June 27, 2005

June 27, 2005

West Hawk Lake day 41 of 113

YEAR 2 DAY 10

 

Today was cloudy and warm. It rained intermittently this afternoon and evening.

This morning I went to the campground office to remove my phone jack splitter and phone cord. Peggy commented that she had heard I had made other arrangements for modem access. I clarified, and pointed out to her that I had been instructed to make other arrangements. There's a difference ! My hostility about this issue was evident. I drove over to the Manitoba Border Information Centre at the Manitoba / Ontario border a few miles from West Hawk Lake. I asked if I could plug my laptop into their phone line, where they have a computer for public access to the Internet. They allowed it today, but not surprisingly, they need to ensure their political masters have no objection to me plugging in my laptop a couple of times a week. I guess I should focus on how grateful I am that I'm retired / unemployed, and do not need to deal with petty politics and bureaucracy on a regular basis.

When I returned to West Hawk Lake, a Red Hat Society group was arriving for a picnic lunch in the picnic shelter behind our campsite. I wandered over, introduced myself, welcomed them to West Hawk Lake Campground, and offered assistance. They were obviously having difficulty getting a fire lit in the picnic shelter fireplace. Much to my great surprise, one of the old Red Hat women was hostile to my offer, and my presence. The other ladies seemed embarrassed. Okay ... have a nice lunch, ladies !

We had lunch. I read a book. I napped. We worked on waxing the trailer. We went to Crescent Beach Cottages to do some laundry. I dropped Joanne off at CBC and returned to the campground. Today's late arriving campers began to stream in, one after another. Every weeknight, from about 6:00 P.M. to about 8:00 P.M. we get about a half dozen campers arriving. These are "overnighters", who are travelling through and stopping just for the night. Somewhat like us when we are on the road. I'm kept busy most weeknights for a couple of hours getting them situated, and showing them where everything is ; bathrooms, showers, dump station, resident deer, etc.. Our resident deer have a habit of coming down off the granite bluff to graze down in the campground about this time each night. It's always pleasing to me to be able to walk around the campground a bit with late arriving campers, pointing out "here's the bathrooms, that's the shower building, over there is our resident 6 point buck, and over there is a doe with 2 fawns". That's exactly how it was tonight. It causes jaws to drop ! And running back to their campers for cameras.

We had supper, then went back to Crescent Beach Cottages to finish up the laundry. When we came back, we drove around the entire campground to know exactly how many campers were here tonight. There were a couple of deer wandering around our campsite. We spent some time outside watching them graze. We helped more late arrivals. I had an interesting chat with a woman from St. Catharines who is a theatre actress, performing at the Shaw Festival Theatre at Niagara On The Lake. As she and I stood near the washrooms chatting, we saw deer, bats, and fireflies, and listened to Loons calling on the lake. She was fascinated by the evening wilderness experience of West Hawk Lake.

DSK