Last night, I was still lying awake after midnight, restless and annoyed, when I finally gave up on having the windows open. The weather was perfect for it — low 70s, a little bit of a breeze — but there was too much traffic noise. I used to be able to sleep through traffic noise. I lived near a major highway in Walnut Creek, California, for a while, and managed to convince myself that the traffic noise was the sound of the ocean, soothing, peaceful. When I moved down to Santa Cruz, CA, I had to adjust to sleeping to the sound of the real ocean. Apparently now I do better with crickets.

But largely my problem in this campground is my location. The campground’s location is one of its advantages: it’s the closest campground to downtown Toronto, and is, in fact, a lovely little oasis of nature in the midst of a city. There are kilometers of hiking trails, kids riding bicycles, loads of trees, even a river. If I was a lot more ambitious, I could even walk to the Toronto Zoo. (Begging the question of what Zelda would be doing while I went to the zoo, since I would never feel comfortable leaving her alone in the van for that long when the heat could get into the 80s.) My personal location, though, is in the V where the entrance and the exit to the campground meet, and thus every camper, every truck, every bus, every trailer must drive by me.

Toronto traffic, by the way… just wow. Canadians are apparently not Canadian when they are behind the wheel. I saw a literal road rage incident yesterday when two men got out of their cars to yell at one another at a traffic light. I’d pondered the question of whether drivers were specifically being assholes to me because of my Florida license plates. Has the hatred of Americans overseas hit Canada so hard that they’re acting on it to random tourists on the road? But the road rage incident was comforting in that respect — nope, they’re assholes to one another, too. (Not all of them, of course, no insult intended to any nice Canadian drivers who might be reading.)

I didn’t really get to see R’s new apartment because parking in his neighborhood did not seem possible, but I did take him and his belongings there. It is so nice to have some space back in the van! Less stuff is definitely more when it comes to van life. I like not having to climb over the kayak to use the bathroom and I love being able to store my shoes above the door so that I’m not tripping over them every time I turn around.

And… sigh. You know, I had other things I wanted to write about, but a reader decided to ruin my morning by coming to my blog and telling me all the things that were wrong with Grace. I honestly don’t get that. It’s one thing to share information with other readers in a review, and another to point out typos or errors that are correctable, but why tell an author all the things you don’t like about the story she chose to tell? I guess we all like to complain, don’t we? Here I am complaining about my location in a campground — maybe the campground will choose not to let people camp here anymore, LOL. But I am definitely choosing not to write anymore today. I am going to camp and cook and walk my dog and play WoW and maybe find myself a job as a nanny. I’d be a great nanny, as long as I could bring my dog along!

PS Many thanks to the readers who have written reviews and/or sent me nice messages. I promise not to let my anti-writing mood last too long!