Hotel life - Week 10

This week, we haven't done a lot in terms of being tourists in our hometown. We've really run out of things to do, and besides, there are some loose ends to tie up and certain purchases to be made, so we're focusing on taking care of those things. A few days ago, we took my husband's oldest daughter to the Clifford E Lee Nature Sanctuary for the first time. She hadn't been any of the other times we had gone, and we were hoping the chickadees would be cooperative and eat from her hand, as the rest of us have already had this experience on more than one occasion. And it's a really special experience. Chickadees are such sweet little birds, and if you get some black oil sunflower seeds, which is the kind they can shell themselves, they will come and land on your hand and snatch a seed or two. I wish I could give each of them a hug. The feeling of their little feet on your hand is so delightful. Well, they must have known this might be my last visit as they came out in full force, it seemed! My husband's daughter got to experience so many landing on her hand and feeding from it, and she seemed to love it as much as the rest of us do. She now has her own car, so I'm sure she'll be back to visit and hopefully show us more photos of her feeding them to make us homesick while we're away. The photo here in the post is from my feeding them a few weeks back, the first chance I had to feed them this year since the park was closed for a while do to the pandemic, and the couple of times we were able to go this year, it was so crowded that the chickadees appeared to be frightened away by the noise and wouldn't come out to feed.

Meanwhile, the only other thing I can report on are mundane things. Those that have been following my travel blog for a while might remember that I'm interested by the mundane. For me, being in one place long enough to sit and observe, or turn to see what's behind me when everyone else is looking at the monument or tourist attraction, is sometimes more interesting because it shows you something important you might be missing, or it at least tells you a little bit about people or their context. Here in the west end of town, where we have been staying, there are a couple of things that my husband and I have observed. One is that I have seen hundreds of gulls in the parking lots in the area. One of these flocks is the one from which I was able to help rescue that gull with the broken wing a few weeks ago (by the way, the rehab place said they expect a full recovery and the ability for him to migrate with the rest of his pals this fall!). I wasn't sure why there were so many, but I came across an article in CTV News the other day that explained it--a person who has been feeding them! What's also interesting is that my husband and I had been wondering where they breed, and apparently they fly all the way to a lake southeast of the city and fly back in to the west end every day. I guess if you're a bird, it's not so far, but it seems like there would be closer lakes to the west end that they could choose, so I just thought it was interesting that they breed at one much farther away from where they hang out.

The second thing was noticing how many RVs and trailers are often parked in the Walmart parking lots or those around it that connect to that lot. Some of them, I think, are just passing through, but there are others where I've noticed them multiple times over the course of our time staying in the hotel, and I've come to believe that these are transient people who live in their RVs or campers. Some of the transient people around the area do not have vehicles. They appear to be homeless. We even called the city's line for social service help the other day when we saw a family sitting on some blankets with a shopping cart full of what appeared to be similar to what homeless people tend to collect in a cart. There was a toddler there, and the father appeared to be bottle-feeding a baby. We weren't sure what their situation was, but with kids involved, we didn't want to take any chances, so the City sent out some workers to do a wellness check on them to find out more information. There are people with clear mental illnesses who are homeless, conversing with and yelling at people that only exist in their minds. And some of the people who at least have a vehicle, still don't sound like they're doing all that well. We walked to the Tim Horton's near our hotel one morning only to hear loud yelling and fighting between a male and female in a trailer, the door wide open. The man sounded drunk. There was a lot of foul language. One vehicle is a truck with a camper that I've noticed several times throughout the summer, and I think that's where the couple lives that drive it, though they must at least have enough money somehow to pay for gas. Another vehicle I saw for the first time yesterday, a man in a wheelchair (a nice one clearly fitted to him!), with a dog in his truck, had a cardboard sign on the back of his truck saying that he was hungry and homeless, and he had a jerry can behind his truck with a similar sign. It was really strange.

In our hotel, there have been delivery staff from a nearby restaurant breaking into the hotel (you need a key to even get inside the lobby) and delivering flyers, not wearing masks or anything. They wait for someone to come in and slip in. They can use the stairs without a key to get to each floor, and they don't get caught because the lobby is closed, and you have to get all your services and check in through the lobby at the adjoining hotel at the moment. We complained to the front desk once about it before, and it seemed to stop for a couple of weeks, but then they came again, and we confronted them once again. We decided to get a photo of the license plate so we could again notify the front desk to help them catch these people, and it turned out the license plate even had expired registration! It's not that they're doing anything violent, but they are trespassing and potentially threatening the safety of people staying here--especially as both times we saw them, they weren't even wearing masks! In any case, the RV thing is interesting. As if the news knows I'm leaving soon, too, it has been putting these articles in my news feed to explain these things I've been noticing. Apparently RVing in Walmart parking lots is actually a thing--there are even dedicated websites for it!

So we are certainly excited that this is our last week here. I can't wait to be able to cook again and finally get some proper fresh meals. I think restaurant eating would have been more exciting if the pandemic hadn't happened as we would have had more options. Take-out steak just isn't the same, so we never bothered ordering it, for example. We couldn't risk illness in case it jeopardised our ability to travel or ability to get any prep done for our travel, so we just did takeout all the time. Of course, if the pandemic hadn't happened, we wouldn't have been living in a hotel for this long, either. But such is life, as my mom always says. While I may not be updating this blog weekly anymore, I will definitely do an update next week about the travel and how we're finding our first week of mandatory self-isolation.