Grounded

The coach is now parked at the dealership where it will stay for the next six months. Grounded due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and border closures.

Travel restrictions.

Border closures.

Let’s poke at that a little shall we?

More than 4.6 million people have arrived in Canada since the border closed last March but less than one-quarter of them were ordered to quarantine — the rest were deemed “essential” and exempted from the requirement.

The Canada Border Services Agency provides data each week on the number of people arriving in Canada by land or air, saying “most” people entering the country must quarantine for two weeks.

Of the 4.6 million people that crossed the border into Canada, 1.1 million people were considered non-essential travellers and ordered to quarantine.

That means less than 25 percent of travellers coming into the country since March were required to quarantine. The rest? Well, COVID-19 apparently does not infect essential travellers. They can come and go as they please.

Many snowbirds in the RV community were hoping that the border closure was temporary and they waited as long as possible before making alternate arrangements.

Some, like ourselves, found temporary housing to sit out the Canadian winter. Others took their rigs west in search of a less severe climate. Which, in Canada, means a few regions in British Columbia, several thousand kilometres from where we are presently situated.

There were a few RVers that decided to leave their coaches behind and fly south. Travel by land is banned, travel by air is not. COVID-19 apparently does not like to fly.

A few tried to arrange for their coaches to be driven south.

It turns out that the process to have a U.S. company drive a coach south is fraught with challenges and we know of several RVers that ultimately gave up on that approach.

We will ride out the Canadian winter in a house and hopefully return to our coach and our retirement dream next year.

We are fortunate.

We have a beautiful property to enjoy until then.