ready for Christmas. I’ve done all my shopping and now it’s time to clean the house. We’re still not completely unpacked but we are getting there.
To be continued.
I had known for more than a year that it was time to sell the big house near Toronto because it was becoming too expensive to run, what with both of us on fixed incomes. Once prices of everything started to rise (except our incomes) it became too difficult to handle everything on our own. We tried having our son and his girlfriend live with us for half a year, but when my daughter and her crew arrived from B.C. they couldn’t get along with the others and a big fight ensued, which resulted in my son and gf leaving. *sigh* I have many regrets, but I can’t dwell on that now.
My daughter and her husband, who had been living in Kelowna, B.C. for the past 5 years, talked to us about how great it was to live there – everything was better – the climate, food, activities, everything except prices – it convinced me that since I was looking to sell anyway, we may as well give Kelowna a try. I had been looking for a new home, downsizing of course, in many areas around Toronto but farther into the countryside – with the Muskokas being the most likely target.
I enlisted a real estate agent in September. It would have been sooner, but my poor husband suffered another mini stroke at the end of August and after spending a week in hospital, came out with worse dementia than he had before. I thought perhaps it would be too difficult to try to move him, but then I realized it might be better for him to be living in a place where he might thrive rather than diminish. That made me decide on Kelowna after supplementing my daughter’s stories with some research of my own.
I was born in Vancouver and have always thought about returning there to live someday. Kelowna isn’t Vancouver, but it’s not that far away, and the Okanagan Valley climate-wise does make more sense than living in Vancouver, which gets too much rain for my daughter’s liking. It can be depressing there, which wouldn’t suit my husband at all.
The Okanagan is on the tip of a desert and is also situated in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains. Not huge like the Rockies, but lower and covered in pine trees. The climate here is dry and one of the warmest places in Canada, with short winters and an early spring.
My real estate agent in Ontario knew an agent in the Kelowna area that she hooked me up with, and he sent me many listings, which I scrutinized and considered in much detail until I landed on the house I bought. He took us on a video walk-through of the place before I made my final decision. The house was built in 1975, so it’s quite old, but it had many upgrades – the central air conditioning and the plumbing was all put in a year ago. It looked like it had new copper wiring as well, but I am supposed to get an electrical inspector in for the insurance company, because the house is so old. I’ll do that right after new year’s.
There are 3 bathrooms, all newly renovated and much nicer than the ones in our old place. The kitchen has also been somewhat upgraded, with stone countertops in flecked white, which was actually my favorite color, and new stainless steel appliances, not that I cared much about that.
The house has a definite 70’s vibe which I don’t mind at all. It needed new flooring, which I had put in before we moved, with all new laminate and carpeting. It also needs painting, but I’ll have that done either this spring or maybe in the fall.
It’s smaller than our old house so I had to get rid of a lot of our furniture and other items. Our old place had 4,500 square feet of living space (that included the finished basement) but the new house is a ranch bungalow style, with 2,500 square feet on two levels. It sits on a 9,000 square foot lot, so the yard is pretty big. One thing that sold me was this place had 5 bedrooms, so just enough for all of us, including my daughter’s family.
I want Sean to come, and he said he might fly out next month. I miss him so much and there’s plenty of room here for him.
Our old house was brick. This one has a white exterior, probably aluminum.
Our old house sold in 4 days with a closing date two months away, November 23rd. I put in an offer on the Kelowna house and its closing was November 25th. Then I arranged for my husband and I to take the train while my daughter, husband and two kids decided to drive. She has a nice BMW that she wanted to keep, so driving was the only option for her. Our grandson Sean didn’t want to move with us, so he ended up moving in with his other grandmother in Peterborough, which is between our old place and Ottawa.
We have 3 cats and I found a lovely man who took them to Kelowna for us. He picked them up on the 21st and my daughter and family left the same evening.
I couldn’t get train tickets until November 27th so I booked my husband and myself into a hotel until then (we vacated our old house on November 22nd ) and I was there that last day along with the cleaners. I had also arranged to have our old Cadillac transported to B.C. by a company that specializes in that. First, I took it to the dealership to have a diagnostics test run and to fix a crack in the windshield and give it an oil change. Luckily there wasn’t much that needed doing and I got the new windshield.
