TACKLED THE ICE & SNOW TODAY

THERE IS A LOT OF YARD WORK LYING UNDERNEATH ALL THAT SNOW IN OUR FRONT YARD BUT SOON IT WILL BE FILLED WITH BLOOMING FLOWERS & COLORFUL SPRING SONGBIRDS

Before I get into today’s post let me once again thank everyone for hanging in there with the Bayfield Bunch over this past winter’s travels.  I see we have had some folks with us since 2006 & am encouraged by the comments & emails from old as well as all the new folks who have recently come across our blog.  It is you the readers who keep this blog going & as I said before, I will continue the blog through the summer just as in other years with many varied topics & keeping folks up to date with the happenings of our fellow RVing friends & fellow bloggers:))

I HOPE TO BE FILLING UP THESE EMPTY SPACES BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS WITH MORE NEW PHOTOS SHORTLY
We have noticed a big improvement in Max since arriving home.  I think the steep steps in the Motor Home were becoming too much for his weakening rear legs.  We can tell he is happy to be home & he has been enjoying exploring around outside in our fenced in back yard.  He is navigating the snow alright & going up & down the deck steps by himself.  Also noticed Checkers & the Motormouse seem happier as well & are in more playful moods.  I think that has a lot to do with the fact we have a lot more room to play here in the house:))  This last week of traveling was hard on the whole crew & life on the road does have a few extra sets of travel stress levels for sure.

Priority this morning was to get the Motor Home back in it’s proper place so that meant tackling the mound of hard frozen snow & ice where the front of the rig goes.  A steel shovel, ice chopper &  pick-axe were my weapons of choice as I not only did battle with that chunk of ice & snow but also the mess that had slid off our roof partially blocking the sidewalk leading to the front porch.  All & all it took me about 40 minutes of chopping & shoveling with one coffee break & a power snooze thrown in for good measure.

We have most of the Motor Home mess moved into the house now so we’ve been busy putting away clothes, food, gadgets of all kinds, dishes, shoes, etc. etc.  Amazing the amount of clothes I took & never wore once!!  I make that same mistake every year.  Always amazes me how much stuff we end up squirreling away in the rig over the winter months too.  And, we haven’t even got to the bins yet.  Took me awhile just to clear out the back of the Jeep.  Lawn chairs, satellite dish, bags of dog food & the list goes on.

 
We are above freezing today so things are still slowly melting despite a damp afternoon cloud cover.  Sunny days for Friday, Saturday & Sunday with highs near 50F.  Am hoping all that sunshine is going to pump up my energy levels to soaring great heights.  Both Kelly & I are sun people:))

There is definitely a lot to be said about Snow Birding if you can afford it.  Essentially a person is maintaining two separate lifestyles plus residences & that can be very costly, as we have found out.   But, it is the only practical RV option between Fulltiming & sitting at home for the winter.  With the ever increasing rise in fuel prices & vehicle maintenance fees it is putting a lot of additional financial pressure on many RV folks.  When you have to drive over 2,000 miles just to reach your preferred winter destination it causes one to stop & think about better or alternative ways of doing things.  But, thinking about it is something I do a lot of & will be blogging about those thoughts now that we are home.  Guess it looks like I have already started..........

Much easier for American folks to select a full time lifestyle on the road than it is for we Canadians.  Health insurance benefits is the biggy & having to return to Canada every 6 months is a sticky point when it comes to travel plans.  As much as we have considered the Fulltime route we still feel it wise to have a home base if possible.  Worse case scenarios have to be considered in decisions like that.  If we were to suffer a serious injury or illness while in the Southwest during the winter months that required long term medical care or recovery & had to return to Canada for hospital treatment.....where do we stay for a few weeks or likely months.  Relatives, no way!!  A Motel, not likely.  Our Motorhome...nope, not unless we wanted to freeze to death in the bone chilling Ontario winter!!  Just one of many things to realistically consider at our age & just one of the things we are trying to figure out & plan for.

Have had some questions from readers & Roger asks if the Tim Hortons in Michigan is the same as in Canada.  We have only stopped a couple times at Timmys in Michigan & the coffee was the same as I recall.  Store looked the same too but Kelly has seen some Tim Horton’s near Rochester NY that look entirely different from our Canadian stores.  Glad to see Timmies gaining a strong foothold in the States. 

CONNIE,BARRIE has joined us as Blog Followers 256.  Nice to have you along folks & thanks so much for your separate email.  Very much appreciated & I thank you for your kind words.  Sounds like you have done a lot of traveling across the country.  What a great life this is eh:))

Yes, we did get on the base at Fort Huachuca in Arizona because of Kelly’s dual citizenship but I do recall a short ker-fuffle over something but can’t remember what it was.  Also want to add that Fort Huachuca is an active military base & is governed by military policy regardless of what State it is in.  Refusal of entry to the base for a fellow RV Canadian couple recently had absolutely nothing to do with the great State of Arizona as suggested by a comment I read regarding that matter. 

And who would have ever thought a stop in the dry west Texas town of San Angelo could result in such a beautiful display of....well, check GUMO'S blog & see for yourself:))

In  Wednesday’s blog I accidentally positioned the following paragraph in the wrong place at the very end of the post so some people may have missed it.  Here it is again……Have you ever been faced with the dilemma of making decisions regarding what to do about friends, family, grandkids etc if you decide to spend time traveling in your RV.  And then there is the question of age!!   The folks over at TRAVELS IN THERAPY are pondering those very questions at the moment & having some doubts about their future travel plans.  I have some thoughts about the subject & will do a post on that shortly.

I must have used up my entire daily quota of energy units chopping up that ice this morning because by this afternoon I was drained & spent a fair bit of time dozing in my recliner.  Guess the past week’s travels kind of caught up with me as well.  Probably going to take a few days to get my sticks & bricks legs under me & adjust to some new routines. 

Some may remember a few months ago when our furnace here in Bayfield failed to light because of weakened batteries in our thermostat.  That resulted in the house temps plummeting before being discovered.  Plumbing & everything is OK but we did lose the majority of our house plants.  One Schefflera plant was a personal favorite of mine & I had carried that plant with me over many moves from way back in the late 70's:((

GROANER’S CORNER:((  Murphy's wife borrowed his car and parked in the supermarket car park. Just as she came out laden with shopping, she saw a young lad break into the car, hot wire it and drive off.  Naturally she reported the matter to the police.' What did he look like?, the sergeant asked.  'I don't know she replied, but I got the license plate'.
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