May 24, 2005

May 24, 2005

West Hawk Lake day 7 of 113

DAY 341

 

Today was cloudy and cool, with rain all afternoon. The day started out poorly and ended poorly.

This morning I prepared myself a cup of coffee, without the cup. What a brain fart ! I put coffee and water in my one cup coffee maker, closed the lid, pushed the start button, and walked away. Forgot to put a cup under the spout ! Quite a mess to clean up !

We spent most of the day in Kenora, running errands. We left late in the morning, heading east on Manitoba Hwy. 1 / Ontario Hwy. 17 for 55 km. / 33 mi. to Kenora, Ontario. First stop was the Information Centre, all the way through town, on the eastern edge of the city. From there it was all the way back through town to the hospital on the west side. The Information Centre sent us to the hospital, as Kenora doesn't have a walk in clinic. Joanne was going to go to a walk in clinic to get the referrals she needs to have the cancer follow up examinations she needs. At the hospital, she was sent hither and yon, just to get an appointment in three weeks with a nurse practitioner who apparently can arrange the referrals / appointments she needs for the examinations and tests she needs. From the hospital we headed for the Bank Of Montreal to open new accounts. This branch of the bank is on the Lake Of The Woods water front, and has its own dock. I've never seen banking by boat before. They weren't able to take care of us immediately, and gave us an appointment for 45 minutes later. We walked over to Canadian Tire ( also on the water front, and not only does it have a dock, it has a marina ) and I bought some hardware I need to rebuild and replace the dually mud flap. Back to the bank, where it took over 2 hours to open 2 new accounts, a Canadian dollar account, and a U.S. dollar account, and link them to our Canadian and U.S. MasterCards. Opening bank accounts is not as simple as it used to be ! After the bank, we had a very late lunch, then headed to Wal-Mart for some supplies, then Extra Foods for some groceries. Joanne discovered that she had lost about ten dollars worth of Extra Foods grocery vouchers received as fuel discounts when filling up Dee-Dee. Finally, we filled up with diesel, and headed out of Kenora, west on Hwy. 17 back to West Hawk Lake.

It was a long day of running errands, made worse by bad weather. We got a late start, and by the time we got back to West Hawk,it was after 7:00 P.M. Supper for the animals was late. Supper for us was even later. While sitting down to eat supper, I knocked over my full glass of Diet Coke ! All over the table, all over everything on the table, all over the floor ! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH ! ! ! !

The highlight of the day came while I was outside just before supper. Two deer came out of the bush, wandering through the campground, munching on tree buds. I tossed them some dog biscuits. They weren't interested. I tossed them some carrots. They liked those ! With patience, and tossing the carrots closer and closer to me, I managed to get the smaller ( younger ? ) of the two to finally come close enough to take a carrot from my outstretched hand. Cool ! I've never hand fed deer before.

I just went outside ( 11:15 P.M. ) to investigate the sound of a woman's loud voice. It was a young couple who had just stopped for the night, and were setting up their tent in the dark. Obviously things weren't going well. Been there, done that ! The woman was in tears. I startled both of them by approaching in the dark while they were obviously having an argument. Have a nice night, folks ! Things will look better in the morning.

DSK