In mid-August, my husband and I were both between jobs (our jobs are almost like contract work). I was upset about giving up our plans for Australia, and desperate for travel so I thought why not take the small amount of money we had saved up, and take a road trip halfway across the country? I had never been to BC or the east coast of Canada. My husband had a flight booked to visit friends back in Manitoba later in the month so we didn't have a lot of time for this trip. BC would have taken too long, so we went East! It was really fun, even though we were short on time so most days were spent just driving. We camped along the way to save money which is something we had never done before. It was a really great experience and I am so happy we did it even though it cost A LOT more than we had originally planned for. It was worth it though. Anyway, the details are for another post. The part of our trip that is concerned with this post is the drive home.
We were nearing the end of our second day of three days driving back to Toronto, we were planning on making it to Fredericton, NB and had booked a campsite at a park near there for the night. Unfortunately, we only made it to Moncton. I was driving and pulled over on the Trans Canada highway because there was something in my eye and I couldn't exactly get it out while I was trying to pay attention to the road. I found an area of the highway with a huge paved shoulder and went to the very edge of that shoulder. I turned on our hazard lights and put the car in park and while I was picking at my eye someone smashed into us going full highway speed. She hit the back driver's side. It was an extremely scary experience. We went to the hospital, and miraculously, we were completely fine. The doctors were amazed at how well we were doing after an accident of that magnitude. We must have one heck of a guardian angel watching out for us. It could have been so, so, soooo much worse. As awful as it was, there was a silver lining...
We owed a lot of money on that car. We bought it new, and we had another car loan that we had added on to that one when we got it. Our monthly payments were pretty big. Our main obstacle for Australia, when we were planning before, was this car loan. There is no way we could have saved enough extra money to make the payments every month while we were gone, and we wouldn't have been able to sell it for enough to pay off the loan. Our insurance company gave us almost exactly enough to pay off our loan...I was ecstatic. I didn't think they would give us nearly enough to cover it. (I love Desjardins Insurance!) Not only do we not have to worry about what to do with our car now but we also have a much easier time saving because our monthly bills have decreased drastically. We have no real need of a car right now because I actually got a job for the next couple of months working in Manitoba and I have a shared rental car while I am here working. I am making more money than I usually make at this job because I am stepping up and doing a job that is above my level. On top of that, I am getting per diem every week! I figure I can save almost enough for Australia by the end of this job, which will be the end of November. We are paying rent on our apartment in Toronto until March, so we figure we will leave either March or April, depending on how much we can save up!
We are going to apply for our Working Holiday Visas this month! This is it non-existent readers! This is the one I follow through on...
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