Tag: Covid-19

The Worst of 2021— From My Point of View

On By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized6 Comments

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way today and I will come back New Year’s Eve with the Top Ten of 2021. So here’s the bottom five worst things about 2021. We experienced some of them personally and I know some of you have experienced them as well.

Number 5: The political divide in my country

I don’t think I have ever been political in these posts but I have had it. Not with anyone in particular but with the extremists on both sides of politics in the country I live in who continue to drive us apart. From science to religion, from insurrection to health care we are so divided. Talk of civil war is all the rage on social media. I am at a point where I just wish that all the red states would become one country and all the blue states another and we could live happily ever after—but in my heart, I know that is crazy. And sadly there are plenty of good, reasonable people who are either red or blue who live in the opposite type of state so that won’t really work. I don’t know what the solution is to this and to be honest I am kind of glad I won’t be around in 40 years to see what happens (I’m being optimistic 😜). But I worry for my kids and grandkids.

Number 4: The pandemic drags on

This is one of those things that we have all had to experience. Will this damn thing never end? I remember coming home from our Mardi Gras cruise in March of 2020 and we were discussing how long it would last. At that point we had major travel plans in May 2020, August 2020 and December 2020. We pretty much gave up on May immediately. We knew that trip wasn’t going to happen. But we had high hopes that COVID would turn out to be another version of the flu and could be contained so we felt pretty good about our August 2020 trip to the Galapagos. In hindsight, I laugh at myself thinking that. How naïve we were. But surely we would have no trouble doing our Viking River Cruise in December 2020? There would be a vaccine by then? Everyone would take it and we could move on? That would work right? Not a chance.

And now here we are, a year later and we have had a darned good vaccine that has been pretty widely available since early 2021 and we just cancelled our second Viking Christmas Market Cruise. I am not sure why, but when we thought of that vaccine a year ago we automatically assumed that everyone would rush to get jabbed so we could all move forward with our lives. But no! There is no accounting for stupidity and ignorance so here we are, in the last month of 2021 and we are back in full-blown COVID crapdom. Get a damn shot people. Science is real.

Number 3: The deterioration of my beloved Seattle

I wrote about this in depth about two month ago. You can see that post here. But at least things might improve in the new year as the voters decided that the people running Seattle had gone too far in the wrong direction trying to be “good people” (I am a firm believer that no extreme viewpoint—either right or left—is a good one) voted in some who have some logic. I will keep you updated as things progress but for right now, avoid Seattle. Cruising buddies—if you want to sail to Alaska this summer, leave from Vancouver (if Canada allows it—not even sure of that).

Number 2: Falling off a five foot berm in Oregon

This one is just a personal thing. Back in August on our annual beach trip with our kids and grandkids, I took a fall. I was walking in some high grass on a berm at the beach. There was about a 5-6 foot straight drop off to the beach itself. I was going to find a place to slide down on my butt until the part of the berm I was standing on (pictured from the top of the berm) collapsed underneath me.

Thankfully, I wasn’t badly hurt but I did screw up my good knee (still hurts from time to time), I landed on my Nikon (that repair bill was almost $500) and I think I scared the grandkids who had never heard Grandpa use that kind of language before. Suffice it to say that while I am pretty much fully recovered (as is my camera), there was about a three week period that I had to give up taking my long walks…one of my favorite things to do.

Number 1: We have to cancel our December European trip

You may have read about this a few short weeks ago but the biggest disappointment of 2021 was cancelling a trip we had been planning for more than a year. You can read about the cancellation by going here. And you can read about all the things I had to cancel, get vouchered or refunded by going here. I guess the best thing I can say about having to do this is that in hindsight, we did the right thing as Omicron showed up a week after we cancelled and Europe shut down for travelers. The river cruise that was the centerpiece of the trip turned out to be a bust with most ports missed, passengers who went complaining about it and worse. As I told someone who cancelled a cruise today (for January 22) on FB, better a postponed vacation than a lousy vacation.

Unless you have bad times, you can’t appreciate the good times.

