Week seventeen @ CMR

September 4th to September 10th 2022

Sunday and as of today it has now been 300 days since the Canadian/American border reopened, we are also down to 24 days till our departure from Country Maples Resort (CMR) and only 34 days till our passage back to Washington State. We are still in middle of the labour day long weekend, but we have survived the Saturday night which I had figured would be the worst night of the weekend. Miss Laurie has her regular shift in the camp store today, and I’m on another afternoon lock up and security shift so I’m going to try the pancake breakfast this morning. All the staff was invited to breakfast this morning, this is the pancake breakfast that they have been serving most of the summer, a couple of pancakes, two sausage, coffee, orange juice or a bottle of water. The pancakes were very good, light and fluffy, the sausage was a typical plain breakfast sausage, weak coffee, not a bad meal, but I still think $8 is a little rich, especially if your feeding a large family, but they have been selling a hundred plus breakfasts on most weekends. And as much as I thought Sunday was the wrong day, maybe it is a quick way to get a hot breakfast before pulling out for that 11 am check out time.

The rain has finally found us but so far it is just a very light rain, it will be enough to keep the dust down for the rest of the weekend but as far as helping the lawns or the trees, I’m thinking it just isn’t going to be any where close to enough to help. With rain in the forecast for most of the day it could be a good day for a couple of indoor projects, we have had an issue with the power supply to the front television area since, well since forever. There is only one receptacle there and as much as I added a six plug unit, because most of the items plugged in are transformers which are heavy, the have the tendency to vibrate loose on the road, meaning that after we stop I have to try and get everything plugged back in again to have internet or television. So I have purchased from my good friends at Amazon a small power bar with big spaces, designed for the transformers to plug in and can sit flat so as not to allow them to vibrate loose and fall out.

Well I got the new power bar installed and I suspect it should solve the issue of the transformers falling out over a day of travel on regular roads. It went well and seems to be reasonably well it has a total of eight well spaced plugs and has four USB ports as well because when ever possible I eliminate the transformer and plug into the USB directly. After lunch because it is a cooler day with some showers I attempted the afternoon nap again, with the windows closed, blinds drawn, and Alexa playing some smooth jazz, I think I did doze off for a while, then the rain quit and the noise started again from the mini putt course and I decided to work on this weeks blog. Mister Sam is not happy about not getting into the Clam today but it’s just plain chilly with the high temperature today only being 20°C (68°F) and mainly cloudy with a few sunny intervals, a breeze of 8 kmph (5 mph) and the humidity of 73% and we have only received 2 mm (1/10 inch) of rain. So I’m up now and dressed for work, blue jeans, and a sweatshirt should be appropriate attire for this afternoon, and we will have to wait and see what surprises todays shift brings.

Well it should have been a peaceful uneventful evening but there always has to be somebody to screw that up, and tonight was no different. Last evening I had a group of teenage girls that kept returning to the playground equipment after the closing time (dusk), well tonight guess what the same four girls were back, so this time I went to speak with their parent / guardian and that’s when I was verbally abused for just doing my job, another perfect example of “my little Johnny would not do any thing wrong!” so they threatened to report me to the manager, and I’m thinking great, we may be able to leave sooner. Anyway the rest of the shift had been ok, I assembled a couple of new picnic tables, and had also done my normal lock-up and security rounds to a reasonably quiet park. I was back to the coach by eleven and wrote up an incident report regarding the children and emailed it to the manager before turning in.

Monday morning at 6:30 and Mister Sam thought I should be up, and I conceded more because of a call of nature than Mister Sam’s urging, but I was rewarded with some kitty lap time which is always a great start to my day. So today is officially labour day, and there will be over ninety departures today, which should mean the park will be pretty empty, which should make the security issue much easier.

It was after 8:00 before Miss Laurie got up, apparently Mister Sam had rousted Laurie from bed at 5:30 for some snacks. Who do you think is in control around here? Do you think it could be a black kitty?

