June 22, 2005

June 22, 2005

West Hawk Lake day 36 of 113

YEAR 2 DAY 5

 

Today was sunny and hot. I like it !

Teddy and Bo woke me at 6:30 A.M. to be fed, and I stayed up. After showering and morning chores, I got busy on some projects I wanted to get done while it's warm, and while Joanne is in Winnipeg visiting her sister. First I washed dishes, then I unloaded yesterday's purchases from the truck and put everything away. I checked the trailer tire pressures and the truck lug nut tightness. I did yesterday's accounting and discovered an error on the Canadian Tire invoice. I drove to the front gate to make a phone call to Canadian Tire to get the error corrected. I'll have to actually go into the store next time I'm in Winnipeg to get it completely resolved. I drove to Major's Service Centre to mail my MasterCard payment. Back at the trailer, I drained the fresh water tank. I decided it's not a great idea to leave the water tank full during hot weather, since I'm connected to an outside water supply, and the water in the fresh water tank is just sitting there, getting stale, or worse, stagnant. Next I repaired the alternator to battery cable splice ... again. The connection melts about every few months. It melted last night when I was driving back from Winnipeg. I saw the effect on the ammeter read out on the dash, about 30 km. / 20 mi. from West Hawk Lake. I didn't want to stop on the side of the road and start doing a repair late in the evening. I took a chance that I could make it back here and fix it this morning. I repaired it differently than before, and hopefully this repair will last longer than just a few months. It must be a design flaw. There is a spliced connection between the alternator and the battery, and the connector can't survive the heat that builds up during long distance highway travel. This time, I connected the alternator directly to the battery by installing a battery lug on the alternator cable, instead of connecting two thin cables with a wire splice connector. My investment broker's assistant phoned from Ottawa with details of an investment transaction I made. I spent some time updating my records regarding the trade. Then I tackled the major project of the day. I removed the sacrificial anode from the water heater and flushed the inside of the water heater with a special tool I purchased at the Spring Escapade in El Centro, California. The flushing wand tool worked great,and a great deal of scale and crud washed out of the water heater. I wonder if it's ever been flushed before ? I had a new sacrificial anode to install, but the one I put in a year ago looks like it will be good for another year, so I cleaned it and re-installed it. When I went inside the trailer, I had to clean up the largest hair ball I've ever seen. Poor Teddy. He's been suffering from hairball problems for the last couple of weeks. I hope that's the end of it.

I made lunch, then read a book for awhile before falling asleep for a nice, long, hot afternoon nap. When I woke, I took Bo for a bathroom walk, then took him for an obedience training session. We were pretty hot by that time, so we walked down to Miller's Beach at the far end of the campground and we both went wading in the lake. It was very nice and cooling. I carried Bo out into the lake far enough and deep enough that he had to swim back to shore. We repeated that a number of times. He's a very strong swimmer, with those little, short legs of his. As we were walking back to the trailer, a late arriving camper arrived looking for assistance. That was the beginning of a steady stream of late arriving campers that I assisted. I had a busy late afternoon and early evening getting campers into suitable sites, showing them where all the facilities are located, dealing with blown circuit breakers, etc..

I just assisted a Class C motorhome from Calgary to get set up in section B, then walked down to section D to talk to the high school graduation group that is setting up down there for a few days of camping and graduation celebration. I wanted to read the riot act to the driver of the little blue car that just zoomed through here at about 4 times the appropriate speed for a campground ! Kind of reminds of how a niece of mine drives !

I have been kept busy for the last 2 hours, from 6:00 P.M. to now, 8:00 P.M.. I guess by the time I prepare and eat supper, it will probably be too late to go fishing tonight. Darn !

While I was barbecuing supper, two different campers came to see me about blown circuit breakers. The larger trailer units in the campground are all running their air conditioners, and when they add to the power consumption with large power draws like microwaves, the breakers blow. I don't have keys to the breaker panel boxes, so they'll have to live without power until the Park Patrol come by to do their evening patrol. The Park Patrol staff have keys to the breaker panel boxes. I guess I should ask for keys to the breaker panel boxes. I'm not running our air conditioner yet. I'm content with all the windows being open, and the ceiling fan on. I guess that's a habit I developed in our last house. Our house on Quigley Hill Road was not air conditioned, and we kept all the windows and skylights and sliding doors open in the summer. The previous owner of the house, who had it custom built, intentionally did not put air conditioning in so that they would keep the house more open to the beautiful outdoors of the property. It was a wise decision. While barbecuing I indulged in a Kentucky Sour Mash Bourbon and Diet Cola. After supper, I walked slowly around the entire campground with Bo, visiting all the campers who are here tonight. I let Bo have an off leash play session with about a ten year old boy from Tennessee who is travelling to Alaska with his grandparents from Florida. They wanted to know if it was safe to swim in West Hawk Lake or are there alligators ! No, no alligators in West Hawk. They were all convinced that they found big bear tracks on the beach. I didn't have the heart to burst their bubbles and tell them that was Golden Retriever tracks. Of course, when he was finished playing, Bo was not very co-operative about coming back to be on leash. We're going to have to work on that off leash attitude of his !

I washed dishes, then began watching the news when the Park Patrol came by. I went out to reset breakers with them. I met Gaylene Mischuk, the Park Ranger from Falcon Lake who was working West Hawk Lake tonight. She was part of our telephone interview for the Campground Host position, last December while we were in Livingston, Texas.

DSK