How I Survived Canadian Atlantic Winter Storm in My Camper Van And Moving to the Countryside

Hi everyone, this is Phoebe. So obviously I'm in a house right now. I just moved just a little one week and this is Marco. He's sunbathing. This is his favorite spot in the house during the day now because the sun comes from the window over there. So I just want to share with you a little update about my living situation and how I have moved from my van into a house and how I come to know this place. Two weeks ago we got about like a foot of snow so I came up with a plan to survive in my van. I had to prepare for the storm like at least two days before the storm and because the weather changes very quickly here in the Atlantic Canada. So I don't know exactly how much is going to snow like what the weather is going to be like up until the day before of the storm. So I kind of navigate the weather and check like almost every couple hours because it does really change every couple hours here. So that was like my first snowstorm in Halifax. Like the first significant snowstorm in Halifax and when I was in my van. So my plan was that I was going to drive to a truck stop in like a place that I would have shower and water. So all the necessities that I need would be food, water, shower and propane. I just fill up my propane tank all the way full. So if I need a lot of heat I could still use it for like at least a week. I know that for 20 pound tank I can use up to 10 days a week or 10 days depend whether I use it on high or on low. And so I make sure my propane tank is full. I have to make sure my water tank is full because with water I have to refill every three or four days. So I'm going to get stuck at somewhere for one week. Say if the road is bad and I won't be able to drive for several days up to a week then I would need to go to a place that have water so I can refill my water tank. And especially when it gets really cold it can freeze my water tank. So I also need to stock like water jugs inside my van as well. So I have five water jugs that I keep inside the van so it doesn't get freeze. So at least I have five gallons to use like drinking water and doing the dishes and cooking and everything. So that would just be enough for one day with five gallons of water jugs. And shower I don't think I can stand not cleaning myself for like a week. So I would need a place to get shower at least every two or three days. And if I have to get stuck somewhere without not being able to drive anywhere for like a week I would have to stay somewhere close to a shower. So food I would be able to stock my fridge up to a week. And because I eat six days instead of seven days because I fast one day a week so I can my fridge is big enough for me to stock up to one week of food. And because I eat only two times a day and six days in a week so that was enough food for me. Because I didn't know if like how the weather would be within a week and if it's going to snow a lot or if it's going to get warm up and melt on the snow. So the weather is very unpredictable here. So I have to prepare for the worst case scenario. So after I stock all my food, water, propane and and get my shower done. Also I go get my shower just the day before the storm. Then I decided to go and park at the truck stop. And it's a very nice truck stop. If you are in the Atlantic area, you can check out the big truck stop. It's called Big Stop. So this is a very well-known place for most vanlifers that travel around Nova Scotia. Most everyone knows about Big Stop because they have very nice truck stop and I feel safe there. Before I go I also call them like whether it's possible to park overnight because they open 24 hours so they don't have any issue with that. So because it's open 24 hours even during the storm so in any case of emergency I have some kind of access, public city, public access to washroom, shower or even call 9-1-1 or whatever because there's someone around like I'm not stranded in like remote area. I don't think it's a good idea to go somewhere very remote to survive a winter storm. So I decided to go to the truck stop and they have really nice shower there. Like you have to pay for the shower. It's not free but it's really worth it and I wouldn't mind paying for the shower because they let me park there for overnight and I ended up parking there for three nights. So the storm was on Friday night, no the sun was on Friday morning so I made sure that I got there on Thursday night and I parked there on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. So I ended up parking for like three nights. So the first night it was relatively quiet and on the second night it was really noisy because it was snowing up until like 3 a.m. The snow mowing was like running all over the place cleaning the parking lot and it was getting really cold so everything got freeze the next day on Saturday. But at least I have a washroom, I have shower, I have water just in case I need it. But I didn't stay at least I didn't stay for like a whole week. I stayed there for only three nights and then the road was pretty decent on Sunday so I was able to drive on Sunday to go somewhere else and it get really warm couple days after. I was able to survive in my bed and the snow day I think I was really chill after that like I felt safe staying there because it's the area is well lit and they also have a restaurant there by the way. So they have Burger King, Tim Horton and like a fast food restaurant right by the gas station. So in any case if I run out of food