Miss Laurie is working in the gardens today, and my afternoon shift has be modified for this evening, as apparently today is a special day here at Country Maples, all the staff is having a dinner at the clubhouse today, hence why my shift has been modified. Today is what is considered to be the end of the summer season, so before the summer staff start to leave, there is a catered dinner for all the staff. I had originally thought I would just miss the dinner because of my regular shift but the September Schedule, has me starting my shift at 7:30 to 10:00 so basically it will be closing the pool, and the regular afternoon lock-up, and a little security. So now we start into a month of shifts that are all over the map, kind of like in the spring, as security becomes less of an issue, I will be working more day shifts as the start to prepare the park for the winter season.

Well at noon and I’m thinking my odds of being let go early are dwindling quickly, oh well it was good to dream. Mister Sam and I have moved to the Clam, it is a cooler day here on the island, the hot days of last week are now just a memory that is fading fast, but it is a beautiful sunny day, there is a cool breeze so I’m wearing shorts with a sweatshirt.

This evening is our end of season staff party, or I might refer to it as the “you survived party”. So all the staff and spouses were invited, the clubhouse was closed for this function, and it was catered by Sandy’s Ukrainian Kitchen, they are from Nanaimo, but also camp in the park, I didn’t hear if they were members but I would suspect they are, as that is the normal business trend here at this park. So after a happy hour from 5:00 till 6:30 followed by a dinner of perogies, cabbage rolls, and kielbasa was served, the meal was tasty and the servings were large, there was a strawberry desert, but I passed on desert as I had to leave early because my shift started at 7:30. The manager thanked everyone for working together, and said it was a good year for positive reviews, and I could see that there is a core group that have worked together for a number of years that also live here year round, and there was the others that were here for the first year and then a couple of outsiders from Ontario.

My shift this evening is only 2½ hrs. so I had the pool to close, along with all the regular lock-up items, the park is almost empty, I’m thinking there are only around thirty campers in the park, other than staff members. So as the staff had moved from the clubhouse to the mini putt course, I went to work in the shop assembling another picnic table stopping at nine while I locked up the clubhouse, before finishing the table, After which I made a final security round for the evening at around a quarter to ten, and only seen a couple of people huddled around a propane fireplace, so I headed to the coach to call it an evening.

Oh just as a foot note on the issue of the children from the weekend. And this may explain what is wrong with today’s society, the mother of one of the teenage girls (this is the same parent that verbally abused me the night before) told the manager that her daughter was just going to the washroom (all four times?), and was now having nightmares because of being harassed by the mean security man. So just like the child, this mother lied and twisted the truth to protect her little “Johnny“. Then people wonder why so many of the children today are such disrespectful little brats, and well while some might wonder, I think know why! The children may be disrespectful but they are just a creation of poor or in some cases no parental guidance, just shameful, to see and you know the world will be blamed for their failures as parents. But sadly there will be no early departure for me, so I can look forward for a couple more weekends of abuse.

Tuesday morning and it’s 7:00 and at just 11°C (51°F) the morning feels cool, no let’s upgrade that to cold, luckily for me I have this warm black kitty curled up on my lap keeping me warm because now I’m thinking I need to find the space heater if this keeps up. And as I check the forecast the next ten days are showing similar temperatures, apparently fall comes early to the island. Miss Laurie made a cheese omelet for breakfast and there is some Bailey’s in this mornings coffee, I’m thinking that Laurie is already thinking vacation mode, because that is our vacation tradition to start every day. I guess the advantage to being isolated on the island is that it has certainly cut down on our alcohol consumption, and this has been the loneliest seasons that we have experienced since moving into the coach, even worse than the winter of Covid that we spent in Goderich.

Miss Laurie has a shift in the office today, and Mister Sam and I are just going to kick back in the Clam today, it is a well known fact that it’s much better napping in the Clam on a nice sunny day then it is in the coach. After Laurie’s shift I barbequed some pork chops before we settled in to catch up on some YouTube videos before calling it a night.

