June 17, 2005

June 17, 2005

West Hawk Lake day 31 of 113

DAY 365

 

Today was another warm, sunny day. Surprisingly, the campground is not very full tonight. There are only about 30 campers here tonight. The staff were hoping for a "campground full" weekend.

This morning I went out to the park gate to make some phone calls, then over to the District Office to get some Whiteshell Provincial Park Junior Naturalist booklets to hand out to children. Then I took the laptop into the campground office to retrieve e-mail and update my blog. After lunch, I washed the truck while Joanne sanded and varnished the dinette table top. I napped, then we took Bo for an obedience training session. We're trying to add wrinkles to his sessions to challenge him and keep him interested. Our latest wrinkle is the "hidden come". While one of us heels him, then stops him, sits him, and stays him, the other goes around a building or trailer or large tree before commanding him to come. He's thinks it's great fun. We were quite busy today being campground hosts, lending tools, chatting, walking around the campground, etc..

We spent the latter part of the afternoon sitting around reading, enjoying the lovely weather. We barbecued supper and ate outside at the picnic table to allow the fresh varnish on the dinette table to dry. We kept Bo outside on his chain, and Teddy outside in his screen tent for much of the day to eliminate the risk of one of them jumping on the table, which Teddy does regularly and Bo does occasionally. People stopped by our site regularly to chat, or ask questions. After supper we did a walk around the entire campground, checking that everything was okay, and promoting the 9:30 P.M. Park Naturalist presentation at the Amphitheatre. We attended the show. Tonight's presentation was entitled Beaver Tales. So far they've covered bears, sturgeons, and now beavers. The beaver one was the best one so far. When the show ended about 10:15, I became very busy for about an hour and a half. It was odd. Many late arriving campers. Campers arguing because one late arriving camper is setting up in another late arriving camper's reserved site, and the one with the reservation doesn't have the common sense to just accept the next site over. The first camper was a single father with two young daughters. The girls were cranky because they were over tired. The second camper arrived when the first one was already partially set up. The second camper demanded his reserved site instead of just smiling graciously and taking the next site over. Then a couple pulled in with their brand new trailer that they've never backed up, and the water tank was empty. They needed help getting their water tank filled, then needed help getting into their site. Good plan ... pick up your brand new trailer, and try to back it up for the very first time into a tight fitting campsite in the dark, with no walkie talkies to communicate between driver and guide. Having walkie talkies probably wouldn't have made much of a difference anyways. The wife really had no clue about how to guide her husband backwards into their campsite. At least he knew how to back up a trailer. With me as a guide, using my walkie talkies, I got him in and positioned in the site with one attempt. Then I had the drunk, hysterical group of four who were terrorized by the sound of an animal near their site. Geeeez, guys, what you're describing was probably just a raccoon ... go have another beer and while you're at it, turn down your car stereo. Then I had a beat up old Ford pickup truck full of kids looking for their friends. No, they don't know what site their friends are in. No, they don't know what they're camped in. Yes, they do know what kind of vehicle they're driving ... maybe ... probably. I earned my keep tonight !

Gee whiz ... I just went out with our lantern to help set up a tenter who arrived at 12:45 A.M. and was trying to set up in the campsite next to us, without a light ! ! ! Joanne had already gone to sleep and I was still up working on my journal. The bar patio is quite noisy tonight.

DSK