Yahoo, Fresh Air

The closed signs where posted on all the gates at the park on Saturday and the last pedestrian gate was locked so we were able to get outside for a walk 🙂

There is still ice along the sides of the creek, we have never seen that before when we return

On weekdays there are workers in one loop, on the other side of the creek, upgrading all the sites but they have a fence up to stop people from walking in that area, and they are not coming into the rest of the park, so we are okay to walk around with no fear of running into them.

The beavers have been really busy this year. That’s three big trees they have brought down.

The park managers are also living on site but they know we are in quarantine so they give us a wide berth, but so far we have not even seen them walking while we are walking.
The only other area we have to stay clear of is behind the main washroom where they are working on sprinkler lines … but the park is 440 acres so there is lots of area for us to walk without coming anywhere near other people.

I wonder how long it takes them to chew through a tree this size?

We are now on day ten and still doing well. We have caught up on a few TV series, Maxx has had a deep clean, I filed our income tax, and have read more than a few books.

Still a lot of snow on the hills surrounding Kelowna.

We have had three grocery deliveries, two from our daughter and one from my sister. We could have done without the last two but there were a few more things that we wanted and they were happy to get them for us. It makes us laugh when they pull up in front of the gates to drop off our groceries. They drop the groceries and then get back in their vehicle. Once they are behind closed doors and drive off we open the gates and quickly haul our stuff in. I feel like we are in jail because the gates have razor wire on top 😀

I have some more jokes which I will share over the next few days if anyone is interested. Most of them have been flying around Facebook so they may be old news to some of you.

Until next time …

WOOHOO, That’s A Wrap On Day Seven

Seven days of self-isolation/quarantine down and we are still healthy and happy. We only have seven more days until we can bust out of here and see the rest of the world … at a safe distance of course 🙂
It’s feels like we should be sick because we are holed up inside and can’t go out and about. I have to keep telling myself “you are not sick, get your lazy butt out of bed and get dressed”, but I have done just that and we are finding lot’s to of things to do to keep busy.
That’s about all I have to say today so here are some funnies for you, I hope they bring a smile to your face.

Until next time …

How Is It Going?

I know that this is tough times for everyone and we all have our own challenges to face right now. With us, and all other returning snowbirds, it’s how to deal with the fourteen days of self isolation.

We are now into day 6 and so far so good … hubby and I haven’t killed each other … and our daughter and my sister are ensuring we are okay for groceries.

Another blogger couple we know did the right thing by not bring fruits, vegetables, and other restricted foods into Canada but then immediately faced the challenge of how to get groceries once they arrived home. They have no family in town but did have a guardian angel come to their rescue.

We know another couple who have a dog but live in an area with no fenced yards … how do you take your dog out to do it’s business? I have no idea what the safe answer to that question is, but I know whatever they do it will be safe and keep others safe.

Other people we know are trying to make their way back to Canada and are making decisions over what groceries they can and should bring. If you have nobody to buy you groceries I can see the logic in bringing what you need across the border, especially when wait times for grocery deliveries is up to two weeks!

Still others are staying put were they are and looking at a lot of us like we rushed home for no reason. And yes I could make a lot of arguments on this one, but I will say that we all had our own reasons for coming home just as those that are staying have their reasons. Hubby and I are glad we came home for several reasons; our medical coverage was cancelled as of March 23 but what really points out to us that we made the right decision is the alarmingly fast rate that the virus is growing in the US! I for one am glad I am not bringing that risk back to Canada and those I hold dear.

I saw this headline on CBC News today Mandatory quarantines for international travellers kick in at midnight”. The article states that “The government has been pleading with Canadians to self-isolate if they’ve returned from a trip since mid-March, but this move under the Quarantine Act makes it a legal obligation.”

So for those of you that are safely tucked away, and doing your legal and moral obligation to protect all Canadians, what are you doing to keep yourself busy?

Hubby and I finally finished The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel series and have a few other series that we want to watch. This quarantine time has also given us a chance to sit on the phone for hours and hours trying to cancel his US mobile service, as I write this hubby is on his sixth attempt within the last week to cancel his Spectrum mobile plan. Yesterday, after many hours on the phone, he was finally able to get my Canadian mobile service working right, but we still have to go in and show our ID after our quarantine period is up 😦

So I will leave you with this picture of my view out the window as I write this blog … I long for the day when I can go outside for a walk
🙂                              🙂                              🙂
Notice the social distancing in those smiles? That was a good laugh in an email from our neighbours in Yuma!