Wednesday and it is early, we had planned to be on the road at 6:30 this morning, but it is 6:30 now and I just rolled out of bed, so it’s looking more like a 7:00 start time to me. Now you may be wondering why such an early start on a day off? Well it’s a funny story (NOT) Miss Laurie who is always so much in control of almost everything, has managed to misplace (lose) her passport so sometime after crossing from Washington state in May and now she has managed to lose it. And with our winter travel just around the corner (like 30 days) she needs to get a replacement, and if you have seen any Canadian news recently you will now that “Service Canada” has been backed up forever, with people wanting to travel again, the line ups are hours long. So we picked today to drive to Victoria which is the closest passport office to get a replacement, she had called Service Canada last week and was told that was the only way. So we headed to Victoria and got there shortly after 8:00, Miss Laurie grabbed a chair in the line that was most likely 50 people long, and the office doesn’t open till 8:30, and while the chair looked more inviting than standing, I decided to find a padded chair in the food court.

So the line moved quickly, and Laurie discovered that the required paperwork was the same that is required was for a new passport, so passport photos, a guarantor signature, birth certificate, references and the whole sh-bang. I was able to sign as the guarantor but for that I needed my passport number and the dates of issue and expiration, well my passport was back at the coach! I never thought about picking it up before we left, why would it possibly be the need? Well where you used to need a notary public stamp for verification it has been replaced with the guarantor, but the guarantor need to hold valid passport, so back to Chemainus to get my passport then return to Victoria to wait inline again, now the real kick is if you have everything in order then you get to get a number to actually see someone about getting your passport, thank you Service Canada.

Well Laurie has succeeded with the whole process, she has gone through the complete process, jumped through the proper hoops, and now just has to wait two weeks for the passport to be processed. We can pick it up from the Victoria office after 2:00 pm on the 21st of September, but you still have to wait in the line to pick it up. We stopped at the Costco in Langford to pick up some supplies, this Costco had both fuel and propane, which is an improvement over the one in Nanaimo, the size seemed very similar. We made it back to the coach by 5:30 and because somehow we had missed lunch I threw a couple of burgers on the barbeque for dinner. We discussed heading back to Botanical Beach tomorrow, i checked the weather it was looking perfect, but the tides were wrong with high tide cresting at noon which meant low tide was 6:00 in either morning or afternoon, exactly opposite to what would be ideal for exploration or viewing. So tomorrow will be a day of rest before our trip to Nanaimo tomorrow, a little television, before an early night.

Thursday and this morning of course I’m awake at 6:00, I guess going to bed early last night I must have got my required allotment of rest. This morning there was a little blessing in my cup of fresh perked coffee, and the smell of bacon for a bacon and tomato sandwich is in the air. During all the hub bub yesterday we got checking when things expired, and I found out that my health card and drivers license need to be renewed, this is suppose to be a simple on line process, so I started it this morning only to find out that I couldn’t get it to accept my renewal, so I called Service Ontario to get some assistance, I spoke to two people in my hour long wait and the end result was that I couldn’t renew because I have an “Air Brake” endorsement on my license. Just one more bump in the road, because apparently I need to rewrite an exam to prove I’m able to drive my coach.

As I’m on hold with for the license renewal thing it flashed across the television which was on mute that Queen Elizabeth had passed away, they had reported that she was not well yesterday but at 96 years old what would you expect. So to say it was a bit of a shock would be a bit of an understatement as she just greeted the new Prime Minister of England earlier this week. While she had no direct influence over Canada, the Monarchy has always been part of our Canadian history, so there will be a period of mourning I’m sure, and the worst part is that her oldest son Charles will take over the reign as the new King, and to say he has acted like a bumbling idiot in comparison would also be an understatement. And after 70 years of rock solid stability, this could be a major blow to the commonwealth as we have known it, as we had seen some cracks even before this.

So we have ventured into the new Prime Video series from the “Power of the Rings”, Amazon has spent some big bucks to bring this series to life and I hope my lack of knowledge about the original Lord of the Rings won’t be too much of a drawback to keeping up, so far I’m struggling a little with all the different players. So after the first couple of episodes I’m hanging in there so far.

