I heart Halifax

**photos courtesy of my Halifax friend


No, the van didn’t drive to Halifax. In fact, Mike currently has it down in Colorado. He is trying to catch up on blogging his adventures on Vancouver Island and in Golden, BC from back in October but if you want to know what he is doing now, I would suggest following him on Facebook to see biking and hiking adventures with Dawson in the US.

So what the heck was I doing in Halifax? A really great friend invited me to come visit so I flew out to the maritimes and lived in an apartment suite with running water, a shower, a bed, a kitchen, hangars for my clothes and a washer/dryer. Oh and did I mention the building was right downtown. And my friend’s apartment was down the hall. I was a long way from that van.

But back to Halifax itself which, if you haven’t been, is an incredibly fun city. The weather is warmer than northwestern Ontario at this time of year which means there are always people out of the streets going to bars or cafes or just walking and biking to their jobs and homes. It was +14 when I got there on November 6 and the coldest it got was +4 (although that wind was biting pretty good the day we drove out to Peggy’s Cove). If you have the opportunity to stay downtown when you visit (even for just 1-2 nights), take is as it is worth it. You can literally walk EVERYWHERE (well maybe not to Peggy’s Cove) but pretty much everything I describe visiting in the next paragraph is downtown and within walking distance. There is also a bus that runs from the airport to downtown every hour ($3.50 one way) and it is about a 45 minute ride. Super convenient.

Peggy's Cove

So staying downtown and being in Halifax for a week really meant I got to see and experience many of the toursity activities. The Maritime Museum of Atlantic Canada, the Citadel, the Art Gallery, Neptune Theatre, The Canadian Museum of Immigration (at Pier 21), the Discovery Centre, The Museum of Natural History and the Nova Scotia Sports Hall of Fame (which could probably just be called the Sidney Crosby exhibit). I also attended an author talk at the Halifax Library (unlike any library I have ever been in), went to the Wild Leek (a yummy vegan restaurant), checked out their recently opened refill store (The Tare Shop) and took the ferry over to Dartmouth to eat a chocolate croissant at Two If By Sea Cafe (thanks to a Thunder Bay friend who had recently been to Halifax and recommended it).

Walking everywhere in Halifax

Dalhousie University

It is a different sort of adventure when you are not living in a van for what you think is going to be a year, on a relatively strict budget with 2 dogs. Traveling in the van and moving pretty much daily means that a lot of energy and time is spent looking at maps to decide where we are going next, where we are going to stay the night, where are there public washrooms and where is a good place to walk the dogs. Add to that the weekly needs of trying to find clean showers, grocery stores, a laundrymat and wifi. So to compare that to my week in Halifax, (being settled in one place with all the amenities), I really only needed to focus on what I was going to do that day and had plenty of time for rest and relaxation and visiting too.

My highlights of the touristy activities:

1. feeling humbled and grateful in the refugee exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Immigration.

2. being moved to tears by Kent Monkman’s Shame and Prejudice exhibit at the art gallery.

3. seeing the courage of Haligonians at the Maritime Museum who picked up the pieces after the Halifax explosion.

4. being transported to a 1940’s Nazi concentration camp to experience the world of imprisoned gay men at Neptune Theatre’s production of “Kamp”.

5. being wow’d by the craziest lego creations of world famous buildings at the Discovery Centre (no they weren’t as tall as those buildings but the attention to detail was incredible)

6. Meeting Gus at the Natural Museum of history. Gus is a 96 year old tortoise who goes for daily walks around the exhibits so we can all say hi.

Lego replicas at the Discovery Centre

But the moments I will treasure the most from this trip was my friend’s generosity in having me there (I was week 5 of 5 weeks of visitors) and spending time with her beautiful loving family who welcomed me into their routines of daily walks around Halifax, drives to Peggy’s cove and movie nights. I got to build sandcastles, dance in the living room (check out the Greatest Showman and you will find yourself dancing too), sing songs in the car, and laugh. I did a lot of laughing. I am so grateful to have been able to reconnect with my friend and discuss the challenges and joys of our lives. And even though my list of places I went to on my own was long, it really didn’t matter where my friend and I went (although being outside on a warm fall day with golden leaves still on the tree at the Halifax Public Gardens was a great backdrop), it was filling my social cup with a good friend that was the activity (and something I had really missed in the van).

Building a sandcastle at Sir tanford Fleming Park

Halifax Public Gardens

So to be honest, I am glad the van didn’t drive to Halifax. This was my week to have a different kind of adventure. One filled with both introspection and education but more importantly with laughter and love.

What to do on your vanbatical if you have decided to no longer live in the van

Over a year and half ago, Mike came up with this crazy idea to sell all of our stuff and live in a van. We like to tell it that he caught me in a moment of weakness after a stressful day of work. But I think the transition happened when we started decluttering our house and getting rid of stuff. We had been hoping to downsize to a smaller house in Thunder Bay and even had a real estate agent. But then when the van idea came up, it just meant downsizing into a van rather than a smaller house. Mike actually has a draft blog post about our process of decluttering but he never ended up publishing it. There are tons of books, documentaries and podcasts on the subject but our favourites are Marie Kondo’s The Art and Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Caitlyn Flander’s My Year of Less.

But back to the trip itself, if you haven’t already figured it out by now, we called this year off our vanbatical. The plan was to take a year and travel around North America with our dogs. Looking back, I think a year travelling in a van was a bit ambitious for me. And had I known this (although how does anyone know until they actually start living in the van), we might have planned things differently.

So here I am almost 6 months into a year off and 6 weeks out of the van having decided that I am not going back into the van full time. Any sabbatical book will tell you the most important part of taking a sabbatical is to plan what you are going to do on a sabbatical BEFORE the time off starts. But because I was planning on being in the van for a year, I am sort of going to have to wing it (which sounds ridiculous to me – I am a planner).

First order of business – secure housing. This was a bit more challenging than I thought. Temporary housing that will take animals. Word of mouth got me a place in Kenora down the street from my parents starting in January. And they were fine with me having one or both dogs. Check.

Second order of business – what the heck am I going to do? Go back to work? Volunteer? Continue to write a blog? People tell me that it is so exciting to have so much freedom but just like the vanlife sounded exciting, I actually find the uncertainty and lack of structure really hard. I like routine. I like to plan and organize my day and I have a lot of guilt if I haven’t “done” anything that I consider meaningful that day. These are very similar issues to those I had when I started the van trip so I am not sure why I thought being out of the van would make this part easier.

Third order of business – maintain a happy marriage. The year off was supposed to be this great opportunity to travel with my husband and share the experience of exploring North Amercia. But my choice of leaving the road and his choice to stay on the road means we are going to be apart now more than we are together. So the new challenge - how do we keep our relationship strong and support each other in our different journeys.

Side note: I booked a flight to Las Vegas in Decemberand will actually spend 3 more weeks in that van down in southern California. So stay tuned for “back in the van” blog posts.

Fourth order of business. Self development, self improvement, self discovery. Call it what you will but I have been reading Brene Brown’s books lately and really thinking a lot about shame, perfectionism, vulnerability, wholehearted living, gratitude, social connection, and life. It’s hard stuff but good stuff and I have some work ahead of me.

Fifth order of business. Reconnect with family and friends. I really missed spending time with people (other than my husband) who I loved and who loved me while travelling. Conversations with strangers on the road is fun but for me, it is not enough. Now I feel like I appreciate even more time spent with people where there is a deeper connection.  

So what is a vanbatical when you are not living in the van? It is a work in progress but it is also feeling grateful for this opportunity to have the time to focus on a few orders of business.