Well we have had a wonderful 3 days of exploring, rock hounding, and just taking in Vitamin D, but now we are once again hunkered down in a storm. 30 MPH winds with gusts up to 70 MPH. BUT what a great place to be hunkered down. Ocean swells of 20 feet combined with high tides of 10 feet.
Hunkered seems to be the operative word these days…. Hunkered down because of Covid, because of heat dome, because of fires, because of smoke, because of Covid, because of snow, because of COLD, and now a storm. I must admit, this must be my favourite. This was the day before.
We ARE at our favourite campground, the Sea and Sand, Depoe Bay, Oregon. It is the place we found our very first agates. It is also the place where the roof of our older motorhome’s roof disintegrated in a storm (?6 years ago?) It is unique in that you can just sit up on your perch and watch the ocean.
On the sunny days before we got here we had a wonderful hike in Lincoln City, at Roads End beach. Kind of cool all of that white veins cascading down, even making up the base of the beach.
We DID have to do a bit of climbing to get over to the next beach.
But it was well worth it… basically a beach to ourselves that was covered in Agates.
So shall not complain about being trapped indoors once again, doing Jigsaw puzzles, making bread, watching movies.
We feel very fortunate that we did not fly anywhere over the holidays, must have been quite horrendous for almost everyone.
I have been following all of the news and studies thus far released about the new Covid Variant, Omicron. Seeing the record breaking numbers of new cases, without the subsequent rise in hospitalizations and deaths, it certainly is a different disease. Apparently the reason is, that it does not invade the lungs, at least with animal studies. Another recent finding is that those who have been fully vaccinated and then gotten Covid, become “superimmunized”. Their antibodies become extremely high. It is felt that THESE people will likely be able to fend off any variants. It is with all of these findings put together, I believe that this Omicron variant might just bring about the beginning of the end for Covid. (at least among the Immunized) With the extremely high numbers of cases, we could truly achieve herd immunity. I hope, I hope, I hope…. that I am right. 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
New Years resolutions, to live life slower, to enjoy moments more.
Thanks for reading Much Love Janet, Ken and Tucker, the hunkered down hound who is not happy about it.
We certainly feel like we are on the run from winter. We “hunkered down” for 3 days in Kelowna, with the warnings of large amounts of snowfall. On Boxing Day we went so far as driving down to Summerland, in the jeep, to get a first hand view of what the roads actually looked like, they were not bad. However the one campground in Canada in Osoyoos we knew was open. did not answer phone, or messages (christmas break) So we opted to head south on the 27th. The temp was down to -24C (at -40, calcius and Farenheit become the same)
Of interest, we went for dinner on Christmas Day at Ken’s cousins place, a friend was there who was a meteorologist. He gave Ken a lesson on predicting weather with an app, ands so we have been studying this app closely planning on how to get through Washington trying to minimize the extreme cold and the snow. The purple is the big, bad, cold monster, freezing everywhere in sight.
So we studied THIS map AND also the one that showed snow predictions, and it was clear that (1) there WAS a clearing on the radar of any snowfall.. on Monday (27th), and (2) we HAD to get to the coast of Oregon to avoid Snowstorms AND the cold.
We got as far as Wenachee, and the state park was open (yea) and they had electric hookups (yea), and that was all we needed. On seeing the campground, I immediately thought “we have found our people”. I assumed that these were all crazy Canadians desperate and enroute to find a spot of ground that had no snow on it….. But I was wrong, they were all Washington plates, which I found confusing. 🤔Wenatchee seems like a nice city, but hardly a winter destination??
What a cosy night we had. Finally on the road. Our first night camping in our new (to us) motorhome. We have not filled it with water and the pipes are not hooked up at all. We have big jugs of water and antifreeze in the sewer pipes. Our newer RV has double windows which do not seem to steam up and freeze, at all. (and this has been quite a trial for them). So we SHOULD be able to travel to more places with this rig, in the past we have avoided even the mildest dip below freezing.
The whole of Washington seemed to have a layer of ice on the top of the snow.
Campgrounds DO look quite different in the winter. No need to make reservations, and lots more open space and no little dogs to get Tucker riled up.
OH HERE are the OTHER Canadians who put off leaving a little too long…. Poor geese.
So thus far we have been traveling separately, out of concern for icy roads we figured having a tow vehicle would add to the risks of sliding.(or slipping) 😊
From Wenatchee we drove down in cold and windy conditions along the Columbia, which I wish I could have stopped more to take more pictures as the valley that the Columbia river has carved out is so incredibly beautiful all the way along. We stopped briefly to get these a picture -15 Celsius and strong winds.
We ended up crossing over into Oregon, and the crossing back into Washington to this great little campground, the Maryhill state campground. It was -2 Celsius (approx 30 F). ROCKS!!! (what we came for.) Unfortunately the only ones not covered with snow were in the water.
We could see Oregon from our spot 😊
as it turned out, we were the ONLY ones in the campground. which is a wee bit eery, but kind of nice too.
Well we awoke to 2 inches of new snow and lots more falling. So we got ourselves going quickly and got back to Oregon, heading west. I must say it felt a bit like we were in some movie trying to outrun some enemy. SNOW. So an hour of driving west we finally outran the snowstorm, which we knew was heading east. And here is Multnomah falls, strategically placed such that you see them from the pull off on the highway.
