Wow, Winter, Spring & Summer 2020. Winter 2021

What can we say about 2020 except WOW.

This is going to be pretty short & sweet because it was a crazy year.  We started Dec, happy & at "home" in our winter place, Juan Dolio, Dominican Republic.  Until the beginning of the year, there had only been a few of us here, but soon all our Canadian & US friends started to arrive.

We have a beautiful view from our condo & the water was crystal clear

We also had beautiful sunsets

Great views at night

We celebrated Collins' Birthday Jan 6th with friends Cathy & Bob

We had dinner with 2 friends from our first year here, Ellen & Richard.  Both have lost their spouses, but return to Marbella.

 By mid January most of the gang had arrived & were soaking up the warmth & the sunshine.  Unfortunately, we had a tragedy strike our Marbella family.  Katie & Stewart had arrived from England just a couple days earlier.  Stewart collapsed early one morning & died from an apparent blood clot.  The medical examiner seemed to think it was caused from him not moving around the plane during their long flight.  Everyone offered support for Katie until her son & step daughter could arrive.  It was such a sad time, but amazing to see how everyone came together for her.  She, her son & her step daughter had a memorial dinner at one of their favorite restaurants.  Lots of tears & good memories were shared that night.

Snuggles isn't too sure she likes having Velcro Visit for the day

There are several of us here with dogs.  Collins & I have become the resident dog walkers when the others go out for the day.  Snuggles won't go with anyone else & we don't usually leave for long periods of time.

Every year one of our Canadian friends plans what they call a "pub crawl".  Pub is a very generous word for most of the places they go.  It has never before worked out for us to go, but this year was the one for us.

There were about 20 of us walking along the streets of Juan Dolio.  Most of the places we stopped are mostly visited by the locals here. 

   

We started about 2pm & ended up at a little pizza place down the street.  We literally took over the whole place.  What I learned from a "veteran" before we started, was to have water at some of the places, rather than beer.  That worked out great.  No hangover for us the next day.  Good thing we had our fun while we could.  We had no idea what was around the corner. 

Saying goodbye to all our Canadian friends

In early March, the Canadian gov’t notified their international traveling citizens they had 10 days to return or they would lose their Health Coverage for Covid 19.  Regardless of the propaganda to the contrary, if given the choice between losing their Health Insurance or first born, many would not know which to choose.  For the next 7 days, the DR airports were overflowing and we lost 25+ couples that we interact with every year from our complex.

This gave us a few days of indecision: go or stay?  We finally chose stay; The weather was definitely better than Illinois & virus far less of a concern.  Hence our 3 ½ month stay turned into 7 months, and we never regretted it.  

Even Snuggles came to enjoy walks on the beach - even got her paws wet

As the DR shut down travel between provinces, enacted strict 13 hour curfews and closed bars & restaurants, except carry out, the complex became literally our private domain.  While the gym & pool were closed, we were able to enjoy walking the otherwise empty beach, have great meals, & incredible trays of brownies, delivered to us by the ladies from upstairs who owned one of our favorite restaurants & were doing takeout from a limited menu (including the brownies).  Collins is a chocoholic. 

Around the beginning of June, we were so happy to see the girl who sold fruit on the street

The weather remained mild (upper 60’s nights, low to mid 80”s days, & a 24/7 cool breeze off the ocean, which our 8^th floor balcony faces) until the last of June.  During the first 5 ½ months, we didn’t run the air-conditioning for a cumulative 30 hrs.

On July 7^th we returned to Chicago & then drove to Elkhart, Indiana where we had left the RV for major interior updating. I forgot to take pictures, so will have to post in the next blog.  We returned to St. Charles, IL, where we went through our annual battery of doctor visits.  Having received an OK, or repairs as needed, we again hit the road.  

First was KY to see Karen’s 95 year old mother, who will clean your clock in cards if given a chance.  She lives in her own apartment in a Senior Living Facility, so life has been pretty boring for them the past few months.  I'm really proud of the way, she's handled the whole lockdown experience.  they've had to eat all their meals in their rooms & basically no social activities.  

 

Then it was off to Virginia.  We've stayed in parts of Virginia before, but never been on the Shenandoah skyline or the Virginia part of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  

We were on our way to Florida so figured this would be a good year to do that.   We were trying to chase the changing tree colors, so ended up staying longer in Virginia than we had originally planned, but did see some pretty colors.

One day we went to the Luray Caverns.  It's pretty amazing to look at the stalactite & the stalagmite formations.

We finally made it to Florida about the middle of November.  We started in Jacksonville for a couple weeks.  They had Osprey in the park where we stayed.  They're certainly large birds.

We were also able to watch one of the night space launches from our campground.  Yes, it was far away, but it was still an awesome site.

We went a little closer to Orlando as it got near Thanksgiving.  Our daughter, Collina, her finance, & our granddaughters & great grandson are not too far from there.  We hadn't seen our granddaughters & great grandson in several years, so we did an outdoor, social distanced Thanksgiving.  When we got back to the RV that night, I realized none of us had taken any pictures.  Guess we were too busy enjoying good food & great company.

After Thanksgiving we moved to our last Florida spot for the month of Dec.  It was in a town named Tavares & turned out to be a great find.  We'll probably return there.

We mostly stayed around the campground, but there was a close by town, Mt. Dora, which had a beautiful Christmas light display.  

We celebrated an early Christmas with our daughter, Collina & her fiance Mike, granddaughters, Brittany & Lexi & our great grandson, Blake.  It was a fun evening.

Before we knew it, it was time to put the RV back in storage & head back to the Dominican Republic.  That has become our winter home for 3 or 4 months.  This year is pretty quiet.  Most of our Canadian friends & several of our US friends did not return this year.  You may think we're crazy to be in a foreign country with the pandemic going on.  However, all of us here, actually feel safer here than in the US.  During the week, there are very few people here, everyone wears a mask on the elevator, in the lobby & on the street.  The weekends can get pretty crowded, so Collins & I decided before we came, we would just stay in our apartment on the weekends.  Believe me, it's no hardship.  We have a beautiful view & a great breeze blowing thru, so we're not missing out on much.

We hope this finds all of you & your families in good health.