Friday and with the new fall work schedule I’m on the afternoon shift today instead of the day shift, so it’s a bit more laidback this morning, a cup of perked coffee with some Baileys is a good start, in fact good enough to have a refill. Mister Sam has an appointment today to have his surgery checked in Nanaimo at 10:30 and he is now able to have his kibble back, he also got his rabies shot today, which may change our travel plans a bit as we had planned to be in the Nanaimo area on October the 7th for that to happen. But he has another appointment for an x-ray next week to check his jaw, to see if he needs anymore medication. A quick stop for groceries and we are back at the coach shortly after noon, and of course early afternoon and I get the email to tell me that the new driveshaft is in, I had checked this morning, hoping to pick it up while there for Mister Sam’s appointment.

We have received our quotes for Mexican insurance today, our regular Canadian insurance is not good enough for our journey to Mexico. So everyone that crosses into Mexico by vehicle needs to purchase this Mexican insurance and it can be purchased for a day or a year, and because we have two vehicles each vehicle needs it’s own insurance. Our cost for the trip will be $570 for both vehicles and that is for six months of coverage, we only need two months but after the one month mark it is the best deal that we could get. I remember paying $40 U.S. for a day a couple of years ago.

My shift today started at 4:00 and there are a number of changes since my shift last weekend, the swimming pool now closes at 7:00 and there are not nearly as many campers in the park, so most of my shift will be spent in the work shop, so tonight I assembled a couple of picnic tables, along with my regular security checks and locking up the clubhouse, and checking all other buildings. I stopped for dinner at 7:00 and Miss Laurie prepared some more fish in the air fryer, and the balance of my evening was quiet, other than another wasp nest that I needed to address later in the evening.

Saturday morning and I woke at 7:45 to find Mister Sam napping on Laurie’s side of the bed, it was a cool night, with clear skies, so at 9°C (49°F) this morning it has to been a damn cold night in a tent, we have a forecast high of 28°C (83°F) but these are the kind of wild temperature swings we associate with the desert.

This mornings breakfast was toasted bacon and tomato sandwich, then just kick back till Mister Sam and I make our way out to the Clam, and as we sat enjoying a warm day when the colour of the sky changed, and a golden glow seemed to take over. So I ventured outside to see a small pink dot in the sky, where the sun should be. We have been lucky all summer with costal breezes but this week the wind has changed to a offshore wind bringing it with the wildfire smoke from the mainland.

**Today’s afternoon sky full of wildfire smoke!**

It is a few minutes to four and time for my shift, I already know what is on my to-do list, I will be servicing a golf cart, air filter, fuel filter, oil change, and a new spark plug, then a picnic table or two. Along with closing the swimming pool, and locking up the clubhouse, there is a full moon but other than one campsite full of girls that has spent most of the weekend drinking, the rest of the park is quiet, and the girls seem to run out of steam fairly early, one of the hazards of trying to drink all day, a task that can be hard on armatures.

Thank heavens that school is back in!

Blog 444

Days 1803

Week sixteen @ CMR

August 28th – September 3rd, 2022

Sunday morning and it is a few minutes to seven in the morning, I just crawled into bed sometime after midnight, and other than a bunch of drunks on the mini golf course near closing time, the evening had just been the usual, with a performances by the “weekend warriors”, the public workers union strike has not yet effected the beer sales, just wine and spirits. Nice timing with the last long weekend of the summer coming up this weekend. Miss Laurie and Mister Sam were already up, and I just wanted to see Laurie before she headed out for her Sunday shift in the camp store. A bowl of cereal, and a cup of coffee and I decided to stay up and work on getting the toad prepared for our trek south, so I worked till lunch time on the new tow system then after a hotdog Mister Sam and I finished off last week’s blog, while enjoying some Clam time.

