May 27, 2005

May 27, 2005

West Hawk Lake day 10 of 113

DAY 344

 

Today was cloudy and cool, with frequent rain. Actually, that was a good thing for today. This weekend is the second most troublesome weekend of the year in Provincial Parks. The Victoria Day long weekend has an alcohol ban in the campgrounds. This is the first weekend of the year that campers are allowed to have booze in the campgrounds. Today's weather kept most of the problems back home in the city. There are only 8 campers in the campground tonight last time I checked with the office. And it's too cold and wet to inspire them to sit around a campfire drinking themselves into oblivion.

It was too cool and rainy this morning to do outdoor chores, so we decided to go exploring by truck. We drove west on Hwy. 44 to Caddy Lake, then north on Hwy. 312 to Long Pine Lake at Ingolf, Ontario. We thought there would be more of a town at Ingolf. There's really nothing at Ingolf except a lodge and convenience store, and a few cottages. We drove back to Caddy Lake to explore the campground there. It's been about 30 years since we've been to Caddy Lake campground, and it certainly has changed a lot. What used to be the waterfront campground is now the site of a lodge and rental cabins business. The campground is now behind that, away from the lake, on swampy land. We drove back towards West Hawk on Hwy. 44, then turned south a short distance on Hwy. 301 to Star Lake. Last weekend one of the West Hawk staff had told me about an unmarked public dock at Star Lake where the walleye fishing might be good. We drove down one of the Star Lake cottage access roads and found the unmarked public dock and beach. What a great beach. I hope we have an opportunity this summer to go there with Madeleine and Amelia. We had packed a picnic lunch, and were going to have a picnic at Star Lake, but it was cold and drizzling, so we drove back to West Hawk and had lunch in the trailer.

After lunch I napped for awhile. Cold, rainy days inspire me to snooze. Same with Teddy and Bo, apparently. After napping, I took the laptop and headed to Major's Service Centre about 2 km. down the road, to use their computer phone jack. They have a public use computer with Internet access. I just unplugged their computer from the phone jack, and plugged in my laptop. I retrieved e-mail, and updated my blog for the first time in 10 days. I would still like to find a better arrangement for modem access. The woman who owns Major's doesn't seem too thrilled with me unplugging their computer to plug mine in. When I returned to the trailer, I found Joanne sitting with Courtney, our "boss", and Joe, one of her colleagues. Courtney had finally come by to meet us, give us campground host hats, shirts, name badges, and documents relating to the campground host positions and responsibilities, etc.. It's about time ! We chatted for a long time, and she left everything with us to review. There is a contract we need to fill out. There's posters and activity books for children. There's orientation and training manuals for us. Bo spent much of this meeting on Joe's lap, licking him on the face. We talked at length about the noise from the bar adjacent to the campground. Last night was terrible, as it had been the previous Thursday. The bar gets around the rule that prohibits them from having the speakers on the patio on after 11:00 P.M. by cranking up the volume inside the bar to a horrendous level, so that customers on the patio have loud music. Every minute or two the door from the bar to the patio opens, and the music inside blasts out at an obnoxious level. This went on from 11:00 P.M. until 1:30 A.M.. I could hear the thumping of the bass while I was inside the shower house at 11:30 last night, and that's about 1000 feet from the bar ! Additionally, the bar patrons outside on the patio seem to communicate with one another mostly by screaming and shouting and shrieking and hollering at the top of their lungs. I don't know ! I remember what it's like to be young, and hanging around bars. I don't recall that it was necessary to shriek and whoop every couple of minutes ! ! !

Gawd ... I've turned into Old Man Sackerson ! ( A customer on my newspaper carrier route when I was a child )

We walked around campground loops H and C, picking up litter. We walked Bo on a training session. We chatted with the middle aged woman in the truck camper on our loop. She and her husband are from Peterborough, headed west. We had supper, and while Joanne went to Crescent Beach Cottages across the road to do some laundry, I put on my official campground host cap and went wandering around the campground, saying hello, introducing myself, etc.. That's my job ! I gave a Provincial Parks poster and Provincial Parks activity book to a couple of young children. I stopped at the campsite where three young women were sitting at their picnic table, surroundedby beer cans and pop cans all over the ground, and offered them some garbage bags. Subtle and diplomatic, eh ? Two of the women seemed somewhat preoccupied by their friend puking her guts out. And it's only 9:00 P.M. on Friday night. You might want to consider drinking those beers a little slower, girls.

DSK