You just can't keep a good toad down, or at home. The lure of the open road has been too much to bear and here we are, out in Towed Haul, listening to the rain on the roof once more.
To be fair, this trip wasn't on whim; we have an appointment at the Avon Theatre in Stratford on Friday evening so thought we'd make a weekend of it. It isn't quite the weekend we had planned, though, because being the slipshod toads that we are, we forgot that this is the Labour Day long weekend, the last hurrah of the summer. So, when I went to book the camp site near Stratford that is "never full", it was, and had been for months. We find ourselves, therefore, in the KOA London campground, 60 kms from Stratford but a mere 200 metres from the 401 Highway, which is convenient if a little noisy.
Kampgrounds of America (KOA) are family oriented campgrounds that offer quite a high standard for quite a high price, right across America (and Canada it would seem). Airstream folk have differing views of KOA, often based on the cost and the presence of snot-nosed kids, but we find this KOA to be quite nice. It's certainly clean and tidy, has precious few kids about (at the moment) and is not that busy, so it's looking good right now. We've also had lots of rain, something that we now demand for all camping trips, so top marks to KOA. We're off to another one next week so let's hope they can satisfy all of our demands.
Anyway, back to the road. London (Ontario) is only about 100 kms from home but, strangely, is 100 Kms closer to Stratford than we would be at home and that, I'm sure you'll agree, is a bonus. The run up here was painless and, as mentioned above, as the campground is only 30 seconds from the highway, it was mighty easy to find; turn right at the London Husky is all we needed to know. It certainly made a change from the long days driving in the US, just a few short weeks ago, the car was hardly warmed up by the time we arrived.
Setting up without the Tadpoles presence was, er, smooth, and completed quickly. We put the awning out and, for once, weren't inundated with a monsoon grade rain storm, well not straight away, anyway. We settled down to a chicken casserole, put some music on and tried out the KOA's attempt at free WiFi. I say attempt because it isn't what I understand broadband access to be. However, connection was achieved, albeit very slow. As darkness fell, so did the rain but in a fit of unaccustomed foresight, we decided to bring the awning in, complete with Airstream fairy lights, just in case of further water events. As things turned out, it was a wise move.
Despite turning in at a reasonably early hour, reasonably and early are open to interpretation by the way, Mrs T was up and about at 3am, unable to sleep and intent on making toast. From my position in the back of the trailer it sounded like she was trying demolish the galley, although she did rush to assure me that she really was only making toast. Late night comestibles made and consumed (and duvet added to bed), we had another go at sleeping, only this time we were stopped by one of those thunderstorms that doesn't really want you to sleep. Rain hammered on the roof, thunder boomed and lightning illuminated Towed Haul's interior, ensuring a completely sleep free hour or so. As I lay there thinking that it had been a good idea to bring the awning in when we did, it occurred to me that I couldn't hear the road noise from the adjacent highway because of the din caused by the storm; see, every cloud has a silver lining. Boom, boom.
It was, dear reader, a struggle to surface in the morning. But we did, and those adventures will be in the next blog entry. Exciting, eh?
