RV prep, Locations, and some thoughts

Well, after spending most of the weekend emptying, dusting, scrubbing, wiping, and sweeping the RV (or recovering from it, LOL), I can finally say it's almost ready for sale. I still need to do a couple of things, but it's looking very nice inside. There is no access to a water hose or anything there in the storage facility so I'll have to hire someone to wash down the outside. Here's hoping it will fetch a fair price!

Some good news: one manager of the RV storage facility called this afternoon and said he'd found the info for a guy who regularly does RV detailing there, and better yet, he might even make us an offer on it while he's at it. If he's willing to offer a reasonable amount, I can't think of anything more perfect than that!

We're still talking about where we're going to go. For one thing, it's very important to us to live in a gay-friendly area, something we unfortunately always have to consider.

By the way, is it annoying to have such restrictions on where one can live without having people feel it's their business to butt into your life and hassle you about something that's none of their *#@! beeswax, without living in fear that one day they're going to drag you from the back of their truck to the boonies somewhere and then beat you to death? You betcha it is! As I posted in one forum:

...if two people are happy in a gay/lesbian relationship and minding their own business, what gives you or anyone else the right to butt into their lives and start lecturing? You may call it "evangelism," but a lot of other straight people would call it HARASSMENT.

Catholicism condemns divorce, but you don't see Catholics picketing provincial courts and tracking down divorcees to lecture them that they're going to hell.

You don't see Muslims stopping female neighbours to lecture them that it's sinful for them to be going outside with no scarf over their hair.

You don't see Jews stopping people in supermarkets to lecture them that it's an abomination for them to eat non-Kosher foods.

Then why do you think it's okay to harass gays and lesbians in this way?

I don't get why people seem to think it's okay to run around judging other people and telling them how to live. But until they get a clue (or a life), we'd rather live someplace where tolerance is the rule and not the exception.

Anyway, Minneapolis has been looking the most promising as a geographical midway stop in terms of being very gay friendly and having a high quality of life in many ways. It looks like it's clean, has lots of jobs, highly educated people, low crime, lots of walking/bicycling trails, plenty of museums and things to do, etc. People from/visiting there seem to have great things to say about it. By the way one of my favo(U)rite places to check on U.S. cities is CityData.com . It would be even better if they'd also do Canadian cities, and I suggested this, but what can you do?

We've been talking, however, about the fact that it would likely be better and cheaper to just go directly through to Ontario and do an "inside Canada" PR application. Otherwise we'd have to pack up everything in boxes, move, get driver's licenses, license plates, and car insurance for the new state, then turn around and do it all again to go to Canada. As lovely as Minneapolis sounds, I still think it would be my second choice. Which is good to keep in mind, because one of the things I've heard that immigration asks you is what your plans are if your PR application was to be turned down. They want to know that you've discussed the possibility and planned for it. Minneapolis sounds like a truly great place, and a Plan B that we could be quite happy with.