Muskoka Finally.

Taboo Resort sits on the shores of Lake Muskoka just a ninety minute drive north of Toronto and is one of the many five star resorts in the Muskoka area. On summer weekends the resort is booked solid catering to golfers who will lose hundreds if not thousands of golf balls annually on one of Canada’s premier top rated courses. Personally I had never stayed at Taboo, but I had visited the resort a couple times back when I was married to Bonnie. Back then the resort was called the Muskoka Sands Resort. It was a beautiful resort then and from all the reviews I had read it was an even better resort now.

It was a sunny Friday evening when the three of us headed up to Gravenhurst. I had booked us a lakeview room with breakfast and dinners included. Janine was looking forward to checking out the spa facilities and Steph couldn’t wait to jump into the swimming pool. I was just looking forward to spending a weekend with the two most important people at that time in my life at my self-proclaimed paradise, Muskoka.

It turned out to be a very relaxing weekend and the three of us had a great time.

On one of our area walks Janine confessed to me how she could definitely see herself living up in Muskoka someday. She knew it was my dream and her confession told me that she wanted to be part of my dream. She told me that we should maybe start looking for a house and the sooner the better. I was very happy to hear what she was saying, but a part of me thought that she was just saying what she knew I wanted to hear.

But Janine was indeed dead serious.

Within a week Janine and I both started looking at houses in the Huntsville area on the internet. House prices were so much cheaper than they were in Mississauga. With houses selling very quickly on our street, Janine figured it would be the perfect time to capitalize on a hot Mississauga market. She reasoned that if we were ever going to make a move, now was the time. Although we knew both of our incomes would be much less, we both assumed we could easily afford to live in Huntsville with a much smaller or possibly even no mortgage at all.

Janine now seemed even more determined to move to Muskoka than I was.

I stressed to Janine that if we were going to make a move that summer, it would have to be quickly. I was not willing to move Stephanie to another school after the school year started in September. We decided since houses on our street had been selling fast, we would not list ours until if and when we found our new house. One of Janine’s friends was a real estate agent and she agreed to sell our house. She told us not to worry; our house was in a demand area and would sell very quickly.

It was mid-June 2004 and everything was moving rather quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly. Within a few months I had gone from giving Janine an ultimatum to us now diligently looking for our new home up in Muskoka. We had been house hunting for six weeks and we found nothing that remotely interested us within our price range. We had also expanded our parameters to include the little town of Bracebridge about 40 km south of Huntsville. We did stumble upon a very nice private sale in Gravenhurst, but there was a water issue in the basement that we wanted no part of.

It was a Saturday afternoon in late July; our agent had just taken us to a couple showings in Bracebridge. It had been another futile house hunting trip up in Muskoka. Once we realized that we would not be able to get a closing date before the school year, we decided to wait until the following summer to make our move. After saying goodbye to our agent we found ourselves lost in a little subdivision. We were trying to find the main street out to the highway, but found ourselves just going around in circles. While stopped at a stop sign we saw a beautiful house on the corner with a for sale sign on the lawn.

"Why hadn’t our agent showed us this house?" Both Janine and I said almost simultaneously.

I pulled into the driveway, parked the car and went up to the front door while Janine sat in the car. A woman answered the door and I introduced myself, her name was Marla. I explained that we were up from the city house hunting and we were lost. I told her that our agent had neglected to show us her house and we were curious as to what her asking price was. And we also needed directions out to the main street.

Marla explained that her husband Ron had built the house, but her house was not actually the one for sale. Instead Ron was building the same house on another lot in town and we could check it out if we were interested. It was in our price range and after Marla showed both Janine and I around the inside of her house we decided to go check out the new house.

The house was in the newer Covered Bridge subdivision, but there were literally no trees in the area. Both Janine and I wanted trees on our property if we were moving to Muskoka. For us moving to a house up in Muskoka without trees just didn't feel like Muskoka. We had more trees on our street in Mississauga.

