Friday December 25th 2020

Even Mr. Sam had to stop and just stare out the window as Goderich has certainly had a true white Christmas. Who knew that to qualify to be a white Christmas, that it had to be snowing at seven o’clock on Christmas morning … I mean who picked seven o’clock, why not eight o’clock, or a range of say between six to ten o’clock? But on the other hand Goderich would have the requirements in any or all of the fore mentioned times … just saying.

As Ontario prepares for a pandemic lock down, tomorrow morning at 12:01 am, and with multiple warnings from all levels of government to only be with your own household, Miss Laurie and I spent a quiet Christmas Day, isolated from all family and friends. But making use of the electric range in our rented stick & bricks, Miss Laurie cooked a turkey dinner with all the fixings.

So as of tomorrow only essential services will be open, and at only at twenty five percent of their capacity. Restaurants are back to takeaway only, no more eat in option. And this is suppose to last for twenty eight days, we are thinking it will most likely push on until very close to spring, in fact as the virus case loads are far worse in this wave than the original wave, I suspect spring 2021 could be more restrictive than 2020 was, yea I know like fun wow.

The coronavirus vaccine has started to roll out across Canada, but it’s not the magic bullet to end this pandemic that everyone is hoping for. The fact that there are multiple vaccines already approved just shows what can be accomplished when there is no restriction of money getting to the correct sources. The expectation is that it will take till fall of 2021, to get the majority of the Canadian population inoculated, and the consensus is it that 75% of the population needs to be inoculated to provide reasonable protect from the virus. It is our expectation that we will need to have had the vaccine to be able to get health coverage to travel and may even need proof of it to gain entry to the States next fall.

Of course I’m sure there will be no shortage of people that will be anti-vaccine, no different than the flock of people that were anti-maskers that couldn’t understand that their rights were not more important than rights of the rest of the population. They were not quite as ignorant to actual facts as the group that was sure the pandemic was a hoax, but real close, I mean believe what ever you want, but rather than endangering the rest of us that are trying to be smart and stay safe it would be nice if you could at least act like an grown up.

As we are closing in on another Christmas Day in to the books, the snow seems to have let up a little, we may even venture outside tomorrow to clean up some of the snow. Or we may just wait another day till the wind quits blowing the snow around. This will be a Christmas that will be remembered for a life time, although I expect not fondly. I know according to the calendar we are only four days into the winter season, and I think we have had enough already.

Merry Christmas to everyone, and here is to a better 2021

Wednesday December 16th 2020

We lost a great member from our RV family on the weekend, not just a retired farmer from Wisconsin, but a very elegant man. Oh he didn’t wear fancy clothes, or drive a big fancy vehicle, but his very presence demanded respect, his knowledge was vast, his opinions whether you agreed with them or not were always elegantly presented, and articulately explained, no Jerry was not just a retired farmer from Wisconsin, he was such a soft spoken gentleman but his words seemed carry enormous weight and power from his lifetime of experience.

Jerry and his partner Cindy are one of the reasons that we are doing what we are doing. We first met Jerry and Cindy on December the first of twenty seventeen, and I remember it like it was just a few days ago. Miss Cindy was the firecracker that had invited us to happy hour before we were even finished parking, for our first month long stay, at a time when we weren’t just to sure we had made the right decision about extended camping stays beyond a couple of days. We were only a few days over two months of full-timing, and just a little over one month on the road.

Miss Laurie and I have always been quite private people, working in the automotive service industry for over forty years and dealing with so many people every day, kind of wears on you, so when off duty, we usually kept to ourselves, we had very few true friends. We had lots of aquatints from work, but not a lot of real friends, so while not shy, we just kept quite private. So the whole RV family thing was still so very new and, such an unknown to us that that point.

That day, just a few days more that four years ago actually had changed our lives forever. And while not totally because of Jerry and Cindy, but it was their friendship, caring, and inclusiveness that made us so sure that we were on the right road (no pun intended). Jerry was a Christian, a Republican, and a Trump supporter, none of which would instantly endear him to me but I leant that he spoke from his heart, he accepted that there were various different opinions and beliefs, but he held firm to his thoughts but was more than willing to listen to everyone else’s opinion without forcing his beliefs on anyone. We spoke of his farm, his family, the difficulties of farm life, especially dairy farms, we spoke of retirement and his life after the farm. And while we did not always agree on some things, we both did have a much better understanding of the opposing opinion.

Jerry was also an avid reader and could almost always be found sitting in the Arizona sun reading (or napping), just watching the world rush by. He was a Facebook user, liking and sharing many post, and I know many people much younger, that weren’t nearly as computer savvy. We were lucky enough to have spent time with Jerry and Cindy last December while in Arizona and had planned to catch up again this winter until the pandemic changed our plans. And while it was the coronavirus that took Jerry, there were underlying health issues, and I’m sure he is in a better place today because of his beliefs, but he will truly be missed by many of us let alone by his family.

Rest In Peace Jerry, I feel so honoured to have been able to have spend quality time with you in the past few years.