Sunday January 3rd 2021

Sorry for not publishing a blog before now, but I have been really busy cleaning up paper work as we prepare to close down our rental business. Making us just another causality of the coronavirus pandemic, for some reason there hasn’t been a big demand for commercial dishwashers with all the restaurants being closed or reduced to just take away food service. Certainly this was not how we had foreseen the future, but as we look ahead, I truly expect this lock down to go on well into the new year, in fact could run right thru till spring if we don’t start taking it a little more serious. They have started the vaccine distribution here in Ontario, but this is not going to be a fast solution, no silver bullet, in fact we are most likely looking at fall of 2021 before we will have enough herd immunity to start to bring the virus under control, and I can only imagine how many people will lose their battle with the virus by then. You just need to look at some of the Facebook holiday postings and its easy to see who has not been following the provincial guidelines.

Well what can I say. This was not the winter we had planned for, January 2021 should have found us in the beautiful but rugged Arizona desert some where in the Quartzsite Arizona area, temperatures should have been in the mid 60 to 70 (18 to 25) degree range with overnight temperatures dipping close to the freezing mark. But it was not to be, no this winter finds our coach parked in the snow at LHR. But like everyone else we have had to readjust our plans, and just play the cards we are dealt. The Baja Mexico caravan that we had book for February and March of 2021 has been postponed till next year so the winter of 2022, if our American friends can get the pandemic under control enough to open the borders. So needless to say we have had a very quite holiday season with no visitors or visits.

On a brighter note we have been able to increase our ability to take more and hopefully some better photos for our Facebook and blog postings, there seems to be a fairly steep learning curve, and I’m trudging up that hill and hope to be cresting the summit by early spring. Miss Laurie surprised me with a drone as an anniversary present, but I can not fly it at the house because we are in a restricted fly zone because of the Goderich airport. So practice will be limited to trips outside of the restricted area, so far I have made only three very short flights as I’m battling with all the different components required to make the drone fly, let alone trying to work with the camera portion, although the picture above was take from one of the drone flights.

I will admit that I am working on a 2020 review and as usual it takes me look back into the past year which brings lots of photos, and adventures, as we were very busy early in year in Arizona and Nevada, back when this whole pandemic as just another hoax as declared by some of the people that were suppose to be in charge … just saying

So all the best in 2021, and please be safe and well.

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.

And what could be more Ontario winter than multiple snow squall warnings during Christmas day? Well it has been a year for reflection so we spent time today remembering Christmas days of the past few years, so 2019 found us enjoying the desert in Why Arizona, I am pretty’s sure it rained on Christmas Day, but I know it damn well never snowed. 2018 found us enjoying Christmas morning on the beach in Sanibelle Florida, our biggest concern was the application of sufficient sun tan lotion … again snow was not a concern, although I do remember taking to family and hearing how cold it was in Ontario. And then 2017 our first winter away would have found us in Why Arizona, it was a very warm day the found people looking for shaded areas as we enjoyed a Christmas pot luck dinner with others from Coyote Howls West park. And now we are captured in the great white north in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

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