But two days later I got a call from the transport company saying that they got delayed on another call and were going to be late picking up our car. They didn’t know when. I panicked and after much deliberation, cancelled our train tickets. My husband was starting to get antsy at the same time and wanted to leave, so I felt I had no choice but to start driving there myself. My husband had his license suspended so there was no way he could do it. I would have to do all of the driving.
The first day was fun. It was a lovely drive through the Muskokas and we ended up staying in North Bay the first night. It ended up being two nights because I was waiting for the funds from the sale of our house to be deposited into my account. It took a couple more days than I had thought but then it was done and we continued on our way.
All of us were lucky because the good weather was with us. However, we stopped in Sault Ste Marie on the third night and I got sick. It was also the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend and because Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario is directly across from the USA and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, it was very, very busy. But I found a good hotel called the Water Tower Inn (a Best Western) and checked in there.
I hadn’t noticed until I was unpacking that I had left most of my clothes behind in North Bay! I remember packing the used ones into a large bag in the motel we stayed in and I must have forgotten to put it into my suitcase! The receptionist at the front desk in the Water Tower Inn told me there was a big mall across the main street with a Walmart and other stores where I could buy clothing, so after I settled my husband, I walked over there for a shopping spree.
It was fun and I liked Sault Ste. Marie a lot. The hotel had a Casey’s Restaurant on their main floor, which served great food – it was like homemade and not at all expensive, at least I didn’t think so. The portions were huge so we would order only one meal and share it. It was more than enough!
My husband got panicky after we ate in the restaurant the first two nights and for breakfast. He found it too noisy – they did play their music very loud. I took to going downstairs by myself every dinnertime and taking the food back upstairs. During the day I’d go over to the mall or just go for a walk around the area and bring lunch back from Booster Juice.
I contacted the people who were supposed to pick up the car and they said they’d come and get it from the hotel in Sault Ste Marie, so we stayed there for a week and waited for them. However, at the last minute they called me to say they were on their way from Thunder Bay and unfortunately ran into bad weather and road closures, so they were going to be late again.
At this point I panicked. I knew we had to get out of The Soo, as people call it. But I got very fond of the place and if I had to move back to Ontario I’d consider living there. First, it’s beautiful, maybe not at this time of year, but in the spring and summer it would be awesome. There’s lots to do and explore and it apparently has great food everywhere.
I started looking for apartments there. My husband was also having episodes of right arm numbness accompanied by an inability to form words to be able to talk properly, so I was worried that I’d have to take him to a hospital, and I didn’t want to leave him.
The weather also turned bad for a couple of days, with blowing snow. When we looked out the window it was blowing sideways! I knew I couldn’t drive any more by myself.
In the meantime, my daughter and her husband had reached British Columbia. I told her she could pick up the keys to the new house from the realtor and go there to wait for the movers. They arrived just after my daughter did.
I decided the hell with the car and booked a flight for my husband and I. Luckily Sault Ste Marie has an airport. It’s a small but lovely one. We took a plane back to Toronto from there and then on to Kelowna from Toronto. It took just over 5 hours altogether plus an hour or so waiting time at Pearson, Toronto’s airport.
Before we left, I gave the car keys to the receptionist at the Water Tower Inn, with the name of the transportation company and instructions to give them to the people who were to pick the car up from there.
Everything worked out. My daughter picked us up from the airport. My husband traveled well (I was afraid he might not) and was mesmerized by the sight of Kelowna, surrounded by beautiful mountains. Our cats arrived the same night we did – it was 2 a.m. the next day. At first they were very confused, but it took them only a day or so to get used to the new place.
On the Sunday morning we saw a herd of deer grazing on the rose bushes under our living room window. I took some photos of them. It was a small herd of 5 females. The next day we saw a lone male with huge antlers across the street.
A few days later we went for a walk with our granddaughter and saw the same herd again a few streets over. Since we’ve been here, we’ve seen the deer 5 times and a squirrel only once! Back home the squirrels are very plentiful and the deer very scarce.
After we were here a week our car finally arrived! The couple who run their own transportation company were lovely people. Very interesting to talk to. They had quite an adventure getting here but finally made it.
That’s it for now. We are gradually getting settled and getting ready for Christmas. I’ve done all my shopping and now it’s time to clean the house. We’re still not completely unpacked but we are getting there.
To be continued.
