Rumo's Transition

Rumo - Home

5 Sealstone, Toronto ON

The Rumo’s home for almost 30 years

The Rumo’s Transition to Nanaimo

Three years in the making!! From our acquisition of the Nanaimo home in 2004 to the final departure on November 14, 2007, the transition pretty well went according to plan. With my decision to not participate in the 2007 Municipals and the dissolution of MBSADANAC, our election sign company, we could move up the targeted listing date to September. Caroll had prepped the house well for showing and sale. Through sage planning, good fortune and luck, the house sold in less than a week and above the asking price. It’s nice to have a bidding war!!!

Now came the preparations, disposals, packing, partying and farewells. Once again we got lucky, as the new owners would take anything we didn’t want for a fixed price. We sold some other stuff, donated a hell of a lot and junked a pile. All in all, it went smoothly.

Although the closing was for the end of November, we fully intended to drive west by the 15th.

October was filled with our last goodbyes with a great number of friends and acquaintances whom most likely we’ll never see again, unless they pass through our part of the world. The most memorable gathering was probably the last JP event at Sergio’s. It’s hard to say goodbye to friend whom you’ve known well for 45 or so years.

After a round of final farewell parties and getogethers, we were set for the final packing blitz to meet the moving container’s arrival on the 14th. Man it sure takes a while to properly pack everything, 250 items with probably 220 boxes. (Notwithstanding our diligent attempts at purging non-essentials, heh, at $1.34 / lb to ship, you think twice, as we unpacked we wondered at why we brought some stuff, about 10% extra at least)

The trip

It was my intention to take the traditional southern route west which would avoid snow issues in the Rockies. The only deviation was to head further south to San Francisco and then spend a couple of days in Napa sampling the region's finest. With consideration for my passenger’s comfort, I didn’t put in my normal driving days of 12+ hours and 1,400 to 1,600 K/day.

So the first day was 1,200 k to Coralville Iowa, then on to Cheyenne another 1,200 of very easy driving. Basically it’s I80 from Chicago to San Francisco. 3rd day was a short jaunt to Salt Lake City then just as a hop to Reno. Day 5 saw us take the scenic short route to San Fran via the lake Tahoe area. Followed by 2 enjoyable days in Napa just up the road.

The trip was relatively uneventful until we hit Wyoming and the winds picked up. In all my years of travelling these western routes, I’ve never encountered an attack of tumbleweeds!!! It was incredible, the wind was whipping families of tumbleweeds across the highway and directly at us. The fences were lined with “families” awaiting appropriate gusts to free them from their captivity and sent them scurrying across the highway and on to the open plains. The photographs just don’t do justice to this exceptional experience.

The weather was terrific all the way to ‘Frisco with no rain, snow, just sunshine and the temperature in low 10’s or so. San Francisco was interesting as our hotel was at Fisherman’s wharf; couldn’t believe the tourist trap that it was and the milling masses, like the CNE, even at this time of the year. Of course, our morning run to Napa was slightly different as the Golden Gate bridge was shrouded in fog and I have some terrific pictures from the bridge of Alcatraz Island, if you remove the fog! It gradually cleared as we got to Napa and the Wine Train gourmet luncheon which we’d booked.

It was a fun trip, with excellent food & wine and we disembarked at the Grgish Hills Cellars for a tour and sampling. The next day we enjoyed a personalized small private tour of 6 wineries. Neat idea, a small group in a minibus visiting, off the track small high end wineries in the Napa Valley with a picnic lunch and a knowledgeable tour guide. Lot’s of tasting, and of course sucked myself in to purchase a good number of bottles of fine wines, regardless of the cross-border consequences. Definitely an area to revisit and perform significantly more research as there are more than 400 wineries in the Napa valley alone, that doesn’t count the 400 in the Sonoma valley. (Note that the weather would be milder and the harvest ongoing if the visit were in October.)

It soon came time to bid adieu to lotus land and take the dreaded right turn north; I was very aware of us rushing into the jaws of this year’s unusual savagery of the Pacific Northwest winter.

We arrived home on the 23rd.

And the Snows Came!!

Ok, so the normal deal here is that we get a few inches of snow sometimes in November/December, it rains and it’s gone in a couple of day; temperature rarely stays in the — and generally is in the 7’s. This repeats itself once more in January and everything is hunky dory from then on.

Wrong!!! Wrong!!! Wrong!!!

The first snowfall hit us in late November and dumped 12” or so with –10 weather and no hope of warmth or rain. So, had to shovel the driveway of that heavy shit without the benefit of my snowblower, recently sold to my TO neighbor who was basking in sunny and warm golfing weather. Have never shoveled so much snow in the last 30 years. Then when everything was cleared, got another dump of about 10”; more f _ _ _ ing shoveling!!! The temperature stayed cold and the rains didn’t come. White shit stayed for quite a while and it was cold. At onetime there were 200,000 people on the island without power! We were lucky and didn’t suffer any in my area of Nanaimo

Christmas came and went but then the rains and accompanying winds also came; oh did I mention that they were in the 120 k/hr range and you should see how easily a 75 years old 75’ tree crushes a house. Another 200,000 without power; this time we weren’t so lucky and we suffered a 10 hour power outage. Thank god or Pacific Fireplaces for the wonderful fireplace which I had installed a couple of years ago just for this purpose.

Again more wind and snow, more power outages for others and most drastically, no Internet for 2 days for me. Can’t make any money daytrading!

As of this writing, January 20th, the temperatures have warmed, the rain has come back, the snow has disappeared and we should actually get sunshine and finally golfing weather should be upon us again. Terrific skiing at Mt Washington with a huge 350cm base. Hopefully back to what it should be.

(Now it’s alleged by the local, that this freak weather pattern was my fault as it coincided with my arrival on the west coast. Not one to shirk responsibility, I’ll accept that premise, just like the local yokels believe in that wacky pseudo scientist David Suzuki and his “global warming” scenario, comes summer, I’ll bring forth such pestilence upon the land that they’ll all wish for global warming. And they believe that the devastation caused by the pine beetle is massive, wait ‘til they see my shit! “Global warming” my ass!! It’s freezing in Suzuki’s backyard!!! Let him explain that.)

In Between

Notwithstanding all of the above, life had to go on. A couple of things were missing to complete the transition, Caroll’s car and our belongings.

The car had been shipped by rail and should have arrive by December 2; no such luck, the snows of November captivated it in the Anicisis yard in Vancouver, right next to where RBH had its public warehouse in my time. It showed up magically one day.

As to the furniture which should also have arrived about the 25th, after numerous calls found that it was somehow holidaying for 2 weeks in Calgary in –34º. Heaven forbid! What was happening to my wine? When it finally arrived, just a week before Christmas, our unpacking efforts revealed, that miraculously, only 5 wine bottles had popped their corks but no spillage and more importantly, no deleterious effects on the taste. Sadly, a very large bottle of Baileys succumbed to the Arctic blast.

We’ve now pretty well settled into some form of west coast routine; slow paced day with the creation of recipes from ‘Cooking with Booze” and chased by a good bottle of wine daily. Life is tough but someone has to do it.

(Just got my BC house assessment and was shocked to see that it had increased 22% over last year; that’s a 120% increase since I bought it. It’s now worth more than my former Toronto home and the projected tax increase for this year is estimated at 11%, almost wish for Miller’s 3%)