Marla and Janine hit it off nicely and we ended up spending the rest of that Saturday having a bar-b-que with our newfound friends Marla, Ron and their little twin boys. They were all so friendly and down to earth and before we left Marla and Janine exchanged phone numbers and agreed to keep in touch. I remember not being too disappointed that we would be living in Mississauga for one more year. It would give us more time to get all our ducks in order and plan our move properly. I now had no doubt in my mind that the upcoming hockey season would be my last while living in Mississauga and I knew I would be playing with another group up in Muskoka the following season.

The following week on Sunday August 8th, Janine got an email listing for a house that had just hit the market in Bracebridge. After looking at all the pics we agreed that it was the perfect house and it was right in our price range. The three bedroom, two bath bungalow wasn’t even a couple years old. Janine wanted to drive up that afternoon to look at it, but I was hesitant since the closing date was in November. Janine literally begged me to drive up and have a look. Even Stephanie wanted to check it out; she was not at all bothered in the least about changing schools two months into the school year. I was outnumbered; I too was also curious how such a seemingly beautiful house was so affordable. The three of us immediately drove up to Bracebridge where our agent had agreed to meet us at 3 pm.

As we drove in the driveway, right away I could tell the house was going to be the nicest house to date we had checked out. The house sat on a ravine lot with a hundred feet of frontage as well the lot was almost three hundred feet deep. The unique Muskoka green siding, large windows with wide plank cedar trim gave the house immense curb appeal. Once we opened the front door and walked inside, I knew right away we would be buying it. Everything we wanted and most of our must haves were already built into the house. There was also an abundance of trees surrounding the complete property. Janine, Stephanie and I all absolutely loved the house which had only been on the market for a couple days.

We decided to make an offer which was pretty close to the asking price. Based on the houses we had already seen and what they were selling for, we knew this house would sell quickly. We didn’t want to put in a lowball offer and miss out since we knew two offers had already been submitted. Our offer was accepted the following afternoon and the three of us would now be moving to the little town of Bracebridge on November 19th.

We now had just over a couple months to sell our house in Mississauga. Our agent listed it for a $100k more than what we were paying for our new house. If everything went to plan we would have no mortgage living up in Muskoka.

I guess in all the excitement Janine forgot about one major issue she would have to deal with. It was an issue that was sure to cause problems between her and her youngest son Darren. Darren would be starting his second year of university in a month and he had three years left. Janine had promised Darren he would always have a home with her until he graduated. All he needed to do was go to school, study hard and have a part-time job for his spending money.

Darren was not at all happy to say the least. In fact he was angry after Janine told him we had bought a house and that she would be moving up to Bracebridge. I did not get involved in their dispute since it was not my place, but I did feel a bit sorry for Darren after Janine had betrayed him. However, saying that Janine had done right by her sons while raising them both on her own. They were not little children any longer and both her sons always had an open invitation to live with their father should they ever need a place to stay. Darren would now be living with his dad who also lived in Mississauga.

Having a November closing was also perfect timing for me concerning my job. I would now be able to finish out my final summer that I had committed to. Hopefully, I would also have enough time to sell my truck along with the route.

As fate would have it one of the other drivers who already had a route was looking for another route and truck. He had already hired a driver who was doing his route and he now wanted a second route for himself. Don had some serious health issues and he knew it would just be a matter of time before he would be off the road for good. His game plan for when that day arrived was to have two routes, two trucks and two reliable drivers. That way he would still have an income once his driving days were finished.

Within two weeks of me turning my truck off for the last time Don approached me in the parking lot. I had just returned from doing my route and Don was waiting for me. He asked me if I was still interested in selling my truck.

I told him I was.

To make things easy I told Don to write down what he was willing to pay for the truck and to take over the route. I would also write down what I wanted to sell for. Don handed me his piece of paper, he had written down $23k, I had written $25k. Don bought my truck and took over the route for $24k after we agreed to simply split the difference. By the end of that week Don paid me in full and on that Friday afternoon I walked away from the ice cream business and full-time employment at the age of forty-four. It was an incredible feeling to finally walk away. Not only had driving an ice cream truck for twenty-three years provided me with an above average income, it also provided me with an abundance of great stories and memories.

