Settling into the new normal

Well, we're in week two of part-time (three days a week) daycare...and LOVING it!

We (meaning Dexter and I, let's be clear) get out of bed a reasonable time (7-ish), eat and load up the car.  There is endless commentary from Chatty Charlie in the backseat including very reliable alerts as to when  freight trucks are passing and oohs and ahhs as the sky changes from dark, to pink, to orange to sun!

Yes, it is ironic to end up commuting 2+ hours a day here, versus a 10 minute walk in Toronto, but hey, what can you do? 

I have only ever spent time here as a short-term visitor, which meant in the past, I hung out with family or just my anti-social self vegging at the farm.  It's interesting to be part of the flow of life...

Yorkton does have a 'rush hour'...I have had to wait at least one full light rotation a couple of times so far crossing Broadway and there was line up of school buses and cars depositing pupils into the two high schools we drive by.

Yes, there is a wait at Tim Horton's (well, there always is...it's chronically understaffed) and there are harried parents trying to disentangle screeching children at daycare as they try to make it to work on time.

I realize I sound like an idiot, but after what feels like a couple of months of moving and holiday daze, it's oddly refreshing to see a bustle of living going on...and awfully, awfully nice to be able to retreat from it when we've had enough too! :)

Scenic tour of the Shield

Turns out Chris is taking a scenic tour to get from Toronto to the farm (around 2800 km journey according to Google). Third night out and he reported in from Thunder Bay. Night 1 - Port Parry - barely into cottage country, Night 2 - The Sault (that it is pronounced 'Soo' is up there with Quay being 'key', but I digress).

This is when I am reminded of one of many sometimes subtle differences between westerners and 'easterners' (and yes, after nearly two decades away, I realize it is Central Canada, but am reverting back to The Old Ways). While I did leave a long time ago, my formative years were in Alberta and Saskatchwan, training me for long haul driving.

A long weekend meant an 11 hour drive to the farm for a two night visit. This was pre any car safety concerns, so road trips meant lying in the back of the station wagon with a supply of Harlequin Romances (damaged me for life) with mom periodically tossing bolognie sandwiches our way and passing a cooler of stale water with a shared straw. Ah...magical times.

In my day (I HATE that I am old enough for that phrase to be applicable to my life) western urban sprawl was in its infancy It meant that there was actually country/space between population centres. You left Calgary to get to Cochrane. It wasn't a continuous suburb.

I was in my teens and taking my first big trip with the school band to St. Catharines, Ontario before I knew distance driving could be any different. We were crammed onto a school bus to go visit the big city of Toronto and it was the first time I found out that towns were allowed to touch. We seamlessly passed through one municipality to the next...no space in between. Bizarre...

(This trip was also notable in that the planned trip to the CN Tower was thwarted due to cloud cover -I still, to this day, have not been up - AND our little motley crew of 13 year olds had our first encounter with a cross-dresser in the Eaton Centre. Let's hear it for broadening horizons.)

All this to say that by Night 3 any average prairie driver would be pulling into the farm yard running on Tim Hortons and a numb bum. We also would have very vague notions of scenic outlooks, descriptive roadside plaques or healthful, circulation-restoring rest stops.

Chris may be taking his own sweet time getting here, but he's also the one trying to show me how to slow down and enjoy the scenery.