Until next time …

Back In Kelowna 🙂

I’m so sorry if I scared some of you when I didn’t post yesterday, we made it home safely just before noon and despite all the time I spent on the phone with our mobile service provider my phone, which has our data, did not hook-up. And then today is a weekend so I couldn’t call in until 9:00 a.m. and then of course it still didn’t work but fortunately our daughter dropped groceries off for us at the gate of the park and I was able … from a very long distance … to use their data to post this.

We are still healthy and so very happy to be home. We officially started our fourteen day isolation at 9:00 a.m. yesterday morning after we crossed the border and are honestly looking forward to some time to decompress after the last three days.

In the last three and a half days we have driven 2,538 km (1,577 mi), visited seven states … Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah (definitely not planned!), Idaho, Oregon, and Washington … and one glorious province, British Columbia 😄

So let’s catch you up from where I left off on Thursday. The weather and the roads continued to be great so our drive went through Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, and up to Northern Washington where we parked in the Walmart parking lot. Walmart was not our first choice but it was what we got, and the parking lot was FULL of RVs! Good thing there were very few shoppers and the store closed early so there was lots of room for all of us.

And before you get all freaked out about us spending time in Washington state, I checked the CDC stats and there are no cases of COVID-19 in Omak or it’s surrounding county. As well we have not been in contact with anyone since we left Napa in Enterprise, Utah Wednesday afternoon. Well other than the border crossing guard and he kept a very long distance!

It was an interesting trip and the second time we have done this route. But what we find so funny about this route is that the first time we did it was our first year on the road back in November 2013 and because of weather we did it in three days as well. Well actually two and half, as we went to Las Vegas and then headed east across to Florida, but basically if we had gone to Yuma that first year it would have been three days. Someday we may get the chance to take the whole route at a slower pace 😄

For those of you coming behind us I hope you take comfort in knowing our border crossing was easy … even easier than most years! We were asked the usual question about how long we were away and were we over on any of our exemptions.

We were then asked “Where are you headed?” In our case it was only a two hour drive from the border and generally most people in Canada can get home in one day but I’m curious to know what he would have said if we would not have arrived home to begin self isolation that first day. In fact I’m curious to know how people would self isolate immediately upon arrival in Canada if they live to far from the border and can’t get home that first day.

The next question was “Do you have enough food for 14 days?” We have no fresh vegetables or very few frozen ones, very few eggs and milk, because of course stores are running low on those items. Our daughter offered, a few days ago, to pick up what we needed and drop it off at the gate of the park (the park is not open yet). I gave her a list but she wasn’t able to find us any fresh or frozen veggies either 😦 Again I’m curious what the crossing guard would have said if we had nobody to shop for us?

The last comment was “I know you have been gone for a long time but you can’t see anyone until you have to self isolate for 14 days.” I got a smile when I told him FaceTime was a wonderful thing. We were provided with a pamphlet and sent on our way with a smile.

I had a large bag that hubby held open so that the border guard could put our nexus cards and pamphlet in. I figured even though the border guard was wearing gloves those gloves had held passports from who knows how many people before he touched ours. I even read the pamphlet with my own gloves on.

If I had my own data I would have posted some pictures including one of the pamphlet, but I don’t want to use up all of our daughter’s data. Basically the pamphlet didn’t tell you any more than you probably already know.

So we are home, set-up at the campground, and self isolating for fourteen days while trying to deal with my mobile phone … yup that was one wrinkle I could have done without!

Until next time …

Back At The Park

We were both happy to pull back into the Camp Host spot at Bear Creek Provincial Park yesterday, and I was even more happy when I went out for my walk this morning.  It was nice to walk along the lake and visit with the ducks and geese 😎

There is only one loop of the campground open right now but I expect that will change on the weekend. It will definitely change next weekend, Easter is a popular camping weekend.

This is always one of the first sites to go when this loop is opened.

When we were down on the coast there were signs of spring everywhere but when we arrived home in Kelowna we didn’t see any. Once I started looking a little closer I spotted a few 🙂

That is one of the best parts of our life style, we get to enjoy spring in the desert, and then again as we start to head home, and then a final time once we finally get home.

Until next time …

Hello Again :-)

Have you wondered were we are? Well definitely not were we expected to be! Our journey has come full circle and we are back home in our daughter’s driveway.

