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September 2023 update:

The park starts to slow down after the Labour Day weekend, some of the slow down is because of the restarting of the schools here in Ontario and as the teachers and students report to classes, it is also a time when many people have to start reporting back in to their offices as the summer (slack off) season comes to a close. The day to day operations of the park continue on as normal, as next years site contracts are due by mid month, and all the rain from August has kept the maintenance staff busy mowing the lawns and trying to stay ahead of the weeds. And as the number of people in the park during the week reduces, I have had the opportunity continue my work on many of the individual electrical breaker panels for the mapping project, part my ongoing summer long project.

Oh yah, we also have that whole wedding thing happening in the park in the next week or so. The labour day weekend festivities featured music from a live band, with lots of fun events like the annual Halloween decorating contest, trick or treating for the kids and this year there was a haunted house set up by one of the campers which was a huge success. Only one food vender made it to the park this weekend and did a great business, I think many of the food vendor are thinking we have a limited amount of people at the park which is true, but there is also no other vendor competition for the spendable dollars, and I think they are missing out.

Yesterday a large white tent has been assembled on the playground common area, it will serve many purposes while it is up. It will host a birthday party, a wedding rehearsal dinner, and then the wedding reception with appetizers and beverages before the dinner which will take place in the rec hall.

The week after Labour day has seen a flurry of activity with lots of preparation for the wedding on the 9th of September, the rec hall has being transformed into a reception hall, camp site # 10 has been transformed into a wedding site with arches, chandeliers, and white sheers, and of course enough chairs for the hundred and twenty guests. Last minute touch ups being done as required, a pot or two of flowers being moved and then moved again. And all of this being done with little or no real inconvenience to the campers, no the only change to the campers was the shutting down of the playground and washroom area on the afternoon of the wedding.

The Sunday after the wedding there was a huge crew of helpers, and amazingly everything just seemed to disappear, the tent was disassembled, folder and packed away, the rec hall was stripped of the rental items and they were all loaded on to a trailer to be returned on Monday, Floors were washed the store which had been the staging area for the caterers to prepare the dinner, was reassembled and prepared for reopening Sunday afternoon to be able to accept contracts.

The next week seemed very quiet as all the wedding visitors have now left the area, and all the well planned and appointed items have been returned to their original locations and homes, and all the rental items has been returned and accounted for. The park itself is in great shape after all the pimping and pruning from before the wedding, the pool has been closed for the season as the temperatures are cooling off too much at night to warrant the expense of trying to keep it heated. But as much as the nights are cooling off we still have not had any frost so all the flowers are still blooming.

We just have had some new Bridgestone tires installed on our toad as we are starting to prepare to head south for the winter, we also took the 14th off to sneak in a round of golf at the Woodlands golf course in nearby Clinton, a course just a few miles from the park, we also went out for dinner with Mary and Julie to the Park House to celebrate my birthday.

Next week may seem like a long one as we will be on duty for over seven days in a row, as Rich & Bonnie are taking some needed vacation time on the Canadian east coast. There are no major projects on the go right now and as I’m getting close to the completion on my electrical grid mapping project, the quiet time is allowing for some panel maintenance and updating, as a number of oddities are turning up with more in depth exploration. The electrical grid in the park has endured many years of changes, patches, and expansions so there have been some surprising discoveries, some have even left Rich scratching his head as there seems to be no logical explanation for what we are finding or why it was done. I have been repainting some faceplates on electrical boxes to allow new labeling as some panels had multiple labels added over old labels for the same breaker, leaving everyone confused.

As September is coming to a close, the weather has been far better than expected with warm sunny day and nights that are cool but by no means normal for this late in September. This is a time of many mixed emotions for us as we are start the dreaded process of saying goodbye to many friends, with our Canadian Thanksgiving celebration falling early this year and because the Thanksgiving Monday is the park closing date, some patrons have decided to close their units this last weekend of September. It is also a time when we start looking forward to our winter travels as this fall as we make our way south to our adopted winter home in Arizona and our group of Winter friends that we left way back in April.

There have been a few surprises at the park with a few long term residents deciding to leave, but as life happens, so do people’s plans change and as surprising as some of these changes seem we have learned over the years that that is just real life. And as sad as some of the departures are for us, we now just look back at how lucky we were to have had those people in our lives at all. As I walk around the park and see flower beds being cleared out in preparation for that killer frost that still hasn’t happened, there are just a few trees showing fall colours sporadically around the park. And we are also realizing how very little time we spent down on the beach this year, which is normally a popular spot for Miss Laurie on our days off, but we seem to have been playing catch up all year.