I would have food there. It's not really nice food, healthy food but at least there's something I'm I would not go starved if I get stuck and I won't be able to drive for more than a week. So that's the kind of area that I would go to to survive during the winter storm. And the whole experience it wasn't it wasn't that bad like I felt pretty calm and the only downside was that there was a nice place to walk Marco like I could only walk him just around that square center and it's not that big and there's just too many vehicles it's not like a grassy and green area like to walk Marco and it's right by the highway so we obviously cannot walk him on the street like yeah so and it was a little noisy on the second night at night because they was cleaning the road and the parking lot but the first night and the night when I was there it was relatively quiet at night and it wasn't that busy so it wasn't a really bad place to sleep overnight and because I got everything prepared so on my snow day I felt pretty chill kind of just and it's pretty warm in my van because I got all my propanes the one power tank and a 20 power tank I run two of my propane heaters so it was fairly warm in my van and it was at least not too uncomfortable I think it was a little cozy it wasn't like too uncomfortable to be in my van during that winter storm and because I didn't drive for three days so I also make sure to run my engine to keep the batteries going so that it doesn't drain the cold doesn't drain the batteries all the way and yeah so I survived uh the winter storm three days just fine and everything was good I didn't get stuck I had a really nice shower and they actually somehow give me a discount on the shower I don't know how that that was the first time ever that I go to the drugstore and they kind of have a way to check me out at a discounted rate yeah it was it was a good experience there and um I didn't have any trouble except that my inverter broke because uh one of the fuse broke and I couldn't charge my phone at least I have the jugs out there and they have a lounge area for the juggers so you can go and hang out at the lounge and I just went in there and um use the outlet there and charge my phone and luckily that happened only on the last day everything was fine I was on the last day I was able to go to Canadian Tire to get like a new inverter so yeah the whole experience was it wasn't that bad and I thought I was able to survive it just fine I was able to cook I was able to get warm I was able to get shower and um I didn't use all my water in my water tank um and it didn't freeze my water tank didn't freeze but I didn't cook as much I also managed to fit in my fasting schedule during the storm as well so I could avoid cooking two times um in a day so that I didn't have to use so much water and in case of my if my water tank was going to get freeze so I kind of have to like schedule and plan all these things out in order to survive the winter storm and everything worked out just fine that was actually the first significant winter storm that we have in Nova Scotia so we're thinking maybe it's gonna get worse from here on and I was correct because tomorrow is going to be really freezing cold I was able to survive in my van up to minus 11 celsius but tomorrow it's gonna be like minus 26 and then the day after it's gonna go down to like minus 18 I don't think I can survive that in my bed so but two weeks ago I didn't know that so I decided okay I need to find a place to stay now and just when I set a solid intention um I found a place I found two places actually like the first time that I saw this place I messaged a lady on on Facebook and she said contact her daughter and her daughter was going to school here in I think she going to school in in like about an hour away from here so um she said at home and she said like in a weekend she would be able to show me like come here and do a video call with me to show me a little bit about the place and so when I saw the place I was like it's actually pretty nice on the phone so I decided that I'm going to come and check it out on Wednesday um Wednesday last week so I told her that because the storm was going to be on Thursday so if I see that the place is nice enough then everything is exactly is what she showed me on the phone then I would just move in and because the place is ready and it's everything is fully furnished so it's literally ready for me to move in like immediately so I came and I checked out the place and everything looks like what she said I just wanted to make sure that this place actually exists I want to make sure like to come to this address and I check it out and then everything is good then I'll move into the house and so um it wasn't a scam or anything because the price was actually a really really good price it's actually kind of lower than my budget and everything is included so I think it's a little too good to be true and even my room is furnished as well and the kitchen is pretty huge I feel like I actually have um I needed to have some adjustment I'm not organizing everything yet because this kitchen is so big I have a hard time adjusting and this is Marco because I'm so used to my van I just stand at one spot and then I got like this here and this here and this here and everything everything is within my arm reach but in this kitchen I have to think where did I put this where did I put that and I have to walk around to get my stuff um so it's kind of distort my orientation a little bit it took me several days to get adjusted