Someday I will have to write a blog and share some of my memories.

Unfortunately, selling our house was not going to be as easy as selling my truck. It seems that our neighborhood was not as in demand as we or our agent had thought. After dropping our price twice we ended up selling for much less than we had originally anticipated. Once all of the commissions and fees were paid, I was just happy to at least be getting the equity I paid Janine when I first moved in along with my share of all the renos back.

Our next trip up to Bracebridge had nothing to do with our upcoming move.

Marla invited Janine and me up for her annual Halloween party at her house on a Saturday night. Our new house was also in Marla’s neighborhood and she wanted to introduce us to some of her friends who all welcomed us to Bracebridge. It was a large party and there had to be close to twenty couples there on that night. I went dressed as a doctor, only because I had kept all the scrubs and mask that I needed to wear in the delivery room when Stephanie was born. I just needed to buy a toy stethoscope. I completely forgot what Janine went dressed as, but we both had a great time.

It was during the party that the wife of a prominent businessman in town told Janine her husband was looking for a sales professional. Janine had been in sales all her life; she was definitely intrigued about her prospective employment opportunity once we moved to Bracebridge.

Friday November 19th, our moving day finally arrived. Marla had set us up with great movers who had come down from the Orillia area. They arrived early with just two straight trucks and I figured there was absolutely no way they would be able to get all of our stuff on the two smaller trucks. By 3 pm everything was loaded and we walked out of our now empty Mississauga home for the very last time.

I had no mixed emotions whatsoever and there was not one shred of doubt as to whether we were doing the right thing by moving out of Mississauga. As we drove away I knew that there was nothing keeping us there any longer. Even Janine’s parents who had also lived on the same street had moved back to England earlier that year.

Remember that saying about best laid plans. Well within a couple hours, that saying would jump up and bite us right in the ass.

I drove up in my car while Janine and Stephanie were driving up in her car. The movers were also on their way somewhere behind them when Janine got a phone call from our agent. Our house sale did not close; the lawyers had fucked everything up. Somehow those fuck'n clowns could not get their shit together before the registry office in Bracebridge closed at 4 pm. There was no turning back now as we were already on our way with a dog, cat and two full trucks with all our stuff. And now we had just found out we would not be able to move into our new house until Monday at the earliest. I was furious as was Janine. How could these incompetent lawyers who we were paying thousands in fees to screw up our deal and just leave us in a lurch over the weekend?

There was absolutely nothing we could do as I was the first to arrive at the house around 5 pm. All I could now do was wait for Janine and the two trucks to arrive. By the time Janine arrived she had already made plans with Marla. Marla was graciously opening her home and offering us a place to stay for the weekend. Once the trucks arrived we told them of our predicament and they were very sympathetic. They already had a scheduled smaller move on the Monday morning and only one of the trucks would need to be unloaded with our stuff. Ron had arranged they could park the full truck in the driveway of the vacant house he was building. They could also store the contents of the other truck in the two car garage. The movers agreed they would return mid-afternoon on Monday to finish the job.

We had also arranged on the Saturday to have our new bedroom furniture delivered and had paid close to three hundred bucks to have it all unpacked and assembled. Ron also arranged to have the furniture delivered as planned and stored also in the empty garage. However, there would be no refund for the assembly fee we had paid and we would now have to assemble the furniture ourselves.

What a fuck’n shit show this whole move had turned out to be.

Janine and I were so grateful that Marla and Ron had come to our rescue and offered us a place to stay. I knew everything would work out; we just had a couple more days to wait before we took possession of our new house. I was still livid as I walked to the end of our new driveway, it was dark and cold. I took a deep breath while looking up at all the trees on our property that had already lost all of their leaves.

Everything was going to be okay I thought to myself, my dream had become reality.

I was now living in Muskoka.

Finally.