We have started our goodbyes as we prepare for our winter adventures, so trying to stop and see family before it’s too late. we have ventured off to the Stoney Creek and Woodstock areas but will miss so many important people this year it is sad. We need to plan next year more carefully to visit everyone that we missed this year as we will be better prepared to enjoy more family time, it is obvious that our priorities need to chance next year, as life did throw us a couple of curve balls this year that we were not expecting.

Fall is officially here but still no frost!

Blog 487

Day 2189

August 2023 – review

This is the most edited blog that I have ever published, it has been reworked over a dozen times as I struggled with how to find a politically correct way to address a concern.

As August comes to a close we only have to lookback at the last couple of weeks to see a variety of different weather patterns that have been very unlike the normal “dog days” of August. In fact we started off with a torrential downpour, followed by blustery windy conditions, and cold enough temperature to cause this old man to find the electric space heater for some afternoon comfort in the coach as we can hear Lake Huron becoming angrier and angrier. I never made my way down to the beach today, but the word was that the waves were hitting high enough on the shore to wash some peoples items into the water, and that is why we warn everyone against leaving thing unsecured at the beach.

We have had an issue with the Clam roof collapsing when the wind blows from a particular direction, the wind seems to go over the coach and the downward force will collapse the Clam roof, so of course with necessity is the mother of invention I had to find a fix and the photo below shows my solution to the constant collapse with the wind. The collapse is not an issue unless it is raining, then the roof acts as a big bowl collecting water, this is not a good thing as it could get heavy enough to rip the roof material, so after this last big blow and rain storm the ladder with the broom seem to have resolved the issue. And as a side note my Velcro fix has held the fly in place perfectly during the wind storm, so score one for the old guy!

Saturday after the big storm and the park is almost back to normal, well as normal as it can be, with today being a very hectic day, as today is the “Amazing Race” at the park. If you don’t know what the amazing race is I don’t think I can explain it to you without getting into a very long rambling paragraph, and if you have seen the the Amazing Race on television it is just a knock off of that. Today we have thirty eight teams of two rushing around the park from location to location, performing what ever task is asked of them, most of the two person teams are in costume, and it all boils down to being able to perform the given tasks in a timely manner and then deciphering the clue they receive to know where to find the next station. Of course this is an adult version of the game so there are adult beverages involved at different stations as well. This whole event is the brainchild of Miss Shelly who works hundreds of hours putting this all together, and has done so for a number of years, congratulations on another excellent Amazing Race Miss Shelly.

It appears that I have offended someone, and I know that some of you may find that hard to believe, with me being such a soft spoken, compassionate, tolerant individual, but evidently it still happened.

So after a period of soul searching and reconsideration of my blogging technique and how I view the content of the blog regarding our life adventures I have decided that yes my humour certainly can be an acquired taste, and I can also come across a little snarky, and yes even somewhat short with people, then throw in a heavy overseeding of my sarcasm, and for that I really don’t see the need for me to change my direction. And if that is unacceptable to you as a reader, my recommendation would be to “Unsubscribe” and “Quit reading” my blog because just like with any television show that you don’t like, you should just turn it off, so please don’t hesitate to unsubscribe from my blog as I have no intention of apologizing to anyone for what actually happens in our real day to day life. The things that are written in my really sucks, and so be it, so until the purveyor’s of the abuse and aggravation in our life stop and/or apologize, I’m afraid that’s just how I’m going to tell our story – truthfully.

OK moving on to the rest of my life, we are looking forward to the start of the school year, which will reduce the weekly vehicle traffic in and out of the park as well as the noise factor in the park dramatically, in reality there is a number of people in the park looking forward to quieter days of fall that lay before us. Now as I’m going to close out this blog, I know it may have been a little light in content, but actually the end of August was a wee bit more civilized, with the introduction of video cameras, a harshly written email and now some of the problem areas seem to have been much better, oh some people still seem to be offended by having to obey the park rules but at least it seems that the verbal diarrhea has lessened toward us. So in closing we are looking forward to September as the camping season winds down and the park becomes calmer and quieter and all the parks wildlife starts to reappear.

Blog 486

Day 2158