I keep thinking that an afternoon nap would be a good thing but there is always too much noise from the mini golf course, as Thunder sits parallel with holes 3 & 4 and with hole three being reasonably short and straight it seems to allow a lot of hole in one’s, which is cause loud shouting and cheering, so the whole nap thing just isn’t working out well for me. Another afternoon shift today so Miss Laurie will finish her shift as I’m preparing for mine, at least we will hopefully have a half hour for dinner at seven, so as I wait to start my shift I figured I should start this weeks blog. September the first on this Thursday, and we are counting down till our departure as September in the park is a transition month as the start of the winter resident’s will start entering the park.

Well tonight’s shift was reasonably quiet, with near 20% of the sites empty, most of the warriors are back at work, and other than a small gaggle of unruly kids from just one site, it would have been a perfect afternoon shift, but I had to stop at a site and suggest that the guardian of the gaggle should possibly gather up the children and take some control. I know you all must be struggling to imagine me trying to be politically correct in asking a parent to actually play the role of a parent, and control her offspring but I think I pulled it off and convincingly sold it. The rest of my evening was spent crawling under the hood of the parks dump truck to tune up a big block Ford, I only got it half done, this old fart can only take so much bending and reaching anymore, but I did the toughest side first, any one who has worked on a Ford V8 knows that the spark plugs on the left bank are the toughest to change, so I saver the right bank of cylinders for tomorrow night, so with a little painting of picnic table boards I finished off my shift. I was able to get back to the coach near eleven o’clock and sat and listened to an audiobook till midnight just to make sure there were no issues.

Monday and I didn’t get up till eight o’clock, the coffee was ready and I poured a cup before sliding into the recliner, and before my first sip Miss Laurie got a phone call from the manager, she is needed in the store this morning to cover another employees shift. She grabbed some toast and headed out the door, as she said, it is not a big hardship, because it saved her an afternoon in the office which is her worst shift of the week. It was a cool night with the temperature dropping to 12C (54F) the sun is shinning as I’m catching up on the news and the forecast high today is 27C (80F) and now they have added an 80% chance of rain at ten o’clock. I’m thinking that the weather swings here on the island are almost as crazy as in Arizona during the winter months.

So today is my Friday, one last afternoon shift before my three day weekend, my hope is to finish off the new air controlled brake system in the toad today, it will require removing the drivers seat to mount a pivot point for the activating cylinder, as well as the air line connector, and hopefully, testing of the operation of the brake, later today or at worst tomorrow. I presently have the toad connected to the coach already to confirm all the new connections, I have checked the lights, the ease of connecting the new tow bar, the air line connection and so far every thing seems good, my hope is that the tow height will be good but I will have to start Thunder to fill the air bags to confirm this.

With my chef already on her shift I was left on my own for breakfast, and my go to breakfast is a simple toasted Western sandwich, this morning it was on sourdough bread, if I’m living on the wild side I will make it an Eastern by adding a slice of cheese, but the cheese here on the island is just ok, we are still looking for one that we would miss when we leave. It’s now ten o’clock and as it clouds over I thinking it is time to go to work, because I have found the sooner I start these projects the sooner they are completed.

Well today didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked, but with any luck I will finish this project up tomorrow, some days everything just works while other days everything I touch, just turns to poo poo. And today was that day, but I think I have got everything back on track, and should be able to complete the install and test the new system tomorrow, the issues today had nothing to do with the new brake and tow system, no just another item overlooked by a high priced repair shop earlier this year.

My afternoon shift went reasonably well, I just had one group of kids that their guardian was too stoned to understand there was a problem, and they proved to be a pain in the butt, until near eleven when they finally went back to their site. So my shift consisted of finishing the tune up on the dump truck and rebuilding a picnic table, so my night should have been real easy. Oh I almost forgot I had to spray a wasp nest at the end of my shift, not a big deal, especially for me as our site is at the opposite end of the park. I am looking forward to a few days off before the last blast of the summer this weekend.

