Well, Here I Am...

Now, this is a new experience, but it looks like fun...

I enjoy writing. Thousands of posts over the Internet for years. The idea of creating a blog seemed to allow me to have fun without concern for taking up too much space on forums, e-grouprs and more.

My Name is Willow and my partner Sonia and I live in Prince George, British Columbia. Prince George is really in the middle of nowhere. A ten hour plus drive south to Vancouver, about the same east to Edmonton, southeast to Calgary. Dawson Creek is closer - perhaps four or five hours north. To the west, Prince Rupert is a longer drive.

We moved here in November, 2003. Our best friend, Danielle, had been raised in Prince George. One August day we picked her up at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal in West Vancouver and stopped for coffee on Lonsdale Avenue in North Van. Over coffee, she told us of her intention to travel north to PG to visit her parents. Having not been out of Vancouver for a long time, the idea of a trip sounded good - and Danielle's parents had extend an invitation to visit months prior. So off we went, Sonia and I having never been north of Cashe Creek.

It was a wonderful September for a trip. Now, in Vancouver Sonia and I shared a small one bedroom condo, the same building as Danielle lived in. In East Van, it was crampted and tight; Vancouver was starting to be livable only if you had lots fo money to enjoy all the good things. Arriving in Prince George, Sonia - as is her way - started to read the classifieds. She quickly discovered that real estate values in PG were very, very low, the result of a long local depression. She wanted to look around. In fact, she wanted to look around with a real estate agent.

I thought she was joking.

No, she was not. Soon we were touring houses and what we saw, we liked. We even put in an offer on one house, only to find the real estate agents were now really looking after our interests. So, after some wandering, we sat down for coffee at the old Taco Bell on Fifth Avenue, since closed and pulled out the local bi-weekly paper. There it was - an ad for a house that looked just right and at a very good price. We thought there had been a misprint, so used to Vancouver prices. We called the number, got the address, and went to see it.

Well, the neighbourhood was no great shakes then. A trailer park, very shoddy, just to the east along with a slough and nature park. Lots of really shabby houses, but the ones next to the own we were to see were fine. A fellow arrived and let us in. The floor plan was perfect and at 1300 square feet, over double our little condo. It sat on a double lot, fenced. Yes, it needed work, but we would have funds on hand to do that if our condo sold in Vancouver.

We quickly made a few trips and put in an offer. It was accepted. Now all we had to do was sell the condo and move north...

If I had passed over our impression so the town, it was deliberate. PG is a working town, more pickups than cars. The downtown is a disaster. Big box stores of all types are found in the Malls and out west on the highway. Several large mills make the smell of pulp almost ever-present. But it had all the facilities we needed and the Internet had become our major source for books and such. The way we looked at it then, it was a nice place for us two old bats to enjoy life.

So back to Vancouver, list the condo, sell the condo in the heating up Vancouver marketplace, and move. With our stuff in the moving trucks, we haded north with five cats and one dog - the cats drugged and in travel crates. It was November 1st, 2003.

The first snowfall of the year arrived the following week; the house next door was raided as a "grow-op" a few days after.

We were home...