A little over 3/5’s of our time in Penticton, BC has passed and this blog has been quiet during most of our stay so far. Now breaking the silence, it’s time for an update from Canada.

Life here has become quite routine since arriving in early November and finishing our mandatory 14-day quarantine. The good news is that we have been blessed with good health, and the area has not had any major Covid outbreaks. There are restrictions in place that definitely stifle socializing but we are enjoying the “Covid bubble” of Karen’s dad Lorin, and her brother and sister-in-law, David and Karen. During the four months we have been here, we have only seen one other car with a non-Canadian license plate. Folks we meet in passing have been welcoming and gracious.

A typical day is composed of Karen visiting and assisting her Dad for a few hours and Jeff working from his lakeview home office. Karen also spends time three mornings a week doing English tutoring/mentoring via Zoom with a couple women who have immigrated from Syria and Thailand. Almost every Sunday we have been able to share a good meal with the family and have enjoyed hearing stories of the Godfrey growing up years.

Karen is editing a 15-part video interview series of Dad and his life memories, as well as compiling his journals. Lorin and Ann Godfrey’s posterity will be blessed to see, hear and read about his life.

The local ski resort, Apex Mountain, has seen some Hamilton tracks, more so from Karen as she enjoys “Womens Day” on Wednesdays with her sister-in-law Karen. She has also enjoyed some cross country skiing and snowshoeing.

OUTDOOR ADVENTURES

We have found “quiet” ways to serve such as baked goodies to church members in the area, community “secret Santa” opportunities and helping with some moving projects (a single mom, and a store going out of business).

The winter here is humidly chilly, often overcast and windy. Each day we see two neighborhood bald eagles fly up from the lake into the hills behind our place. In the evening, two owls fly down into the tall pine trees in front of our living room window, calling “Who, Who” as if they don’t know anybody’s name. We are gaining skills in the farmhouse mouse hunt with the tally up to 7 as of this morning, our most recent revenge for the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies it gorged on the other night! A nearby pack of coyotes yelps to mark the passing of each day and night. Deer and a herd of elk frequent the property.

We are observing some of the different Canadian ways of doing things: ketchup-flavored potato chips (and other yummy flavors), Cheez Whiz in industrial sized containers, language differences that are both entertaining and educational, and kilometers per hour vs miles per hour (a bit of an issue for metric-challenged Jeff). Thankfully we have not yet experienced a friendly traffic stop by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE IN CANADA WHEN . . .

Political differences aren’t so different here – groups with opposite views and objectives operating under the British Commonwealth umbrella. But the exercise of politics seems more respectful and dignified than what we’ve seen happening in the States.

We recently sold our temporary landing pad (condo) in Sundance, Utah and now will use our meanderings to (as well as seek out service opportunities) find a place to eventually settle. This nomadic lifestyle has its pros and its cons, its flexibilities and uncertainties.

Above all, we are learning new things every day as we look for ways to help others, have some fun and pursue purposeful living. With two months to go before our sojourn south again, we continue to look forward, while enjoying and trying to make the most of each moment.

Hello Friends. We’ve done a lot of moving during the last month . . . from Modesto, CA to Fresno, then through Death Valley and Southern Utah to our little nook at Sundance for a 10-day stopover. And finally this Tuesday we drove across the US-Canada border to Penticton, British Columbia, where we’ll live and serve until May.

Since a picture says a thousand words, we’ll let photos do most of the talking this time!

We finished our time in Modesto with a much-needed road cleanup project . . . and a “munch-needed” cookie project (baked and delivered 700 cookies to local families).

On the roads and along our way we’ve encountered a variety of creatures . . . burros, cows, and bighorn sheep, moose, lots of deer, buffalo, a roadrunner, kitties galore, including a cute bobcat just outside our Sundance window!

We got in some good dirt bike rides this fall — Hollister Hills along the San Andreas fault, Mohave Desert outside of California City, St. George, and the mountains behind Provo. Then we put our machines in storage and retrieved the skis and snowshoes for extensive use in BC this winter!

During the last couple of months we’ve been blessed to rub shoulders with treasured friends and relatives. We’re anxious to complete the mandatory 14-day Canada arrival quarantine so we can begin to spend time with Karen’s father and others here in British Columbia.

We’ll have more substantial thoughts and things to report once our quarantine is finished and we can get out and get serving it up Canadian-style!

Until then, Jeff’s view of vineyards and Okanagan Lake from his office in our airbnb. Not bad, Eh?

The airlines have been running on slower schedules these days, but time for us has been flying at warp speed. The 2.5 months in Colorado passed by in the blink of an eye. We departed with mixed emotions, particularly after enjoying time with Jordan, his two dog pals, and other good folks we were able to meet and work with there. Most projects were completed (a big feat for us two geezers), with a few jobs remaining left in capable hands.

We were able to sneak in a couple of challenging dirt bike rides during our last week, and left Colorado with symbolic bruises and strained muscles to remind us of the work projects and our time in the hills together. Like they say, you can tell a happy motorcyclist by the bugs on his/her teeth.

Sadly, the day after we left Colorado, Jordan’s longtime canine companion, Kaia, was laid to rest.

Our objectives of providing service in Colorado were met in large and small ways. One thing is certain—there are ways to help others every day, if we are looking for them.

On our drive back across Wyoming, the headwinds were howling, wind-whipping the car and motorcycle trailer. The isolated prairies and hills piqued memories of forefathers who trekked west across the vast American plains. Ten hours later we arrived at our home-between-trips at Sundance. Five days in Utah passed quickly with family visits, doctors checkups, hiking our beloved Utah mountains, a hair cut, selling the truck (yes, we’re down to ONE vehicle!), and shuffling things in our storage unit. They don’t call it the Beehive state for nothing . . . We were busy as bees!