Tuesday and it was nearly eight o’clock before I ventured out of my warm bed, the sunshine is warming the day nicely, after a cool evening. Miss Laurie treated us with an omelet made with some hatch chilies, a reminder of our winter to come, and at nine o’clock I’m pecking away on the blog enjoying a cup of coffee. The news here on the west coast is full of crazy stories, like the tugboat strike that is causing nightmares in the cruise industry, British Columbia has tried to become a stopping destination for the cruise ships on their way to Alaska, and many of the downtown businesses have enjoyed the windfall of this, but now the tugboat operators are holding up cruise ship departures, by up to a day. I mean what could possibly go wrong with that plan? Then add the public service union, holding all the restaurants hostage in their liquor restrictions, and both of these actions on the footsteps of the COVID lock down that have caused havoc to the tourist industry here.

Miss Laurie has her shift in the office today and I’m hoping for a good day catch up around the coach, finishing off a couple of projects, as we are now under the thirty day mark till our departure. The day came together much better than the day before and I’m pleased to say we are ready to tow the toad to Mexico, now I need to install a new driveshaft in the toad. We have been noticing a vibration, when driving on the highway, that comes and goes, at any speed above 80 kmph (50 mph), and on inspection I found the hanger bearing on the driveshaft was failing. Of course the engineers at Ford decided that this shaft should be unserviceable, meaning that rather than being able to disassemble the shaft and replace a $15 bearing, the whole drive shaft has to be replaced, I tried to find a used driveshaft but soon learned that was not going to happen, so I have a new driveshaft being shipped from Ontario, and should be here next week, and I will install it on a day off.

After Miss Laurie’s shift we settled into the coach for a quiet night catching up on some YouTube videos, the island and the lower mainland are caught up in a excessive heat dome, but the evenings have been cooling off nicely making it good for sleeping with the windows open because of a cooling breeze coming in off of the water.

Wednesday and Miss Laurie and I are both off shift today, we have no adventures planned this week as it is the last week before the long weekend and we suspect most places will be too busy to enjoy. After an omelet for breakfast, Miss Laurie went to Duncan for this weeks groceries, and she found many shelves empty, there was virtually no meat to choose from, and many normal shelf item were gone. Luckily we did not need a lot so we were able to get us through till our Costco run next week, on the good news for some and bad news for me front, the public workers have gone back to work, so everyone can buy their booze and pot again, bad news for me because the weekend warriors will be drunk and high for the labour day weekend … oh yea.

I’m going to spend the day, cleaning up and organizing some of my stuff, I have a selection of hardware items that have helped me out dozens of times, but it needs some organizing, and today is going to be that day, so I set up a makeshift work area and have purged and sorted six trays of stuff. It is turning into a hot afternoon here on the island as much of British Columbia is setting new high temperatures, and we usually have enough of a breeze to get us through the heat of the day, but today that breeze is missing and we will end up running the coach air conditioner for a couple of hours to drop the temperature.

Just to keep me confused Miss Laurie has planned burgers for tonight’s dinner, I certainly like a good burger, but it used to be a Friday night thing, so I barbequed the burgers before settling into an evening of catching up on The Curse of Oak Island, before calling it a night.

Thursday and breakfast this morning was a toasted bacon and tomato sandwich, and similar to yesterday I’m going to work at starting to pack up our camp site, putting away some of the bird feeders, and getting the items prepared to get loaded into the toad ready. I think I’m feeling pretty good about the progress and will direct my attention to the basement this afternoon. I have an item at the post office to pickup but we are waiting for a second package to arrive, it is scheduled for this afternoon so I will put off that task till later. In the mean time I ran our time sheets to the office for our pay week, and have just settled into the Clam for a cold beverage and possibly a wee afternoon nap or at least a rest.

Because today is the first day of September I have just re-published our updated August windshield review, honestly not a lot happened in 2022 so it was not a major update, but I’m now working on September’s updates as it will be more changes as we start traveling again. Again it is a very warm afternoon, but the breeze is back so it is a very comfortable evening on the Island, only it is too noisy on the mini golf to have the windows open and watch the television, but at least the mini golf shuts down by eight o’clock so we can open the windows again before we turn in for the night.

