So, the great idea of starting to tick off our bucket list items nearly came to a grinding halt. And believe me, at times I feel it is still in the bottom of a huge pot hole but we are working on getting it back on track.
As most of you know, the TOH and I planned to spend 6 to 8 weeks with the northern hemisphere family. We wanted so much to be here to help celebrate Grandbaby No1’s second birthday, welcome in Grandbaby No2, help them with Grandbaby No1’s transition to big brother and also TOH to help with some of the renovations that were required at the new house they are about to move into (all in a 3 week time span). As you can imagine the stress levels were at the extreme, that’s an understatement, so perhaps it was a tad foolish of us to think that we could easily slide into the family dynamic and be of help. To add to the stress, Grandbaby No1, No1 Child and I all have really really bad colds/flue, and even TOH, who always says “he never gets coughs and colds…” is starting to hack up a lung. In hindsight, perhaps we should have waited a month or so before heading up here.
Noah Elliott Bryans
10 April 2019
But we are here. And this time was also meant to look for a truck and trailer to carry out the second part of our dream. I scratch my head; I shake my head and just shrug my shoulders. Why or Why did we decided to make these purchases in Ontario, Canada. What is it about this place? Probably the most unhelpful place for a tourist to buy a vehicle. No that is wrong. We can buy a vehicle no problem, we just can’t insure it. It seems that to buy vehicle insurance in Ontario Canada, you must hold an Ontario Driver License. To attain one of those we would have to give up our New Zealand License (now that isn’t going to happen). So, in short, we can buy a vehicle, but we can’t legally drive it, as it is illegal to drive without insurance.
This is so stupid, as we can legally drive the kid’s cars as we are listed on their insurance as secondary drivers. We can even hire a rental car …. no problem. We just can’t get our own insurance on a vehicle we own.
We have made numerous calls to various acquaintances, Insurance Companies, Insurance Brokers and even contacting the New Zealand Embassy in Ottawa. In fact,veryone we could contact it seems we have contacted. NO ONE could help or tell us how we can get around this problem. I can’t believe we are the first tourists who have wanted to buy a vehicle a couple of times.
BUT: NO WAY. You know how stubborn I can be at time. I won’t let all the stress, illness and stupid bureaucracy put us off our adventure. There will be away though all this!
In short, we are heading off to the States this week with the intention of buying and getting insurance there. It may also help to relieve some of the stress levels here as well. And with a bit of luck the health will improve.
So, we are heading south, a little earlier than expected. Well that’s not quite true it doesn’t seem like we are heading South, or are we? We are heading more East and the USA is south of Canada so I suppose I should say we are heading South East. We are heading to Maine tomorrow!