and this is the living room of space for Marco to run around so he's very happy with that Marco is happy to have space that I can play with him he has toys I got him some toys how I came to know this place is quite interesting as well because um they listed they listed this place on Facebook marketplace and so when I searched on the marketplace I was able to see it on the first time so I messaged um the the owner of this house and she told me to contact her daughter and so I did and after that I didn't see the listing on Facebook anymore like it didn't come up on the search it was still available but for some reason it wasn't showing up on the search like if you like if I go to like Facebook marketplace to see like all the available rental units this place didn't show up after I messaged this lady and she didn't message me for several days because she was sick but I was thinking like during that time I was thinking well maybe the place is not available anymore because it looks pretty nice and it's really affordable so I thought well maybe I lost it because I couldn't find it in marketplace anymore but then when I go back to my message with uh with the landlady um I was able to see the listing only through my message with her and when I click on to see the details of the listing it still shows that this place is available but it's just not showing up on the search I don't know how is that possible so basically I think that no one see this place except me or at least maybe other people see this place before me and after I messaged her it wasn't showing up on the search so that was really strange so I think it was really meant to be that I meant to come here and stay here because when I talked to her daughter on the phone I kind of have feeling this is this is the place for me that I would be able to stay here and it's the only place that is dog friendly because they used to have two dogs here they used to live here with their dogs and so they don't mind having a dog coming to place here coming to stay here this place ended up to be the only option for me and it ended up to be the nicest option for me but if I was going to accept the two other places that I found in Halifax in December I wouldn't be able to find this place yeah so you see how it ended up working out like the other two places rejected me in December and early January and I'm glad that they rejected me because now I found this place that's so much more convenient for me and Marco because there's no other paths around if I was going to stay at the first place I found in Halifax and she was going to accept me and then I would have to stay with two cats and a dog and and it would be a little chaotic and her her son can't visit occasionally as well so don't be like too many people so and not just that what I another thing that I really like about is there's a trail that in the backyard so um it's hard to see now because of the snow but there's a trail on the left side uh I think it's an 80 feet trail so there's a trail right by the house that's like two times up for me so I was really happy with that there's a lot of nature around as well in this area and it's so remote there's no neighbors around the neighbors are pretty far so Marco can bark his heart out bark as much as he wants and he's not going to bother anyone and I also want to show you how I'm able to maintain my batteries to survive during the winter so let me show you that I think this would be a nice tip for all the van travelers out there if you have access to an outlet it would be a good idea to charge the batteries fully at least once in the winter just to keep it healthy if you're not driving so much so whenever the temperature drops I make sure that I charge my batteries before before that and also after when it gets super cold so let me show you that real quick so this is how I keep my batteries alive the engine batteries and also the AGM house batteries as well so there's an outdoor outlet that I can use but this one is probably about this one 25 feet that one is 20 feet yeah so this is what I used for the last three years to charge my batteries and it works pretty well actually so right now my battery is about 80% sorry right now my battery my batteries is about 80% and I have been charging it for probably now so yeah I think I got this on Amazon for only like I can't remember the price maybe 40-60 dollars or something it's not really expensive but I have to pay for two cables I think so that is about for two cables at Walmart but I think it's worth it to get the batteries alive and I also do the same thing with my AGM batteries in here so I just move everything out already my van is empty now but this year because I don't have anyone to help me to bring these batteries in because it's super heavy and I'm not able to do it by myself so there's another battery here under my bed so I have two AGM batteries and they both are about um I think one is 100 amp and the other one is 110 so 200 but I just measured them earlier so they both are full now 14 volts so that is pretty good but I think after tomorrow I make sure I charge them again and the cables they both are long enough for me to hook up and charge and charge all of these batteries in my van so that's how I was able to keep my battery alive and healthy for the winter time the last two years I took those two batteries inside but this year I have to keep them outside but I look up online and it says that AGM batteries are durable during the cold that it's not going to drain so much as long as you don't