Friday and Miss Laurie and I both have day shifts today, this is the labour day long weekend and the park is going to be full, with lots of long weekend events, movie night tonight, and additional things planned over the whole weekend, should be fun for some people. But this morning we start off with a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee before both heading out the door by eight, Laurie is wanting to get most of the plants watered before the heat really starts. So I start with opening the clubhouse then off to vacuum the pool. After the pool is open Bruce and I have to move a skid of chlorine to the pool chemical room. The chlorine for the pool is purchased in 205 liter (55 US gallon) drums and there are four per skid, so we used the tractor to move two drums at a time to the pool room. heavy enough work that it make my sweatshirt is now seeming like overkill pretty quick.

Then I’m on to the departure list, to clean sites as there are over seventy campers to check in today, the next item on todays to-do list is picking up pine cones between lots 21 and M, seriously I just can’t make this stuff up, so immediately after my lunch I spent an hour picking up pinecones off of the road. I have got to the stage that things do not have to make sense, I just do as instructed no matter how crazy it seems. After the pinecones we taken care of I spent the rest of the afternoon on dust control, which consists of driving the old dump truck with two containers full of water slowly around the park while dumping water onto the roads and after a couple of passes it is enough to keep the dust down for a day or so, again not my position to suggest more permanent solutions, I’m just doing as instructed. I finish up shortly after four Miss Laurie was done at three and we settle into the coach for a badly needed cocktail.

So dinner tonight was fish, Miss Laurie prepared some frozen fish fillets in the Ninja, and it turned out well, as we caught up on the local and national news The night picked up with enough noise from the park that we needed to close the windows of the coach as we watched the last couple of episodes of Oak Island, before calling it a night.

Saturday and I was awake at 6:30, it has the makings of a great day, it had cooled off nicely overnight and as I’m pecking away on the keyboard the sun is warming the coach, Miss Laurie is off to a shift at the camp store, she is filling in someone’s shift today, as usually she spends Saturday working in the gardens and with all the water restrictions right now there are lots of things that need to be hand watered. A pot of fresh perked coffee, and a toasted bacon & tomato sandwich has my day off to a great start, we seem to have moved past the heat dome that was setting high temperature records through out the lower mainland, and are now cooling down with the forecast high today being 24C (75F) and we even have rain in Sundays forecast and it could be a wet day for the weekend warriors but we surly need the rain, as we have not had any measurable amount for a couple of months.

My expectations are that I could be a bit of a crazy night ahead for me tonight, there is a Beatle’s tribute band coming to the park tonight put on a show from 8 to 10, then they will get everyone wound up so I can spend my night trying to calm them back down. And of course the management will wonder what the problem is, having events, that’s a great idea, but if you have a quiet time set at ten o’clock, you either have to make exceptions or you plan these events for afternoon hours. But again decisions like that are made way above my pay grade, I suspect that I will just respond to complaints tonight as it is the last long weekend of the summer, I will let you know how that works out for me … jus’saying.

Miss Laurie’s shift ends at 3:30 and mine starts at 4:00 so we just have moments to see each other, I took a quick trip around the park earlier this afternoon and I was surprised to see empty sites, a few people have pulled into day but it is not as full as I expected it to be, I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, only time will tell, I have picked up a number of things in anticipation of the rain that we are suppose to get early tomorrow.

Well the night was busy, with a wiener roast from 5 – 7 then the Beatles tribute band from 8 – 10, I helped move tables for the wiener roast and then helped move gear for the band as well as got the electrical power supply connected, and when it was over help tear down the gear as well. But it was a surprising quiet evening for a holiday weekend, it was certainly a lot quieter than I was expecting. Oh I had the regular kids on the play ground equipment after dark, but that is just another sign of today’s bad parenting, and the “the time out” generation as opposed to the “get you butt beaten” generation that I grew up in. I patrolled until midnight, but there were very few party groups out tonight, at midnight I pulled the plug and headed to the coach.

Fall is only 18 days away!

Blog 442

Day 1796