Winter 2020 – 2021

April 1st 2021

So just how does a retired Canadian couple that live fulltime in a 40 foot motor coach, and that are used to wintering in the southern states to avoid the Canadian winter cold, cope with being grounded during a world wide pandemic?

Well one might assume that we would just drown our sorrows with some good Canadian rye whiskey or some of the great craft beers from this big country. And that might have happened if the times were a little different. But we are more social consumers of alcohol, in other words being locked down by this pandemic, and not being able to have any social interactions has found us actually consuming much less alcohol than normal.

Oh we still bought a bottle of Baileys for our Christmas celebrations, and we have added a bottle or two of Forty Creek Copper Pot rye whiskey but with being able to count this winters social interactions on the fingers of one hand. We have found this social isolation very difficult, Miss Laurie has been working through the winter at the local Walmart. But while being around people it has become very obvious that people either don’t understand the lock-down guidelines or just don’t care.

So I have pretty much abstained from alcohol for the whole month of February and other than a couple of glasses of wine with a few nice dinners. Much of the craft beer that I had purchased before Christmas is still chilling in the breeze way of the house.

As we move closer to the start of spring (at least on the calendar) our thoughts are of moving back to our desired way of life. We have committed this summer to Richard & Bonnie at Lake Huron Resort. It was the obvious choice that made sense to all of us last year when we could see that the world as we knew it was going to be turned upside down.

Who among us would had believed that the Canadian / American border would has been closed to everything except essential for more than a year? Not I for sure, but it has been and there is still no serious talk about the border opening anytime soon.

Most of our social interactions this winter were made with the use of electronics and apps like “FaceTime” or “Zoom”, and while these were great ways to touch base with people, they just don’t come anywhere close to filling that void that has been with us for almost a year.

It is starting to become obvious that the vaccines that are slowly making their way into Canadian arms will be our only ticket back to any sense of reality. As we watch the vaccine that has made into the arms of other nations (Israel for example), we can see actual life as we knew it coming back. Stores are open, masks appear to be disappearing, movies, theatre, social events like concerts are coming back to life.

And of course now we will have the “anti vaxxers” telling us how the vaccines have microchips from Bill Gates in them or some other line of true stupidity. To the anti-vaxxers, just step aside and let the people who want to restart their lives get in line to be vaccinated. While you dream up some new reasons why the world really cares what you are doing, because the world actually doesn’t give a crap what you think or what you are doing. Neither Bill Gates or myself need a microchip to tell that you are looking way too hard to make yourself feel special (and God knows you are special in so many different ways).

I think with the blizzard warnings that we had on the first day of March along with the snow streamers off of Lake Huron will qualify as March coming in as a LION, so hopefully it will leave as a LAMB. We also have had to change the clocks ahead as we swing into “Daylight Savings” a week before the official start of spring.

As I sit here writing this morning we are getting some more flurries, just a little more of that lake effect snow, which we have grown to hate. As much as I have reading this winter completing a few of dozen books, I’m starting to find this has been a very long winter. I have tried to walk on the nicer days, but found walking with the ice and snow on the sidewalks just a little too close to suicidal for my liking. While the sidewalks are plowed by the town, the actual job done is very poor and most people walk down the sides of the streets, and most drivers in this area drive way over any speed limits.

We will not be wintering in Canada this coming winter for sure, I don’t know what might be involved in getting across the border but we will be somewhere warm next winter.

While looking ahead we hope to winter in Arizona and Mexico and are looking for work camping jobs in British Columbia for the summer of 2022, although we are much too early for any formal plans. We had hoped to have new couple to work with us at Lake Huron Resort this coming summer, to help and someone to take over the following summer. But as of yet there have not been any candidates for the position.

And that brings up a whole new sad state of affairs, the amount of negative feedback, by what appears to be nothing more than trolls, to the ad for the job opportunity. Work camping in not for everyone, in fact most people just don’t understand the concept. And that was obvious by some of the comments, people just sounding off to try to get a response, these are the same people that are ganging up on Mr. Potato head and Dr. Seuss. Most work camping positions are for two people, and because most opportunities also include a campsite they are advertised as a couple. There was no stipulation on what couple make up has to be because nobody really cares, there is too much work for one person therefore, a couple is needed.

And of course there are always the age of the camper issue. It’s not so much the age of the camper as much as how you have maintained the camper. I would say that half of the campgrounds that we visit have age restrictions, but most just want to see a picture of your camper to make sure you aren’t moving in an eyesore. And there are lots of those and we have seen many, some parks seem to collect them. Our coach is more than twenty years old but we have had very few rejections to campgrounds, so when a campground asks for a photo it to the benefit of everyone else in the park.

In any case the people making the comments were just flapping their gums as neither one were interested in work camping in the first place. So know as spring in upon us we are enjoying warm sunny days, oh I’m Canadian enough to know we will see more snow, but I’m going to enjoy the warm days while I can. And my next step will be to get the coach ready for our return in April to prepare for the park opening in May … this damn pandemic and our next lock-down being our only unknown.

Be Well, Stay Strong, and Wear your Mask