Joe Torre 

We really are traveling this time

On By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized9 Comments

Yes, it’s true! Kathleen and I are currently sitting in the living room of an AirBnB just outside Langley, Washington on Whidbey Island. We decided to do a four day weekday getaway (Monday—Thursday) while the roof is being replaced on our townhouse. The place we are staying (click here to see it) is incredibly secluded and the silence is almost deafening in itself. Nature is everywhere. A deer and her fawn were just off our deck this morning. Rabbits run amok…and there are so many different colors of bunnies. Never seen so many in one place and they are truly not afraid of humans. Here’s a quick montage of all the bunny pics I took yesterday (there were actually a lot more but I spared you).

So many!
The police bunny
The one in the middle thinks he’s a meerkat.
Kind of a calico? Or Kathleen says, maybe a tortoise-shell?
And not a single one seemed at all phased by me being within three feet of them.
But they come in all shapes and sizes

Enough about bunnies. It was so wonderful to do some things on this trip. For instance, this place is less than 90 minutes from our house…if we take a ferry. But we were in no hurry coming up and will be in no hurry going back, so we drove around. That means going north for about 90 minutes and then going onto Whidbey Island at the north end by crossing the Deception Pass bridge. We opted to do that since we couldn’t get into the AirBnB until around 3:00 pm anyway and they started on our roof at 8:30 am. And not only did we drive north first, but we also did not take a freeway to get there. Instead of the usual drive on Interstate 5, we took Washington Highway 9 pretty much all the way up. It is a beautiful drive but almost an hour longer.

Then another wonderful thing we did…ate at a restaurant. Yes, we have been doing a lot of takeout since this started but we realized (while having lunch) that we had not been IN a restaurant since we had lunch with our friends Bob and Judy, on March 2 in Florida. And even worse (for us restaurant snobs 😜), we went to Cracker Barrel for that lunch 😲. Monday we went out of our way (by about 10 miles) to visit Anacortes which is the gateway (ferry departure point) for Washington’s amazing San Juan Islands. We haven’t been to Anacortes for quite a while but the last time we were there, we had lunch at an outstanding deli that just happened to be open last Monday so in we went. Everyone was wearing a mask (made us feel much safer) and they had a bunch of outdoor seating that was completely social-distanced. We wore our masks to place our order inside (where everyone stayed six feet apart) and then took them off at our outdoor table. But they went right back on whenever the server brought our drinks or food. Even with masking up, it was quite liberating to be able to eat out again.

We even did it again last night for dinner, here in Langley. Found a place where you again; ordered at a counter, sat outside, every table was six feet or more apart and they brought you your food—fully masked. Again, a liberating experience. Of course now we will head home tomorrow and not eat out again for a few weeks I am sure. Maybe on our next planned trip to the Washington coast with the grandkids (and their parents) in August.

As I love to do when we travel, I took an early morning photo walk around Langley. They are doing their best to survive this pandemic as they are a town mostly supported by tourism and as we all know, that’s not happening this year. They are doing it right with the entire downtown posted as a “Mask Zone.” No one is allowed anywhere downtown without one…except me at 5:30 am when no one else was around. I did this walk yesterday (Tuesday) and I am so glad I did. I got some beautiful sunrise light then while today it is overcast and gray. A true lesson in how your light totally effects your photography. Since most of you can’t travel, I will share my walk with you below. There are captions on most of the pics. And FYI: I took four times as many photos as I will post. These are just my favorites.Make sure to run them as a slide show (Click the first one, then use your arrows keys or swipe to advance) for maximum effect.

Was lucky enough to get some amazing sunrise shots
And some without the sun but with some great shadows.
This is the town’s very cool, old fashioned movie theater, The Clyde. Been closed for the duration.
Bunny breakfast
This guy was almost blue
Loved this sign. Saw it three times in store windows. Great sentiment.
Colors!
Neon! I love me some neon. Wish it had been darker. May have to go back.
Down First Street into downtown in the distance.
The Inn at Langley where we spent our 10th anniversary in 2009.
Obligatory summer flower photo.
And happy to see this…especially done so colorfully.

Pretty sure that’s about it for this trip unless something else amazing happens (like we see a bear or an elk). Promise to be back soon with more fun stuff on your favorite travel blog (when you can’t travel ☹️).

The journey is part of the experience — an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca. —Anthony Bourdain