Day three and a lovely late start. Nowhere to be in the morning so I thought I'd check out the KOA's facilities and see if they held up to the brochure's claim of "sparkling washrooms"; these are the things you do when you're camping, folks.
Yes, they were clean, if not particularly private, although the water smelled a trifle odd in the shower; I'm not sure why. The indoor, heated pool looked quite inviting, apart from the big black dolphin painted on its floor which gave me quite a turn, I can tell you. Not having our cossies, we thought about skinny dipping but really didn't want to frighten any children. I did check the long list of rules and it didn't say that we couldn't skinny dip but I suspect we may have caused a bit of a stir had we tried. Shame.
Then we indulged in a bit of camper watching, which involves sitting in your lawn chair out side your trailer, drink in hand, watching the other campers arrive and set up. Even with the limited experience we toads have, we can see when people people are struggling to set up, or not struggle of course, so we sat back and enjoyed the show. This was the Friday of the long weekend so from about midday, people started to arrive. First we had a guess as to which site they may be been sent to then, if it was close by, we'd watch the backing in process. Actually this sounds a bit cruel when I analyse it, but we've had it done to us so all's fair in the camping game.
Our first biggie was a huge, and I mean huge, motor home. Probably 35 feet long and easily 12 feet tall, this monster had been allocated the site to the rear of ours so we had ringside seats. I'd been ruminating on how a reasonably sized trailer would get in under the large but quite low bough of the tree on the site and now this behemoth was going to show us. We were a little concerned that all the paraphernalia on the roof of the motor home, air conditioners, aerials and the like, was going to get get swept off but the driver was obviously very experienced and expertly jigged and rejigged the beast until he was in safely; we even offered some additional eyes in addition to his backup camera and mirrors. Then the driver (from Saskatchewan according to his licence plate) set to and had all his services hooked up in minutes and we were most impressed. OK, so the barbecue that slid out on and rolling frame from the one of the panels on the side of the bus was impressive, but so was the guy's effortless set up.
We'd had half an eye on a pop up trailer being popped up, which was interesting, but then came the young family with their long, boxy trailer, setting up just a few feet away. The trailer looked quite new, as did their pick up truck, but the man of the family backed it in to the space quite easily, or so we thought. Initially he backed too far in and wanted to connect his services to the wrong site, which his wife and he disputed for a while, then they let the kids and the dog out, which was a big mistake. Having established the site boundaries (wifey won) he pulled forward but then realised that he was too close to the tree to allow his "slide out" to work. A slide out, for those non-North Americans amongst you is a section of the trailer wall that slides out in bay window fashion and gives the trailer a much wider interior; I think that's the principle Dr Who's Tardis works on. Anyway, more backing in and out didn't get them suitably positioned and now the kids were getting in the way, so tempers were fraying. Wifey climbed in the the truck and did some more backing in and out (Mrs T was most impressed) but it took her husband to finally place the trailer so that the slide out would work and they weren't encroaching on the other sites. Phew! We watched them set up, marveling at the array of wooden blocks they carried to help with the leveling process, and the swanky bricklayers spirit level they used to attain a level nirvana; I'll bet you could play billiards in that trailer when they'd finished. No sooner had their truck been emptied of bikes, barbecues and boxes, they all piled back into the truck and headed out somewhere, obviously they had no time to spare for billiards!
Curiously, the campground's maintenance team chose this time to start cutting the grass on some of the sites, including ours. Given that the place had been all but empty the day before, it seemed odd that the guy on the mower felt the need to whiz in and out of trailers and cars but maybe that's how he keeps his day interesting?
Trailers were arriving thick and fast but it was time for us to scrub up and head out for our theatre appointment in Stratford, so our voyeurism was going to have to be put away for the evening. Stratford Ontario is famed for its theatres and every summer puts on a festival where the paying public is treated to a number of Shakespeare's finest plays plus a few others; Mrs T can give you the full history of the Festival and how it's made the town what it is today. Last year we went to see West Side Story at the Festival Theatre, this year it was Jesus Christ Superstar at the Avon. Eagle eyed readers will spot that neither of these productions is Shakespearean but heck, we're in it for the entertainment. Besides, JCS had excellent reviews, even from old Lloyd Webber himself, so we knew it would be good.
Once we'd established where the Avon Theatre actually was (it wasn't where I though it was!) we parked up just yards from the place (on a meter that I made Mrs T stump up a $2 coin for, even though we only needed to pay 40 cents - I'm made of money, me) and instantly made a booking for dinner at Renee's Bistro because tables timed for the theatre are quite hard to get if you don't book ahead. We then mooched about for a while, looking in the shops and moaning about how hot it was, before returning to Renee's for our grub. The food at Renee's is very good and we left replete with only a short stagger to the theatre and the climb to very nearly the back row of the balcony; the only seats we could get at a price we could reasonably manage. Tut. There wasn't an empty seat in the place and most of the audience were bright young things; us oldies were in the minority as far as I could see. The last time I'd seen this production was in 1978 at the Cambridge Theatre in London's West End. At that time it had been playing there since 1972 and was looking a bit tired, but it was still great to see; obviously I was ready for some comparisons, or at least I would have been if I could remember that far back! As it happened, the production here at Stratford was excellent, taking much from the 1973 film but updating the dancing and costumes to make it a great show. The actors playing Judas and Mary Magdalene stood out as the best on the night but all the cast and orchestra were wonderful, even viewed from the back of the theatre! I have yet to get used to North American audiences; this one wanted to clap at the end of every song but, as the show moves along at a fair old pace, it didn't really help. Still, I'm just a crusty old Englishman so what do I know?
Back at the now almost full campsite, armed with chocolate bars and a funny DVD (Bill Maher's Religulous, a sure antidote to the evening's earlier religious theme), we wound down the night and settled down very late, tired but happy campers, just as we should be.
Saturday is a free day so maybe we'll see a movie or maybe a mooch around London's parks; it's days like these that make me realise that I do like this camping lark!
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