So we are now in Lincoln city OR, on the coast, feeling quite accomplished (and smug). We ARE going to stop driving for a little while. It IS hovering near freezing here, but quite a different story. We have tenters on both sides of us, with campfires. Thankfully there were a few spots that were still high and dry
So this is us last night. Ken has hooked up the water lines and we have filled up with water. Luxury. If you are wondering why our jeep door is a different colour ….. it was an accident I had with the tractor, I ran into the jeep with the bucket partly up.
Covid seems to be skyrocketing every where, with the new Omicron variant. I have been following the numbers very closely and recognize that the governments world wide are being extremely cautious in releasing any good news about Covid for fear that it might empower the antivaxxers. I DO think that these charts speak for themselves. The first chart is daily new cases in S Africa, and the second is deaths. What is not shown is hospitalizations, which is also down.
So it appears clearly that Omicrom is an extremely infectious variant, but not as deadly as the previous variants. All reports are that although the new case count is higher that it has ever been, it HAS become a disease of the unvaccinated, as they seem to be the only ones requiring hospitalization. The very sad thing, though, is that I am hearing of many fully vaccinated people dying of OTHER causes, because they are unable to be treated at a hospital,( as hospitals are full of unvaccinated covid patients). Who is to blame for these deaths? Our situation is so different from a year ago, I never EVER would have imagined this happening, after the frightful year we had last year.(before the vaccines were out there). How has our society come to the place where the personal agenda of the very few determines life and death of others?
I can only hope that the New Year might see a different direction for society. We certainly have seen the worst this year.
They walk amongst us, they work amongst us, their children go to the same schools as our children, they shop amongst us, and they provide “care” for us if we are ill (scariest of all). If you go to a hospital, you might be cared for by a health professional who thought that their own “personal health choices” was more important than your life.
And they breath amongst us, the scary bit. Back in the days of AIDS, the feeling was that someone who was having unprotected homosexual sex was basically a criminal for spreading a deadly disease. YET we have people continuing to breath the same air we breath …..who did not accept a treatment that would have ended this pandemic.
They have their reasons, ……things they have heard….things they have seen on youtube, things they have even dreamt up themselves.
I have heard almost every type of disease quoted as the reason NOT to have the vaccine….. cancer, autoimmune diseases, infertility…. The list goes on. A neighbour gave the excuse that a friend of hers “almost died from vaccine”. Funny how they do not WARN those around them that they are NOT VACCINATED!
What troubles me is that this being one of the biggest “personal health decisions” that they are making, and they have not consulted a doctor to discuss their concerns. In fact it seems that on this issue that the unvaccinated have decided that doctors are part of a broader conspiracy to harm people. I guess being a doctor, THIS IS the hardest part of it all. What will happen when they have a headache that they think is cancer, who will they trust when they have abdominal pain that is not going away. Will they believe a doctor who says “I think you need this treatment”…… and will doctors who are already overburdened with too many patients, want to waste time on someone who does not trust them on a basic issue like this.
The sad truth is that for many who have opted not to get the vaccine as a “health choice” do not REALLY have concerns about the vaccine, for many are the same people who would not wear masks. They JUST do not care, and are not about to have anyone tell them what to do, kind of like drunk drivers. No concern for those around them, ………selfish…You CAN get away with driving while drunk…. until something happens, and its bad.
Seeing a group of nurses creating memes saying that they had been the heroes last year with Covid and that they are being fired now for making a “personal health decision”is so troubling for me.
They are not being fired (a lie) they are being required to have the vaccine in order to look after high risk patients. THINGS change. Would you be OK with the school bus driver to carry on after their vision went? A firefighter who had developed a fear of heights? A lawyer who has dementia? What about Typhoid Mary. She was just an Irish immigrant who needed a job, only problem was that the only jobs involved cooking for people and she carried typhoid fever. She went to jail for many years.
NOT to say that there are not Doctors as well who are adding to this big lie as well. In fact our governing body, the College of physicians and surgeons are disciplining doctors for spreading misinformation.
We are all tired of all of this. A year and a half, going on 2 years of our lives being extremely affected by a disease that should have been curtailed right from the beginning, except for a group of people who have little concern for fellow human beings. A part of me wonders if SOME of these people are so marginalized in their thinking that they actually FINALLY have something that they can hold the rest of us ransom for. Gives them power….. that they would never actually have had. Something that they can fling around at the rest of us, who are just wanting our lives to be normal again.
The very sad NEW thing, is that BECAUSE of those who choose NOT to get vaccinated, we are now starting to need booster shots, as the ones who got the vaccine at the beginning are becoming more prone to Covid. The new Delta variant is MUCH more infectious than the original covid. AND most of the world has only been able to vaccinate about 2% of their population. So the unvaccinated are not only affecting those here, they are also affecting the rest of the world, because the US is going to start doing 3rd booster shots for the most prone individuals.
I guess I would like to end this blog on a positive note. Those who are unvaccinated make up a very small group of people. They seem to be a very vocal group, but they ARE THE MINORITY. In British Columbia they announced a vaccine passport will be required to attend all non essential venues, such as restaurants, gyms, night clubs…. etc. On Monday the Covid vaccine bookings were up 174%. 👍👍👍
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