May 24th, 2010:
Not a bad day – sunny, but cool and windy. Felt good after the wet, cold weekend, though.
We were having lunch at Quizno's last week when Doreen Forbes and Brenda Bohachewski, from Porcupine Plain, came in and joined us. Had a very pleasant visit. Points out what a small town Saskatoon really is. We are constantly running into people from the Greenwater area, or Wynyard, or Kelliher.
This weekend was our first motor home outing of the year. We got the buggy out of storage, had it serviced, filled and washed, spent a fortune on new batteries, and it ran like a charm. Everything worked, which isn't always the case.
We went to Wakaw Lake Regional Park on Thursday, a hot and sunny day. Also very windy. Friday was much cooler, but still lots of sun and wind. The forecast was for a horrible weekend, but Saturday started out sunny, warm and windless. By ten AM it had clouded over and a wind came up from the south-east. We had the use of a big gazebo with open sides, but many of the members had tarps which we hung up on the windward side. It was quite comfortable.
Later on, it started to rain, and it continued through Saturday. The men hung up more tarps and we were able to have our communal events, but we ate supper Saturday with heavy sweaters, rain coats and hats on. We were very surprised to see the tarps still in place Sunday morning – we thought that wind would rip them right off. We had fun, anyway.
It rained off and on all day Sunday, and the wind stayed up.
Monday dawned bright and sunny, without much wind. That came up later, though. There is about ten kms of gravel going into the park; as could be expected, it was pounded out pretty badly by the time we left. It didn't bother our rig too much as it is basically just a one-ton truck, but the people with the big motor homes, built on a semi chassis, found it just about intolerable.
After a day and a half of pretty steady rains, we only found one leak in our motor home, and it was over the bathtub. Some of the old leaks seem to have sealed themselves off. As long as it doesn't leak over the bed!
Finding accommodation for up to twenty trailers and motor homes is getting tougher all the time. Many regional parks would prefer to have seasonal campers, who pay an annual fee and park a unit for the whole season. Those parks may only have room for a very small number of weekend campers. There is usually room for one more, but for twenty? I believe there is a move that way in some of the provincial parks, too. Greenwater had no room for seasonal campers, leaving that field to Almi Campgrounds, but rumours are that that is changing. We may find ourselves relegated to dry camping in sports grounds! |
