Dec 3 2022 - Sleeping at Walmart

 

There's a difference between RVing and Van living.  The Globe and Mail had an article yesterday on Van living, and the approach to parking overnight on the street.  There is a growing community of people who have converted vans into living spaces, but where do they reside?  I got to wondering about how many people have slept in Walmart parking lots in their RVs and campers.    Walmart has been known as RV-friendly for years.  Campers and RV's on average are allowed to park and sleep overnight.  There are over 4,700 Walmart parking lots. But there is no number of how many people over the years have taken advantage of the Walmart offer.   In the mean time, I find an article with this information:  "even RV enthusiasts Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, have been known to stay at Walmart. " "In fact, the Washington power couple spends each summer touring the United States in a mobile home, she said. The justice and his wife have cruised through 27 states since buying their used recreation vehicle in 1999. "We have found it's a wonderful life," Ginni Thomas told National Public Radio from upstate New York on Wednesday. "We have been in dozens of Wal-Mart parking lots throughout the country," she added. "It's one of our favorite things to do if we're not having to plug in and we've got enough electricity." Mrs. Thomas said that their joy in traveling has only been slightly tempered by the overwhelming to-do they occasionally get when other campers identify the high court justice. "Clarence gets recognized every once in a while and that sort of puts a damper on things because when we're out, we kind of like to be in cognito, if you know what I mean," she said, noting they stopped traveling to one camp site because 20 or 30 people would greet them each year. Should I be looking up how many celebrities live the RV life and park at Walmart?  Looks like Kristin Bell and Jimmy Kimmel are fans of parking overnight at Walmart.   There's a long list of celebrities with million dollar behemoths - Will Smith, Vin Diesel, Mariah Carey, and so on. Guelph's arboretum is the setting of this picture. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

A White Christmas - What is It?

sn't Christmas the only moment in the winter when we want snow?  Yes! What makes snow such an essential part of the Christmas landscape?  What makes a White Christmas so desirable?  In fact, in the U.S. there is WCA - White Christmas Anticipation. The website bigthink shows the map of the U.S., Canada and Europe for the percent chance of a White Christmas. Did you know there's an official definition  of White Christmas? From Wikipedia:  "In most countries, it simply means that the ground is covered by snow at Christmas, but some countries have more strict definitions. In the United States, the official definition of a white Christmas is that there has to be a snow depth of at least 1 in or 2.5 cm at 7:00 a.m. local time on Christmas morning, and in Canada the official definition is that there has to be more than 2 cm (0.79 in) on the ground on Christmas Day at 7 am".   Our Environment Canada site has this chart - Amount of snowfall recorded in centimetres for major cities across Canada from 1955 - 2015.  Here are the Definitions of the columns: % Chance:  probability of a white Christmas (snow on the ground of 2 cm or more on Christmas morning at 7 a.m. EST) for full period of 61 years % Chance now:  for children today based on period 1996-2015 % Chance before:  for parents today when they were children based on period 1965-1984 Perfect Christmas:  snow on the ground of 2 cm or more on Christmas morning and snow in the air sometime Christmas day, i.e., a measurable snowfall on Christmas based on period 1955-2007 Snow depth now:  average depth of snow on the ground (cm) on Christmas morning from 1994 to 2015 At the bigthink site, it shows the maps of Canada, U.S. and Europe so you can see the distribution of White Christmases.  I hadn't realized how much of the U.S. has such a low probability of snow, and how much of Canada has a high probability of snow.  Our White Christmas distribution looks like a mirror reflection.  And the forecast for this Christmas? Grimsby has a freezing rain changing to snow warning today - and a white Christmas is forecast. Our pictures show last year's visit to the Guelph Arboretum on a very snowy day before Christmas.

Guelph Arboretum

Yesterday's snowstorm over the lake didn't land in Grimsby.  It did land in Guelph.  I was there yesterday for Baxter's dental experience - he broke the canine tooth that had been repaired in 2014 at the same clinic.  This time it had to be removed. Guelph is a centre of veterinary specialists associated with the University veterinary programs. My interest was the Arboretum and the range of yesterday's landscapes was remarkable in the snow.  New-fallen snow outlined the trees and defined the curves of the landscape.  There was perfect light - the sun was shining through a misty haze in the sky - just the faintest of shadows.  Guelph is home to the University of Guelph.  It has an exceptional program in veterinary medicine which is ranked fourth in the world. I drove through that section of the campus - with barns, horse crossings, and horses outside in the paddock. I stopped at the beat-up recycle bins for some abstracts.  One bin was for manure.   Guelph has large agricultural, horticultural and environmental programs. The pretty Victorian conservatory is the icon that testifies to the beginnings of the programs in the late 1800's. The Arboretum, started in 1971,  is surprisingly large.  With the amount of snow -  two feet - it kept filling my boots when I walked through it.  So I toured it mostly in the car.  You can tour it on youtube here and see how remarkable it is.

Fall For Fall

We have great autumn colours in Niagara.  This was a little farther north, in Guelph.  I have the newly released Topaz Impressions and this image has a painterly effect from the software.