Everything I am reading today is a review of the year just past. Call it a dumpster fire, a year best forgotten, a horror show that cannot end soon enough. Yet another year we have lived through and experienced. 

We started off in grand style in the Sahara Desert with our family and a couple of girl friends. we had a stop over in Tel Aviv which was cold and wet for 4 days, then on to Ethiopia for a strange religious event with our friends the Poleshuks. We witnessed a parade of Arks of the Holy Covenant through the city of Lalibela. Yes that is plural and yes throughout the country there are many more than the 12 we saw and yes they are ALL believed to be the original. Little did we know in January that the country would become part of the dumpster fire of 2020 as the government and dissidents  took their disagreements to the streets and to military action. Once again Carol and I have visited a region about to be torn apart by hatred. 

February we recuperated in Jojoba Hills SKP Resort preparing to return to Panama and then Colombia to complete a trip we had been forced to return from early in 2019 for medical reasons. 6 days into this trip we received notification that we  needed to pack to get out of Panama before the airport closed to all travel as part of an attempt to prevent the spread of Covid -19 there. We returned to Jojoba Hills to quarantine for two weeks and decide what to do next. And there we sat into May. 

In early May we received a reminder that our grandson Alexander was turning 21 on May 31. since we were doing nothing and had a full hookup site prepared in their driveway in Virginia we invited ourselves to isolate with them and celebrate the birthday as best we could. We drove across the country in ten days. Once we left Redlands Truck and RV where we had annual service performed, we drove every day except one. We took a day off in Tom Sawyer RV park on the west bank of the Mississippi River.  We arrived in Covesville VA tired and glad to be off the road. we had had no contact with a living sole as we traveled. Well we did shop in one Walmart fully masked and gloved for supplies. We made 6 fuel stops and never got within 10 feet of another person. Pay at the pump and just move on. One relative excoriated us for traveling at all. I think we had less contact with people than if we had stayed still. 

At Dan and Malena’s we settled in for the summer, hoping that our presence was not a problem for them. We did some chores and helped where we could and planned to retreat to our Rochester Apartment by the end of August. Then Carol fell and landed in the hospital. She spent a month before she could return to the coach. During that time the kids sold the house and moved into a beautiful new house with room for their horses – 15 acres- and more house than they really need. I moved the coach and added one more disaster to the year by dropping the right rear tire into the roadside ditch. ENOUGH ALREADY!

We made it to Rochester in late September. Moved into the apartment and moved the coach to Buffalo to repair the damage from the trip into the ditch. I’d like to say that was that, but no. When we went to pick up the coach we found that not all the planned work had been completed. We determined that the coach was usable as is and headed out to the new house in Virginia for a weekend visit and then on to Red Bay AL to complete the work left hanging and to have some other cabinetry repairs and modifications done. While the coach was in the service bay to fix the turn indicator – the part they needed was not available any place in town – they noticed a smell of propane. The regulator was leaking. This is not a big deal to fix if you catch it before something blows up. They fixed it. 

We resumed traveling across the country back to Jojoba Hills and it seems every day I was fixing something minor. When the folding stove cover cracked, again, so did I. Then I bought some 2 part epoxy and repaired it. I think that was in Texas someplace. Once again we were in travel mode only stopping for three nights in Las Cruces to visit with Leora and Stu standing in the cold when they brought us Chanukah Candles  and then on the phone. I did get takeout dinner from La Posta the most popular Mexican restaurant in the area for tourists and locals alike. With three more overnight stops we arrived back at Jojoba Hills to end the year. Naturally the water heater stopped heating water the next morning, Saturday! A call to tech support on Monday yielded the suggestion that we run a sink faucet at the same time as the shower, that worked. I removed one item from the water line that might have restricted flow and we have not had a hot water problem since. 

Our Los Angeles family have all had the virus and so far their cases seem to be the mild variety. The Virginia family have not had it. The youngest, Cory, skidded out in snow and rolled the car into a ditch. He walked away with a scratch on his hand and a new respect for just how slick a road can be. 

It is the 30th. One more day. Put the fire out and lets have a wonderful 2021. We have travel plans for April, I think I will postpone them after the 1st. There is no sense tempting fate.