Last we left you we had visited Niagara-on-the-Lake and where heading out to see Niagara Falls the next day. We were all set to do that, I was drying the last of the dishes and hubby was out talking to our neighbours, when I had the most intense stomach pain. Several hours later I couldn’t stand it anymore and hubby took to me Emergency. Two days later our daughter and my sister had flown out and the next day the three of us flew home. Our two sons flew out to Toronto that day and spent the next four, very long days, driving home with hubby.

The only real look I had of the falls. Hubby had the chance to visit them a few more times when he took our daughter and my sister and again the next night when he took our two sons. We will just have to visit them again so that I can have a chance to photograph them 🙂

So now we are back home with family and friends and our life is taking a different turn, how different we really don’t know right now, but all that matters is we have people who love us and are here to support us. Our hopes are that Maxx Trails will continue and we are keeping our thoughts positive in that direction.

And in case you have ever wondered … We had absolutely no problem with getting care out of our home province of British Columbia. Hubby was informed by the hospital in Niagara Falls that the province of Ontario would bill the province of British Columbia for my medical treatment and all they needed was my BC Health Care Number 🙂

The Wawa Goose. Apparently it was a real faux-pas that the goose didn’t make the blog during our trip through Wawa so hubby made sure to get a picture when they drove through Wawa on their return trip 🙂

Until next time …

Getting Ready :-)

We only have a few more days before we pull out of our daughter’s driveway and start on our next big adventure! We are busy getting organized and meeting up with friends and family for farewell meals. Last night was our last Sunday dinner with our daughter and her family. Since they were away camping for the weekend and wouldn’t arrive home until Sunday afternoon I made dinner and took it over to the house. When we arrived upstairs we were greeted with fiesta decorations for our farewell party. What I thought was going to be a sad dinner turned out to be a fun filled evening with lots of laughter and Mexican music in the background. Now you may wonder why a fiesta theme when our trip will be in Canada and the US. Well it turned out they were the only decorations they could find and since we usually visit Los Algodones, Mexico when we are in Yuma, and often bring the kids back some little trinket, the decorations seemed to fit. Our daughter said she tried to find a “Going Away” balloon because she wanted to cross out the “ing” and make it a “Go Away” balloon but she had no luck 🙂

I am really going through a lot of emotions this week. Although I am really looking forward to all the new places we will see, I am having a hard time leaving our family for almost nine months. And yes I know technology will help with that but it’s just not the same as warm squeezy hugs 😦

But on the up side we will no longer have to worry about what to do with our garbage! I know that sounds like a funny thing to say but it is our biggest challenge while parked in the driveway. A family of six generates a full garbage can every week, even though they are avid recyclers and composter’s, so there is no room for our garbage. Usually it works out that we are away when the garbage bag gets full so we can dump it at whatever RV Park or campground we are staying in, but occasionally that doesn’t work and we have to get more creative … so like I said the up side is soon we will have no problem getting rid of our garbage … I really need to focus on the positive sides of our upcoming adventure!

Until next time …

Serious Planning!

We began planning our trip across Canada back in April and while it has been fun, it has also been a challenge! In British Columbia most Provincial Parks are open through the Thanksgiving Day weekend in October. It turns out Canada’s maritime provinces shut most of their parks down in mid September. We will be starting our trip on August 1, but we have two weeks planned in Edmonton, Alberta and a few days with hubby’s cousin on his farm in Saskatchewan, so our trip will really begin around August 19th in mid Saskatchewan. Since we hadn’t planned to cross into the Eastern US until mid October we thought we had lot’s of time but when you factor in the lack of places to stay I was getting a little worried that we were not leaving early enough.

So hubby and I spent the morning looking over our map and double-checking closing dates on places we planned to stay. After a few hours hubby decided it would be more fun to go out and flush the hot water tank and replace the anode! I, on the other hand, perservered and I think we finally have a workable plan.

Hopewell Rock in the Bay of Fundy. Just one of the many places we plan on visiting!

Just a few stops along the way It looks like our trip ends in the Florida Keys but we will start heading toward the West Coast in January 2017.

Of course like all our planning these are “jello solid” plans but at least it is a start. We still need to spend more time on our route through the Eastern US but as our youngest son would say “that sounds like a future me problem” 🙂

Until next time …

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day!

