“Wild women are an unexplainable spark of life. They ooze freedom and seek awareness, they belong to nobody but themselves yet give a piece of who they are to everyone they meet.

If you have met one, hold on to her, she’ll allow you into her chaos but she’ll also show you her magic.”

― Nikki Rowe

It began like this:

I have trained thousands of dogs on the West Coast of British Columbia for the past 25 amazing and wonderful years. There is absolutely nothing in the world I would have rather done for those years. I was a firefighter and first responder on our local fire department for nearly 7 years. I have a performing trick dog team, and until this last summer we performed at events on Vancouver Island. I played and I worked and I found myself surrounded with the best of the best people. There was nothing not to love about my life.

Last year I bought myself a little travel trailer, a Forest River R-Pod 180. My travel trailer is just 20 feet long. It’s tiny but perfectly well appointed for a single woman and her 4 canine compadres. Full bathroom, full kitchen, a bed a table, a couch, heat, air-conditioning, an amazing sound system, lots of storage and a very nice awning. I quickly christened my Pod “The ArfPod”.

For the first year I had it, the Arfpod rarely left my farm. Mostly because steeply rising costs of everything in BC, not the least of which is fuel, made it impossible to take time off work to go anywhere, let alone take a camping or road trip. So I made do, like we do in BC. I went “glamping” on my own beautiful property with my 4 dogs, just to see if I could do it and retain a modicum of sanity. “Why ever leave this beautiful place anyway?”, I thought.

Well then the reason to leave such a beautiful place landed. Approximately in the middle of Alberta. His name is George, and he is my grandson and George is the apple of my eye. Like his father before him, George makes my heart absolutely sing. So that was it. That was the only reason I needed to leave the magic of the rainforests. After all, real magic is carried in our hearts and exists exactly wherever we choose to believe it exists. Am I right?

Until 2 days ago, I had acreage with a house that I worked on and made into a beautiful home. That house taught me all about all about good carpentry, plumbing, and developing patience for extensive electrical work. On one hand I can say it wasn’t easy leaving such a mentor. On the other hand although I’d like to say the house taught me that that consistent hard work was always rewarded with good things, I can’t.

The more I worked on that house, the more money I had to borrow. The more money I borrowed, the more I had to work to pay the interest on the loan payments I needed. One day I realized that the primary reason I had the old house was to store stuff I had no particular attachment to that would never bring me happiness. I was ready to let go. I was done with living a dream that included a life servitude to a bank.

So I packed up, sold the farm, and now I am headed back to a province I swore I would never return to. Not directly though. It’s winter time. Winter in Alberta is something I would like to have the opportunity to adjust to slowly, as I watch the maples and poplar trees change their colours and shed their leaves. I really don’t want to be suddenly plunged into winter’s hard frozen whiteness. And the Mid November timing of my farm sale was not conducive to finding a perfect property to live on, where my dogs and I could run, train and play because everything is under ice in Central Alberta in Mid November. And besides travelling through the mountain passes towing the Arfpod seemed…well…possibly suicidal. So what would I do?

Through my work I meet amazing people, one is my friend, an accomplished senior Dr. who invited my to camp in the Arfpod on her property on the ocean. I could stay in the Arfpod, and look after her dogs when she needed. It was a perfect opportunity and I graciously accepted her invite last week. I arrived here yesterday and this is the beginning of surely the greatest journey of my life. I hope you enjoy the tales of my Podyssey.