We departed for Modesto, CA on Sept. 5. Modesto = Jeff’s accounting firm and team, hard work and long hours to meet fall tax filing deadlines.

Most folks consider the drive from Salt Lake City to California a bit boring across Nevada, but we enjoyed the high desert plains and mountains and took two half days to make the trip. We ventured off I-80 just north of Elko and followed the base of the Ruby Mountains east to the town of Lamoille. Jeff had heli-skied in the Rubies years ago. Lamoille Canyon is a drive worth taking. The canyon and surrounding mountains are Swiss-like, an unexpected surprise in the middle of Nevada. For any hardcore skiers, add a Ruby Mountain heli-ski trip to your bucket list for amazing light and deep powder. 

One constant in our travels during the last month and a half has been the smoke from the many fires burning in the west. During a quick 6^th anniversary weekend in Half Moon Bay a couple weeks ago, as we drove south on Highway 1, smoke filled the air and fires were still smoldering on the hills rising from the coastline. The ironically vibrant sunsets and yucky smoke-related respiratory issues (not to mention pandemic life disruptions) have made 2020 most unusual.

While Jeff has been hunkered down at the Modesto office, Karen has been volunteering at the local Salvation Army assembling food boxes for those in need. She’s also helped assemble mask/sanitizer kits, and participated in the Billion Graves Project…taking and indexing photos of local headstones.

The Covid differences between the four states we’ve been in have been interesting…some areas carrying on near normal and others more locked down, which is what we’re experiencing in CA. What has been disappointing throughout the pandemic is its politicalization, and the lack of tolerance and respect for others that we’ve observed in different places along the way.

Monday the 21^st was the second anniversary of Braden’s passing. We had the blessing of spending time at his gravesite the evening before reminiscing and sharing feelings with some of the family.

A few nights ago, we arrived from work to our Airbnb around 11:30pm to find a neighbor across the way with a huge refrigerator wedged halfway through the door frame at the bottom of their stairway, sort of like a baby stuck in the birth canal. They had concluded they should have measured and removed the doors BEFORE descending the long skinny flight of stairs. We all knew that “what came down wasn’t goin’ back up.” With all of our furniture hauling the past few months, we encouraged them to just “push it out.” The four of us pushed and pulled, and were pleasantly surprised to see the fridge door handles flex and that baby pop right out! A brief and refreshing moment to help someone at the end of a long day.

All of these experiences are a reminder that life is a book with long and short, happy and sad chapters. Our stories are a combination of events, self–determined as well as imposed by others. We all have the power to choose whether we will live, learn, love and experience life’s rich purposes or languishingly accomplish little, afraid to pursue new experiences. Or worse, blaming others for our losses and missed opportunities. At a time when there is so much “noise” in the world creating uncertainty, fear can easily create life paralysis. It is our belief that faith overcomes fear. Faith begins with and is strengthened by our actions. Perhaps the world’s ailments could be healed with kindness, tolerance, respect and love. As we nomad our way through the days, weeks and months, this is proving to be a universal truth.

It’s hard to believe a month has passed since our last post. Time flies when there is not enough of it, and crawls when there’s too much. The Pandemic has been a test of this with the shifting of time usage during quarantines, etc. As it is said, “the only difference between a good haircut and a bad one is time.” This is truly a moment in time that allows for shifting and adjusting while maintaining constancy in life’s purposes in the midst of so much change.

Needless to say, the past month has been busy here in Colorado!

Along with the routine landscaping and property organization projects, and Jeff’s regular workload, another sober living home was added to the program, in addition to the one in our previous post. We feel like we’ve spent a lot of time moving things out, in, and around. The rapidly depleting bottle of Motrin is testimony to the conflict between all the furniture lugging and our aging bodies…. However, the satisfaction of enhancing places to help men in recovery salve their healing wounds keeps us going.

In a moment of possible early Alzheimer’s onset (forgetting the body aches of the sober house setups), we grabbed some time for a getaway to Rocky Mountain National Park and a hike to Sky Pond, a 10-mile round trip starting at 9,000ft to near 11,000ft and back. We were blessed with a cool day to hike and enjoy the splendor of the Rockies, which differ from the Wasatch and Sierra ranges we are more accustomed to. Hiking with a mask, off when alone and precautionarily on when passing fellow hikers is also a new hiking technique to adapt to. After a scramble up the side of a waterfall, the cirque at Sky Pond was another reminder that nobody does landscaping like Mother Earth. It was peacefully refreshing to rest at a glacier-fed pond near the base of the rocky columns and crags.

Upon our return the next day we started remodeling the “Man Cave,” the place (a former garage outbuilding) where the sober living guys hang out, have group meetings, and do their sobriety testing each evening. A week later the transformation is nearly complete and was capped off yesterday by being able to meet some families attending the family weekend program designed to learn about and provide proper support to their recovering loved ones, who were touring the facility.

There are small opportunities nearly every day to help other folks. Providing rides to people, assisting an elderly man who had fallen getting out of his car, making meals for others, etc. We share these experiences not to boast or pat ourselves on the back, but hope to encourage and inspire each of us to expand our daily view of life and do something good for others. This time of change and lifestyle reset is a good time to escape the self-oriented use of time and resources and redirect at least a portion of it outward. With an attitude of gratitude, the orientation of life’s latitude can change toward a path of increased happiness.

With only two more weeks here in Boulder, time is clearly of the essence in so many ways.