Escapade 2014

The 54th annual Escapade in Goshen, Indiana just wrapped up. It was 5 days of fun May 12 to 17. And Chapter 44 was there!

Chapter 44 Ontario members Harv & Louise were our representatives on The Row, sharing information about Alberta Roamers with the hundreds of people at this event. Harv is also now the new president of the Big Sky chapter — congratulations!

 

Louise and Harv were also at the Mesa Rally and Quartzsite this winter and sent this pic from Q.

 

P.S. In looking over all the great seminars featured at Escapade, I noticed the name of one of our American members, Vera, show up several times offering craft classes and one on cooking. John & Vera are often regulars at the Mesa rally where many of us have enjoyed her craft sessions.

May Lunch 2014

Whoo-eee! More than 35 members from around the province arrived in High River last Wednesday for the first Chapter lunch of the year.

Alta Vita Ristorante, one of many businesses that were flooded out last June in the huge flood, is back in business in their old digs. It came as quite a shock when one of the staff said that where we were sitting had been under 4 feet of water.

The May lunch is always a noisy get-together as we all try to catch up on who’s been doing what and going where and what their plans are for the summer. We began our visiting out on the street, moved into the restaurant for lunch and then kept on chatting — and still we didn’t get to visit with everyone we’d hoped to.

We were delighted to welcome Nancy and Steve O’Bosky, two of our American members from California. They’re on their way to Alaska for the summer.

Click on any photo for a larger view or to see a slide show.

What’s up next? Why it’s the June rally, of course! Be sure to sign up for a spot. 🙂

New Mazatlan-Durango Highway — Kay & Tony

Hello from Mazatlan, Mexico where Tony and I are spending 2 months for “Fun in the Sun”

I want to tell you about a trip we took last week. Years back when we were traveling around Mexico with Chapter 8 we visited several old colonial cities. There was one that Tony thought might be interesting but we were  warned away from it as the road between it and Mazatlan was named “The Devil’s Backbone”.

That road was so narrow with miles of approximately 2000 curves and switchbacks making it treacherous to navigate, and taking from 6 to 9 hours to travel from Mazatlan to Durango.

In October of 2013, after 12 years of unbelievable engineering, a new highway opened joining Mazatlan to Durango. We took a bus tour of the highway and city of Durango.

The trip on this new super highway takes under 3 hours of driving through incredible  vistas and rock formations. The highlight of the road is the Baluarte Bicentennial Bridge, which is the highest cable-stayed suspension bridge in the world (403 m – 1322 ft from the valley below) and the longest in North America (1124 m – 3688 ft).

The center cable span is 520 m – 1710 ft).  It is a 4-lane bridge and to give you an idea of how high it is off the valley floor, the Eiffel Tower would fit under it. It took roughly 5 years to build at a cost of nearly $160 million US. (Keep in mind Mexican workers are paid much lower than the rest of North Americans doing the same job.)

There are 115 bridges on this 140-mile partial 4-lane highway as well as 62 tunnels. One of the tunnels is 2.8 km long. All the tunnels are lighted.

Getting electricity into the Sierra Madre Mountains must have been a huge undertaking. The road came in at about $2.2 billion US. The toll to drive this road is about 1000 pesos return (about $85 CDN).

In Durango we had a tour of some of the city which they have been busy beautifying for future appeal to tourists. It is a city of 600,000. We had a ride on a chair lift to a high hill so we got an overview of how large an area it covers.

We saw a couple of museums, had a trolley ride and viewed some wonderful sculptured walls. In the old train station we saw a huge map of Mexico that was built by Tiffany. We had a traditional Mexican meal at a lovely restaurant.

This road will definitely bring more tourism to Mazatlan but more importantly it will bring commerce over the Sierra Madre Mountains, safer and quicker.

Eventually they expect it will move 5 million vehicles a year (more than 4 times the number on the old road) plus produce and goods from Asia to all parts of Mexico and the southern US.

They are expanding the port in Mazatlan to take the big ships and are expecting a large increase to tourist trade. It was a wonderful 13-hour trip that left the old folks tired!

Out-of-Province Limits on Albertans — Part 4

If you haven’t already heard the good news, Albertans are now entitled to legally spend 7 months out of Canada without losing their provincial health care coverage. This is a major victory. 

Many thanks are owed to the Canadian Snowbird Association for its continuing work on our behalf. Thanks as well to all of you who wrote letters to Alberta government officials requesting the extended limits. 

The following letter was sent to Alberta CSA members earlier in December. If you are not a CSA member, now would be a great time to join!

In late 2012, the Canadian Snowbird Association distributed a survey to our Alberta members asking whether they would like us to work with the Alberta Government to increase out-of-country health coverage from six to seven months. The positive response to this survey was overwhelming as over 97% of respondents answered yes.

Since then, in conjunction with a very successful letter writing campaign from our membership, the CSA has been working with elected officials in Alberta and their staff members in order to obtain an additional month of coverage for long-term travelling residents.

The CSA is pleased to inform all Alberta snowbirds that the Alberta Government has, effective immediately, increased the amount of time residents may be absent from Canada from six to seven months or 212 days while still retaining their provincial health coverage. Alberta is now the fifth province in Canada to permit out-of-country absences over six months, along with Manitoba, Ontario, British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The CSA would like to thank Premier Alison Redford, the Honourable Fred Horne, Minister of Health and the Honourable Dave Quest, Associate Minister of Health for Seniors for their support and responsiveness to this matter.

If you have any questions or comments related to this increase, or any other issue, please contact the CSA office toll-free at 1-800-265-3200 or email us at csastaff@snowbirds.org.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Sincerely,

Bob Slack, President, & Rick Thorpe, Director – Western Canada
The Canadian Snowbird Association
The Voice of Travelling Canadians
www.Snowbirds.org

For earlier posts on this topic, check here.

Please note — this does not mean you can spend 7 months in the USA. If you’d like to know more about what CSA is doing to increase the time Canadians can spend in the US each year, check here and enter “Canadian Retiree Visa” in the search box at the top of the page.

Winter Musings from Carol D

So you think it is cold down south??!!

Here is an Alberta winter update for all of you snowbirds. It is real winter in Alberta. Seems the snow never stops falling for long. The cold has been bone chilling most days but then along comes a Chinook — like yesterday — and all that snow on the roads softens up. You cannot maneuver through the ruts. Driving side streets almost requires a four wheel drive! Then everything freezes and it snows some more … Enough already!

January cannot get here fast enough for me. I plan to head down old I-5 as soon as the weather allows and hope to see some of you in Quartzite. Meeting Jerry A. and Doug P. there. Heard from Marlene and Larry — they are in Texas and will be Kentucky-bound in the new year, before returning to summer in Alberta. They send their greetings to all.

Registrations for the Mesa rally in March are creeping in. Lots of room yet so let me know if you are planning on attending. You know the drill!

Anyway I hope wherever you are that you will enjoy the holidays and be blessed with good health and safe travels in 2014.