May 19, 2005

May 19, 2005

West Hawk Lake day 2 of 113

DAY 336

 

Today started out cloudy and cool, but got warmer as the day progressed.

We spent much of today sitting around waiting for Mark from maintenance to come and trim some tree limbs, and for Courtney, the Park Ranger / our "boss". Courtney never did show up. We’re still awaiting some orientation and training from her. Mid-morning, Mark showed up and cut some large limbs from a birch tree at the back of our campsite, to enable us to get Harvey into our site by entering from the rear, from the main campground road. At the same time as Mark showed up, so did Elvira. I gather that Elvira is the supervisor of the campground staff. We chatted for awhile while Mark and a female colleague trimmed the birch tree. Chatting with Elvira has left me somewhat concerned about vandalism and theft problems in this campground. The large bar at the West Hawk Inn right beside the campground contributes in a big way to the problems of vandalism, theft, and rowdyism in this campground, especially on long weekends. Traditionally, the upcoming Victoria Day long weekend is the worst. It’s the first long weekend of camping season, and young people have a lot of steam to blow off after the long, hard winter.

After they left, we carefully squeezed Dee-Dee and Harvey through the trees, and into the campsite. We really had to squeeze them in. Once in, we realized that one more limb needed to be removed, to enable us to extend our bedroom slide. Mark drove by, and I stopped him to ask that he return to cut one more limb. He said he would be back later. Apparently he forgot ! We did not finish setting up the trailer in the site, nor did I unhitch, because I knew I would have to back them out of the site to allow the limb to be removed. We spent most of the afternoon waiting for Mark’s return. We took a long walk around the entire campground. There was only one other camper in the campground. At the far north end of the campground, we found the camper’s beach, known as Miller Beach. Just east of Miller Beach, there is a rocky point jutting out into the lake that looks like an ideal place for fishing. I’m looking forward to some relaxing times fishing from that point this summer. We returned to the trailer, and I went to the campground office to request that Mark be called to come and trim the tree. It was staff quitting time. Sure enough, he had forgotten about us.He rushed over, I backed the truck and trailer out of the site, and he cut the limb. Finally, we were able to get settled in the site, unhitch the truck, get the slides extended, lower the stabilizers, and hook everything up. Our site has 30 amp electricity, and water. We will be using the bathroom and sinks in the trailer as little as possible, to minimize the frequency with which we need to dump the holding tanks. The campground bathrooms are within a couple of hundred feet, as are the showers. We need the exercise.

A couple of deer wandered by our site, munching on tree buds. That’s very lovely, except that they leave a scent that Bo then feels he must track. His “enthusiasm” when he picks up a scent is a little discouraging. He forgets all his training, and becomes completely undisciplined. This problem has been persistent since the campground in Saskatchewan with rabbits, and increased while at the Danelak’s, whose yard has many rabbits and mice.

It seems like we can only get 2 TV channels out here. CBC and TVOntario. YIKES ! Guess we’ll be playing a lot of Scrabble this summer.

DSK