June 30

Traffic is back, busy, constant moving, traffic. Phase three has opened the floodgates and we now have heavy traffic on our roads again. Red plates from Alberta have started to fill our highways, it is another sign of normal again. I envy my wife who can stay home and work. I had to go to work across town and the traffic has built back to pre-covid levels.

In Canada, we did what the health officials suggested and now things are going back to a more open, normal level. In the US people have not been as cooperative and the numbers have shown the results. If so many people weren’t sick and dying it would be laughable how ignorant some people can be. Instead, it’s just sad.

We have some friends here from Greenwood. They are camping in the local campground, and are on a slow road trip to Alberta and back. Staying next to them is a couple that are living in their RV, an RV with a Florida license plate, a license plate that is controversial, to say the least. He is from Ontario and she is from Miami. Their story is one of whirlwind romance and adventure. She divorced her husband of twenty years and they met and fell in love. He convinced her to quit a good job and join him for a road trip. A road trip they began eighteen months ago.

They gave me a glimpse of what their trip has been. The adventurous couple drove across the US and into Canada, coming north before the border closed. Leah and Rob have now found themselves trapped in Canada, unable to cross the border; he is Canadian and she American. Neither has a home and now they find themselves unwelcome because the plate on their rig is vilified. They can only camp in private campgrounds that welcome them and have had a difficult time finding spots. The days of simply driving your RV and exploring ended with the internet. Now covid has thrown another wrench in the system. In the Okanagan, the only waterfront campgrounds are Provincial parks. For our foreign plated friends that option was closed.

As I drive our busy streets and watch for foreign plates I wonder what the stories are behind them. Is the odd American plate a rogue traveler on their way to Alaska? Or are they another couple like our new friends in the campground. Trapped on foreign soil by circumstances beyond anyone’s control.

People are still fearful of outsiders, fearful of the unknown. Compassion and understanding sometimes is lacking in the coronaverse. As we return to a more open state of being I hope we can maintain an open state of mind.