Sure, such for open comment and other opinions. Sorry If I wasted your time.
Good to hear. With all the rain around here it has been a great summer for whitewater paddling. I’ve gotten out for a couple of whitewater runs, but I am feeling a little rusty and taking it slow. We’ll see what happens this Fall.
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Next month marks a full two years since that dreaded day when it was announced that everyone should hunker in their homes except to do essential things. Strangely, masks were not part of the equation two years ago here in the US, but they eventually became normal. I am hoping they can become un-normal again sometime in 2022 as I wear glasses and foggy glasses are not fun!
We did plenty of staycations in the last couple years, including in Leavenworth, Mt. Rainier, the Olympic Peninsula (Hurricane Ridge hiking, Hoh Rainforest, etc.), Long Beach (the WA version. It is a very long beach in the SW corner of the state), and also did a couple road trips down to CA to see family, one time going along the Oregon coast to come back to WA which was spectacular. Last summer I did a kayak tour around the Alki peninsula during the nutty heat dome we had, which turned out to be a good way to stay cool that day when it reached 108! Granted, I was not on the water when it got over 100, but the tour guide had to do another tour that day at around 3pm 
Then last August during a dip in cases I flew to western NY to visit some family, which felt special given the lack of contact with those who don’t live nearby.
I have had the frustration and saltiness that @PaddleDog52 seemed to have at numerous points in this crummy journey. But there is plenty to be grateful for, and I do feel in my own heart that we are ready to move beyond this pandemic and live fully again. The vaccines work, the virus seems to be weakening and perhaps reaching endemic stage, and mentally people seem to just be getting used to having the virus around, which to me is a relief. Sometimes, mental anguish and suffering is the worst kind.
Hoping to have a fantastic 2022, learning much more about how to kayak and raising my little daughter. With any luck, she’ll be able to grow up in a more sane world than we’ve seen the last couple of years.
Just a reminder so we stay on topic.
I do agree @DanielD that people are ready to move on, and I think its time too. My local club is organizing pool sessions in March and April, and training sessions later in the year. We’ll see what the participation is like.
I find that one of the great casualties of this pandemic has been open invites for trips on Facebook and other websites - especially for whitewater. It use to be that there were always a couple of options on any given weekend. With limitations on shuttles that went away, and hasn’t really returned yet. Hopefully this spring we will see more.
I do think it is an opportunity for clubs that are willing to step up and run trips.
How about, “one minor and easily rectifiable consequence of this pandemic…”
The great casualties of this pandemic are literally the casualties.
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Agreed
I was ready to move on by May of 2020. But the virus wasn’t moving on. We’ve had it fake leaving once or twice now, tricking people to believe the coast is clear, and then it came back and caught several thousand more.
900,000 times for those tricked permanently.
sing
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update. As we paddle solo ( a couple ) and not with clubs, no effect on our paddling. We are currently travelling with boats. We always camp save the two days getting here.
Masking… I do a lot of u turns in the parking lot for both my reusable bags and mask before entering the supermarket. Its probably a good idea pandemic or no. No one wants to pick up snotty veggies and we are lucky in that our produce is presented loose… No need buy two pounds of something you need half a pound of.
Way too many Americans take their advice from the drunk guy that always sits in the same place at the end of the bar.
As above, the biggest alteration is for the families of people who are not around to comment.
For the rest of it is job challenges and/or habit changes.
Masks and, as activities pick up, testing are a constant part of my life and I expect it to stay that way thru this year. I have learned to be comfortable wearing a mask for a host of activities. They just go out the door with my keys. I keep a stash of the blue ones in the car for if I forget.
This is not the way it was but I can live with it.
I am seeing people who are altered by the isolation, and omicron took out the resilience of at least one friend who had been hanging on the edge.
Nothing like wearing a mask that reduces your odds of catching a deadly disease by 1%. Thanks for sharing your reflection DanielD. It makes me think. I drove down the Blue Ridge Parkway. Everything closed.
Your “science?”
My “science?”
CDC “science.”
Of course, as long as we live, we all have to move forward. Pick how you want to.
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At least it was in English. They didn’t mention what happens when everyone fat fingers their soggy mask then touches everything. Funny how nobody cares where it came from.
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Confused by that. CDC - Center of Disease Control - is USA governmental entity that publishes in American (rather than English) English. There are caveates to its findings which are presented in the end discussion. It is still “science” (vs conjecture) as it employs accepted “scientific research methods.”
Again, we are at the stage in the pandemic, where folks are tired across the Globe and doing (fighting) to move forward as they please.
sing
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UPI.
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Yeah yeah yeah yeah. 4 nurses and 2 physical therapists in the family. I’m not ignorant. I have the brains to see people walking around with a handkerchiefs. Thanks for mansplainin. We got antibacterial wash to clean their snot off door knobs.
That’s lockdowns. The one I linked to is about mask wearing.
If you read the study you will find that the alleged benefit attributed to wearing cloth masks was far from statistically significant.
A major problem with an observational study of this type is that it is very difficult to control for behavioral differences between the cohort groups. People who “always” wore masks were almost certain to have been more likely to engage in other protective behaviors such as social distancing or avoiding densely-populated indoor spaces than the group that “never” wore masks. This study made absolutely no effort to control for behavioral differences of that type.