Fall 2020 Virtual Learning and Winter Plans

 Fall 2020 Virtual Learning and Winter Plans

Henry returned to school in September. Sheila and Ryan chose to send him to school even though they had a choice to go virtual. He rode the bus to school and had assigned seats with only one child to a seat. At least that is how it was supposed to work. His class was reduced to 14 kids and they did not leave this group through out the day. They even had lunch in their room. By the middle of October Covid cases began to rise so the Sheboygan School District decided they needed to suspend the in class teaching and go all virtual. We offered to assist by having Henry come to our house three days a week and do his schooling with us. As the weeks went on the school district continued to extent virtual learning until finally we were informed it would continue until at least January 25^th.

The past few years we have headed south for the winter and were on the road at least by the first week in December. We offered to stay until Christmas to help with Henry's schooling. We planted the seed that perhaps he could come with us once we headed south. Sheila felt it would be a great opportunity for Henry and his virtual learning could continue on the road. Once the announcement was made to extend the virtual learning into January we began planning in earnest for Henry to accompany us.

We had plans to return to Fortuna de Oro RV Resort in Yuma in January. However it is a 55 and over park and we could only stay there two weeks with Henry. We encountered the same at the other parks in Yuma as they are mostly 55 and over parks. We found a place north near the proving grounds but the cell service and the park WI-FI was not going to be adequate for virtual learning. The cell service is important as we use our phones as hotspots to access the internet. Some campgrounds have Wi-Fi but it is not always reliable. It was decided to look elsewhere. We found a KOA campground north of Tucson near Picacho Peak that looked decent and according to the owner has good cell service so we made reservations for the month of February. It is about half-way between Tucson and Phoenix so there will be lots of things to see and do within an hours drive.

So our plans for this winter are to leave Wisconsin right after Christmas and try to get to warmer weather as soon as possible. We are headed to south Texas to the Galveston/Corpus Christi area to stay for a few weeks then slowly make our way west to the Picacho Peak KOA. On the way we will visit a few places we feel Henry would enjoy. It will be a little challenging having Henry with us and managing his schooling but we are excited to show him lots of fun and interesting places.

Never too cold to fish!

Fall 2020

Fall 2020

The Covid pandemic is still alive and well. Most businesses are open with restrictions and mask requirements. The number of positive cases was fairly low at the beginning of September but started to ramp up sharply. By the beginning of November Wisconsin was seeing in excess of 5000 positive cases a day. By mid November some hospitals were reaching capacity in their ICU's and were worried they may have to turn away patients. There is a general consensus among the health care industry that wearing masks and social distancing helps to slow the spread. However there are many people who don't believe this or are just disregarding this recommendation. Whether or not this is contributing to the spread is up for debate. However it seems like a easy thing to do to help to make this virus go away. Several of the pharmaceutical companies have been reporting that they are within a month or two of releasing a viable vaccine.

I am writing this on November 18 and so far only my brother Doug and his daughter Kendra have been the only family members that have contracted Covid. They were sick but are recovering. Other family have been exposed but tested negative.

Our main activities this fall have been taking walks in the Kettle Moraine Forest and taking bike rides. We also visited with Alex and Monica a few times and helped them with projects at their new home. They love their new house but since they moved in they have found out there has been some thievery in the neighborhood. Apparently the thieves stake out homes and when they see someone leave the house and leave a door open they will walk right in and take things. Mostly wallets, purses and keys. They were pretty freaked out about this. We helped them install a motion detector light in the backyard which will help to deter anyone from sneaking around at night. In addition they need to be more vigilant on keeping their doors shut and locked.

We had plans to go to Alex and Monica's for Thanksgiving. However the number of Covid cases increased substantially and Monica was exposed to someone at work. They did not want to expose us so they decided to stay home. So only Sheila and Henry came to our house on Thanksgiving. We smoked a turkey, made baked beans and Sheila provided a yummy corn and egg casserole. For dessert we had apple and chocolate pie. Not the traditional Thanksgiving meal but it was yummy just the same.