Today Canadians are celebrating the anniversary of the July 1, 1867 enactment of the Constitution Act that united three colonies into a single country called Canada within the British Empire. Originally this day was called Dominion Day but was renamed to Canada Day in 1982 when the Canada Act was passed.

Here are a few fun facts about Canada 🙂

• Canada has coins, rather than bills, for $1.00 and $2.00, these coins are affectionately called the loonie and twoonie. But did you know that the Canadian Mint also created a one million dollar coin? The coin is made of 99.99% gold and weighs over 220 pounds! I guess that’s why I don’t carry my millions of dollars around with me 🙂

• The Canada/US border is the longest border in the world and it lacks military defence.

• Canada holds the record for the most gold medals won by a country in the winter Olympics, along with the most gold medals won by a host country in the winter Olympics. Both records where during the Olympics held in Vancouver, British Columbia in 2010.

• Basketball was created by a Canadian, James Naismith in 1891. The modern game of hockey was invested in the mid 1850’s in Canada.

• Canada has a 99% literacy rate and over half of Canadians have college degrees.

• Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined!

• Author A.A. Milne named Winnie the Pooh after a real bear in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

• Canada is the second largest country in the world, behind Russia.

• The Mall of America is owned by Canadians.

• Canada has the third largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

• And for those of you who think it is always cold in Canada, where we live the average temperatures during the past week have been in the mid 30’sC, 95F, and it’s only the beginning of summer!

Happy Canada Day everyone, and to our friends from the US, Happy early Fourth of July. We hope everyone has a fun … and safe … long weekend!

Until next time …

2015 Blog Facts

Once again WordPress has provided me with a report about my blog activity over the past year and I thought I would share it with you.

They started off their report with this interesting fact “A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,700 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.”

I uploaded 730 pictures, 113 more than last year, but this year I only used a total of 433 MB compared to the 617 MB used last year. Once again that works out to about 2 pictures per day and is still only a fraction of the pictures I took and tried to bore my family with when we returned home. And once again my family was not interested in sitting through hours of pictures, I suspect this fact will never change!

During 2015 my busiest day of the year was June 21st with 166 views, which was up from my busiest day last year with 68 views. The most popular post on June 21^st was Fintry Provincial Park, which I had written a few days earlier.

It was during our stay at Fintry that we met Teresa Wood, one of the park operators, and the author of A Life Made Simple and I have enjoyed following her blog ever since 🙂

In 2015, there were 148 new posts, down from the 155 in 2014, but growing the total archive of my blog to 349 posts.

My goal last year was to beat my 2014 posting steak of 20 days in a row and I did that with a posting streak of 54 days in row between 6 February 2015 and 31 March 2015. I am pretty sure I won’t beat that streak this year!

In 2014 I posted the most blogs on Thursdays, in 2015 I posted the most blogs on Mondays, with 25 posts being made on that day of the week.

This year my followers come from a total of 54 countries, up considerably from the 9 countries in 2014!   Once again most of my followers are from Canada, which makes sense since that is where our family is from. Also like 2014 the United States was not far behind but unlike 2014 where Costa Rica was also pretty close to the US in 2015 Germany followed close to the US. I do know people in Costa Rica but I don’t know anybody in Germany, maybe I will have to change that 🙂

The following posts had the most views in 2015.

Welcome to Maxx Trails

Tombstone, Arizona

Arlington Lake, BC

Yuma Territorial Prison

Fintry Provincial Park

This year my report contained some new information that I found very interesting … My top referring sites were:

Hitchupandgo.com

Blogger.com

WordPress.com

A big thank you to all that comment on or “like” my blog, that means a lot to me. My top commenters where:

Six Saturdays and a Sunday – We have a lot in common since we come from the same area of BC and I love following their blog and hearing about all the awesome hikes they do!

Live, Laugh RV – Hubby and I were very fortunate to have our first blog date with Ingrid and Al when we were in Phoenix this year. It was so much fun and great to meet a fellow blogger!

A Life Made Simple – As I mentioned above we met Teresa when we were at Fintry Provincial Park last summer. We have enjoyed following Teresa’s blog as they spend their first winter in many years back in the snow instead of on the beaches in Mexico.

And the last two of my top five commenters are our good friend Delma and my sister … it is always great to hear from home!

Thanks to all of my followers for your interest in 2015, I hope I can continue to keep you interested during 2016 🙂

Until next time …