Weary Traveller

My Dad always travelled a lot as part of his working routine so I swore one day that would NEVER be me!! A lot of good swearing does as I think about it only when traveling a long distance from or to work. This isn't the furthest that I have gone in search of a lucrative living mind you. I did work in various parts of Africa for a while. I also worked in Northern BC so this is really a pretty average travel distance for me. Still, I am pretty sure I wouldn't have chosen this. Life as a traveling Ironworker is kind of like being a turtle. You get used to carrying everything with you that you need. Everything into two suitcases. One if necessary. Everything you carry needs to be multipurpose so that you can squeeze every last bit of good out of it. It becomes first part of your strategy and then part of your routine. Stocking and restocking. Adjusting to the temperature variances. Making sure the two bags of stuff that you carry is the 'right' two bags worth. Always. Let me give you a for instance on this one. When I first started it was January and cold. Large heavy clothing dominated what I carried. I needed the 'layers'. But it's now over zero every day so I started removing and replacing items these past few trips. Gone are the lined coveralls and the heavy winter boots. Going are the ten or so long sleeved thermal underwear. Instead I went to the Salvation Army thrift shop and for about $50 I got around ten long sleeved tee shirts. I also bough 3 more pairs of pants (size 36) to replace those that I 'outgrew' while quitting smoking. Shop and swop! This is the life of the iron worker. I was fortunate to get my tomatoes into the ground while I was home. It required so rototilling which is a slow motion type of work that can only be enjoyed by someone who has done the same work using nothing but a shovel! While watching the rototilling work it's way through the garden I kept thinking about how it reminded me of pushing a football player with all his pads on by the feet while he doggie-paddled through the garden! But it made short work of the weeds that had overtaken the garden and served to mix the new bags of soil and manure in rather professional manner. This left the actual process of planting the tomato seedlings fairly easy so just under 4 rows went in! So now I'm back on the road heading back to work. Train from Oshawa to Toronto. Switch trains to Hamilton. Take 25 minute taxi ride to airport. Catch plane to Saskatoon. Fuel up and fly to Albian Airfield in Fort Mac. Catch the 1.5 hour bus back to camp. Check in and claim room. Drop travel bags and head out to bag storage facilities for camp. Take stored bags back to room and unpack. Collapse into bed till tomorrow morning at 4am and start getting ready for work. And so on. As much as I am not a huge fan of the traveling I do like my life which is good. It's good because I don't see any big change as things move forward. :)