Beautiful Bird

We saw a wild cardinal yesterday.  What a pretty bird.

There is so much beauty in the world.  Even when we are experiencing hard times, it pays to stop and enjoy the beauty God has given us to lighten out hearts.

Social Distancing in Roadhaven

     In late January we started to hear about a corona virus in China.  In February it was in the USA, mostly in Washington state.  This virus doesn't have a vaccine to prevent or known ways to treat it.
     It is a new virus named corona-virus 19 or Covid 19.  Here in Arizona it was just something we heard of on the news and from family at home.  Doranda (in Japan) was more affected and their church first just had sacrament meetings and than changed to at home church only.  The temples in the Asian area were also closed and a trip she had planned for a women's conference in Taiwan was cancelled,  People were hoarding toilet paper and water.  The government acted quickly and closed the borders to all travel from China, which slowed the virus coming to the U.S, but still it got out.
     Then the virus really started to spread in the U.S.  Schools in Washington state were closed for 6 weeks and people were asked to stay at home.  Restaurants and all none essential business were told to close.  People were first told not to be in groups of 250 or more.
     The end of February things were still fine here.  We had our Rhythm in Blues concert at the end of the month and most things were fine.  Again we just heard about things on the news and from our family at home in Washington.  We were having our Bocce Ball tournament and had won the first 2 games.  Then the rain came and we had a delay for about 4 or 5 days.  By then many people from Canada were told by their insurance to be back in Canada in 10 days or they wouldn't be covered for the virus.  The tournament was cancelled, the final pizza party was cancelled, our hiking party was cancelled and soon the resort decided to close all the activity buildings.  No more cribbage night or line dancing practice shows in the Recreation Auditorium.
     The virus was still spreading and our church cancelled all meetings world wide and schools in Arizona closed and so did non-essential businesses.  The US government asked people not to be in groups greater than 10 people. We were told to wash our hands often.  In Europe, especially Italy, a lot of people were dying. Hundreds a day. The stores here no longer had toilet paper or water (good thing we had just bought some toilet paper).  The resort office and library were also closed.  For a while we still had swimming but that was soon closed also.
     The financial markets took a big down slide of about 30%.  Many people were out of work.  It is still hard to find some cleaning supplies or some can foods on the shelves and the number of people allowed in the stores is limited.  The government has asked people to stay in their homes unless they need essentials, are essential workers or need to go to the doctor.
     Doug's dad closed their building so we can no longer go and visit him even.  We have visited my mom at my brother's home in Buckeye a couple of times, but we have stayed home from even visiting them for the last 2 weeks.  Tianna's family had planned to spend spring vacation here but that was all cancelled.  Our family has been lucky with work however.  Joshua and Isaac are teaching their college classes on-line. Nathanael was working from home, but has been deployed to Texas to help with the virus. (he is a legal adviser for his medical reserve unit)  I think Tianna's husband is still working though she volunteered to take unpaid leave.  Talitha's husband David is considered an essential worker at Boeing and is still working. Malachi and Caleb are also considered essential workers and are still on the job.   Bob's job in Japan is with the military and he is still working.  We are retired so we still get our pension-though part of our 401K is worth less.
     We had a trip planned to the big once every ten years passion play in Oberammergau which we had totally paid for, including non refundable plane tickets, in late September.  That play has been postponed for 2 years.  We don't know if we will be getting any refunds.  Everything is up in the air with this virus.
     New York is now the worse place in the U.S. with more deaths than anywhere because their leaders told people it really wasn't a problem and they were slow to prepare.  Now New York is worse than China or Italy.
     Health wise our family is all doing well and no one has contracted the virus.  The death toll in the US is now over 23,000.  Yet the social distancing and closing of so many places is keeping the numbers lower than they would be if nothing had been done.  The economy is doing really poorly and TV shows are actually being broadcast from the talk- show hosts homes.  Pretty soon the regular shows will have to be repeats since the TV studios are non-essential businesses.
    Here at Roadhaven we can still play pickleball, golf, ride our bikes and go on walks.

 In Arizona things may not have gotten as bad as Washington State or New York State, but they have been monitoring things here and the Governor has been implementing stay at home policies as the pandemic progressed.

 Rendition of an electronic microscopic portrayal of the coronovirus that is lethal to humans and has been causing the pandemic.

 At Roadhaven they have been slowly closing things down item by item.

 The indoor buildings were first to close (pool, card room, rec. hall, hobby rooms, etc.). Then the pool was next to go.  They even padlocked the gates.  .

By mid April a lot of people had left, mostly all the Canadians.  You can see our place with the red Jeep in front.  The two on the left of us, and the five on the right, and across the street are now empty. They are all owned by Canadians (our corner is almost all Canadians) and the Canadians have mostly all gone home.  People from Washington are mostly staying here because the virus is worse back home in Washington and so most are staying here longer than originally planned.

 Nearly empty golf course.  This is hole #4 with the green and pin across a small lake and fountain.  Jacquelyn and I have no problem getting tee times and try to play a couple of times a week.  It's one of the few things you can do and still practice good social distancing.

 Empty bocce courts, which were so crowded you could hardly get a time to play.

 Empty pickleball courts.  They used to be busy all day with set times for each skill level.  Now we just get about a dozen people in the morning at 9:00 AM for a couple of hours.  So Jacquelyn and I try to play each day.

 So what are we doing.  We can still set out in the sun and read.  Only we do it at home by ourselves on our patio.

 Jacquelyn put together a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  Looks good.

 And we've been doing Zoom meetings with the kids and grandkids.  Tianna set up a cool meeting last weekend and even taught my Dad (96 years old) how to tie in.  Also we did other meetings.  And Caleb and James set up online game nights.

That's it for now.  We are hanging out at our place till things get better.  So far no one in our family has gotten sick and we are grateful for that and praying we can all be protected.