ice ice Baby
My trip back to Canada took no longer than the road trip from Yuma to Phoenix. There, I boarded my WestJet flight. My daughter bought me my ticket home, and she flew me first class. She is an amazing daughter, and not just because she bought my trip for me. She got a deal at 43.00 Canadian dollars and 300 WestJet points! The distance by road is 2832 kilometers or 1760 miles or 27 hours of driving time.
Getting in at midnight, I almost froze to death waiting outside for my son to pick me up. I was not dressed for winter and had on a mismatch of a long sweater and a short fluffy jacket with a hoodie, which I needed to pull up over my head and pull the drawstring to shield my face from the freezing wind. He was not getting my text messages that I was outside waiting… brrrrrrrrr
He finally arrived to get me, my two suitcases, carry-on, and personal items. He took one look at me and said I looked like a homeless person. Welcome home to me, and he wasn’t far off because I was homeless. I had rented my condo out to a friend, and I can’t get back into it for 13 days. I had tried to exchange my ticket for a later date, but it was too complicated. I really wanted to be out of the States and back in Canada anyway.
So here I am three days later, at the lake, Sunday morning, and it is time for my Sunday Funday Blog. I’m getting a lot of good-natured kidding about being homeless and who will have to take me in next. My son had me for two nights, and now my daughter has me. We were invited over to my niece’s last night, they have a three-story luxury ‘cabin’ with a few extra bedrooms across the lake… hmmmmm, another possibility.
The ice is still on the lake, but we have water around the edges. A few Canadian geese were flying in, and I got a little excited. I was curious as to how they were going to land on the ice. If it were smooth, no problem, but what about the ridges of snow? Alas, they flew over, and another pair we spotted were already on the ice and had found a patch of water surrounding some reeds offshore. See… it’s like this, if they put their feet out front to land, what if they hit the ridges of ice, do they tumble ass over tea kettle? (a Canadian saying) Just curious.
Another feeling of being home and at the lake experience is surrounding me right now. The complete silence and serenity here, with only the sounds of nature. In the summer, it’s the ducks and geese making morning sounds, and the loons’ calls in the evening. Early fishermen go out with their motor boats once the ice is gone. But something else is glaringly missing here.
It is the sounds from my winter home in Yuma, AZ. The deafening sounds of the military jets, from the Marine Corps base and the Yuma airport at the end of our street. There are the sounds from the overhead freeway beside us, the big trucks gearing up and gearing down, and the nighttime racers. Lastly is the train switching station, which is directly behind our park. Our over-fifties park is smack dab in the middle of all these.
The silence here is deafening this morning, and omg so beautiful. I felt like something was missing, and it took me a minute to realize all this. The air is crystal clear and fresh, and a fox is running across the lake! I race around to get my phone out, to catch a picture, but he is gone… shit! Same with the white-tailed deer on the road last night, driving over to my niece’s cabin. Well, at least we didn’t hit it, thank goodness. We are always aware of wildlife on our backroads.
We also have bears, once in a while, which can be a problem because of all the little kids running around. Wild deer grazing on our lawns and beavers striving to thin out our trees are commonplace. Thank God we have plenty of fodder to go around. We also have otters, which totally confuse me, and they are showing up quite a bit now. How do otters get into a lake? Aren’t they sea creatures? Ah well, I do have them on video, carousing up and onto and diving from our platform set out on the lake for our watersports fun.
It’s good to be home, I’m starting to settle in. Well, that’s not totally true. The kids are debating who gets me next or who can they pawn me off to next. But these are not first-world problems, and I can handle them. I’m back in Canada, the second largest country in the world, next to Russia. We are proud and we are free and we as a country united, will do whatever it takes to remain so!
CANADA IS NOT UP FOR GRABS
Copyright April 13th, 2025
(my daughter’s bday)
My lake view in summer