The Homestead

Settling in. The jacks are down and we will stay planted in Ontario for the six months that we are in Canada. We’ll still do a bit of travelling while we are in the province. Ontario is, after all, a pretty big place. How big, you ask? Well, you have come to the right website for the answer to that question.

For my American friends, Ontario is about the same size as Texas and Montana, combined.

Ontario is larger than France and Spain, combined. Ontario is 3 times the size of Germany, 4 times the size of the United Kingdom (more than 8 times the size of England) and over 15 times the size of Ireland.

Most of the 13.5 million people in Ontario live within 100 miles or so of the U.S. border. There are vast expanses of Ontario that constitute a wilderness devoid of any human life.

Yes, Ontario is a big place to hang out for six months.

We had a few concerns coming back to Canada in our coach.

The first concern was finding a nice spot to park the coach. We originally planned to store the coach and rent a nice condo near the water somewhere. But it is very challenging to find a nice furnished condo for only six months. There are some really nice options if we were willing to rent for a year. Nothing really for snowbirds.

We could buy something I suppose. We just do not want to be tied down to a house right now.

Nice spots for coaches in Canada? Let’s just say that things are a bit rustic here in the Great White North compared to the United States.

We have found a pretty nice spot just north of Toronto and we think it will work out just fine for the six months that we are here.

The second concern, which might sound a bit trivial, was Internet access.

We are both quite active on the Internet and having a reliable, high-speed connection is important. Although not really high-speed, I have been able to jury-rig a setup where we get a consistent 5 Mbps service for our devices in the coach. Although I would prefer a higher download speed, say 10 Mbps or more, we can make do. I have been able to make it work fine under load when the park is at full capacity due, in part, to me using the 5G band and some VPN bonding when required.

The third concern was tranquility.

We are older and we are not partiers. I’m generally to sleep by 10pm. We prefer a calm environment. In Canada, most parks are family parks. And I have no issue with family parks. I just prefer to be in a calmer location. Where we are is limited to two adults only per site. This offers us a spot that is really quite nice and peaceful. We just came out of a busy long week-end and we really did not notice it in this area of the park.

Once the weather improves, I will take a few shots and a video of our location. We have a nice spot, far nicer than we expected. We are very happy to be here and, of course, very happy to reconnect with our family and friends after our time away down south.