Singin’ In The Rain

Snowing for the most part. Every day over the past week. Frigid temperatures. As a snowbird that returned a month early, I am asking myself: was it always this cold in April?

One of the many RV blogs I follow is the website of Dave and Diane. They posted about how they are navigating the pandemic the best they can as fulltimers. They have been fulltiming for eight years. A few quotes from their post:

We have made the comment before that the fulltime RV life style is a pretty darn good one but it’s not always a bed of roses and this is one of those times…

It’s not often “if ever” that we have envied people with sticks & bricks homes since we hit the road going on 8 years ago now but I will admit, this just might be one of them LOL!! I can assure you that if we had a chunk of land somewhere right now we would be there sitting this whole thing out.

I know exactly how they feel. Throughout this pandemic, I have thought many times that we should just sell the coach, abandon the RV lifestyle and buy a house.

There are so many stories out there about Canadian snowbirds that have no place to stay upon their return to Canada. Like this couple in the London, Ontario area:

They are known as Snowbirds; seniors who spend half the year down south, and come back home to Canada just before the summer.

However, since COVID-19, the return for some ‘Snowbirds’ like the Johansen’s, has been a period of fear and uncertainty.

“I am scared, it’s extremely stressful,” said Donna Johansen.

Donna, along with her husband Larry, are being forced to leave their trailer home inside a camping ground near Ingersoll after the Government of Ontario deemed campgrounds non-essential, and forced them shut.

I do not have a count for the number of retired couples that spend six months in Canada and six months in Florida. I suspect it is a pretty large number. Some maintain two properties, some fulltime in their RV or coach, some live out of park models in both countries, some have a cottage in Canada and a condo in the States.

For most snowbirds in RVs this pandemic has presented a unique set of challenges. Fear, uncertainty, stress. All due to the fundamental human need for a safe shelter. When you have no place to park your coach, you are in unfamiliar territory and you begin to have doubts and concerns.

Lorraine has been fine. She is a very positive and optimistic person. I am, by nature, an analytic person and I tend to look at events from a very different perspective. The “what could go wrong” perspective.

Not a great perspective to view this pandemic. Being socially isolated is not all that helpful for me. It is too easy to be overwhelmed by the relentless parade of doom and gloom in the media. I am now at the point of dropping out of the media parade. Their main product appears to be fear, uncertainty and doubt. I read relentlessly across dozens of media platforms and I always finish my reading sessions angry and upset.

It makes no sense to live this way.

We are not selling the coach. We are not buying a house. And given that winter is still going strong in Ontario in the middle of April, we still want to be south where there is warmth and sunshine for six months. We can hack the Canadian weather from May to October but we love being south from November to the end of April.

We are safe. We are healthy.

We have a golden retriever.

Life is good. Even when living fulltime in an RV during a pandemic.