use it and you just unplug everything not hook up everything not hook up everything to the batteries and then it will be able to survive through the winter but I would have to make sure that the batteries is fully charged so yeah um as long as I have power in the house I can charge my batteries with no problem and as long as they are full and maintained then I'll be able to try whenever I need to and there won't be any issue with with the batteries hopefully so it's actually a pretty big road right in front of the house there but it's fairly quiet at night it's really quiet at night here like there's no neighbor around like the neighbor is quite far away they're not like right next door so it's very quiet here and I like the fact that I can park my van um right by the house and I'm able to check on the van and charge the batteries and maintain the batteries to make sure that everything is okay in the van as well so let's go back inside it's so cold and their cute little Marco Marco is pretty happy to be in the house so now he doesn't really go for a drive with me in the van anymore this guy he he doesn't like adventure as much as I do so I find this place to be really cozy and this is my favorite uh the dining area is my favorite because I love all the decor in here it feels very nice and cozy like a little cottage yeah I think I'm extremely lucky I think I'm very very lucky to find such a decent place to stay for the winter time and I think it's really meant to be as well like why I'm the only one that respond to this uh to this place and I'm the only one to stay here so far so that's it for my update about my living situation um I'm gonna go shopping with Marco now we're gonna need to go stock the food and all my need for maybe for two weeks this fridge is big enough for two weeks so um I'm gonna go stock you know food so I don't have to drive at all for the winter maybe I don't have to drive for a whole week if I can avoid driving in the snow I would do that for as long as I can because I really don't like driving in the winter time I hate it so much anyhow I just want to share the last thing I want to share with you is that manifestation really works and I realized that as soon as I make a decision and I'm not gonna like go up and down with the weather whether I should stay in my van or I should like rent a place um because before before that I was like maybe I should stay in the van this winter because the weather was good but when after the storm the first winter storm I was like okay that's it I'm gonna need to move into a house now or an apartment now and just as soon as I make the decision I was able to move um find a place and move within a week it's that fast and this place is so nice I think it's a little my manifestation was a little better than I thought or maybe it's a little too too good to be true I don't know like would there be any problems coming up I'm not sure but at least right now I kind of really enjoy this place um and so I would encourage you to apply the tips and manifest something for yourself whatever that you desire because it does actually really work and for me I knew what kept me stuck from the manifestation is because I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go find a place or I stay in my van and it took like a winter storm for me to be sure that okay that's enough enough wandering around in my van I have to find a place I need to take it seriously so yeah that was the only hold back for me and as soon as I was able to make decision and be solid with my intention which is the fire energy then I was able to find a place and so um if if we know what's holding our back what is the block in our manifestation and just remove that then um it'd be easier for you to manifest anything into your reality and of course if you want something a lot bigger then it would require a lot more energy and effort my manifestation is fairly small so it's not like anything like too crazy like too big so for me another valuable tip is because I wasn't anxious or I wasn't afraid I wasn't scared if I was not able to find a place so that's how I was able to keep my intention pure and solid and there wasn't any fear behind my intention that I had to have to find a place because I was thinking if I don't find a place it would be okay I would have I would come up with another solution like I could go to a hotel or something and we're not gonna be strangers or anything so because I wasn't afraid I didn't have like I I didn't inject that fearful energy into my manifestation so it comes really fast like I was calm the whole like winter storm I wasn't anxious or anything so make sure that you also keep that in mind not to let any fear influence your manifestation that way it will come faster and easier as well and of course if you want to manifest something really big and something really significant it requires a lot more effort a lot more energy and time and a lot more effort to clear that fearful energy any anxiety anything that maybe block the manifestation as well so that's my little tip I want to share with you and until the next video I'll see you then I still have another video that I'm working on and this one is taking so much longer because it's a really really big video for me so until the next video stay warm and I will see you later bye hey guys did you check out my book yet it's now available on amazon and lulu you can also find out more information on my website livingthroughalchemy.com and if you enjoy the book please leave me a review thank you so much bye