The First Of The Season

 

Well, here we are, the first trip of the season. It’s the last day of the long Victoria Day Weekend and us retirees have arrived at our other home, site 16 at Rondeau Provincial Park, amid what we Brits would call a heatwave. It’s high twenties (Celsius), not a breath of wind and, having set up the Airstream (and the Pleasure Dome) I am bathed in sweat and hiding inside the air-conditioned camper. I don’t think I’d be any wetter if it had been raining.

It's been an odd week of preparation. The garden, the shower, the water in the basement, and a trip to Hamilton all conspired to rob us of time to get sorted out, but here we are. Fortunately, the camper was clean, and I’d only had to give the outside a wash and the floor inside a wee bit of attention from the mop and she was good to go. Certainly, we had to put back those things we take out for the winter hibernation, and I did some little bits of maintenance, but she was more or less camping ready by the time Monday rolled around.

Hitching up isn’t the drama it once was because we know what we’re doing, and given that this is our fourteenth season, we really should have the hang of it by now. There’s always that little bit of worry, though, when you lift the tongue jack and let the car take the weight of the trailer, and the worry is repeated when you test the trailer brakes, and when you hit the first bump in the road. Of course, this time, with the new exhaust, we were hoping not to fuse any more plastic bags to the lining of the trunk, and we didn’t, which was a bonus.

Most of us have been behind a caravan/trailer as it lumbers down the road, so I do understand what it’s like, but we managed to collect a few eager beavers behind us as we rolled towards Rondeau. It’s not that I was driving slowly though, I was on the speed limit, but you know how it is, you see a trailer and it has to be passed. Most of those that did pass us didn’t really outpace us, either, which was a bit odd. Ah well, that’s driving in Ontario for you.

On arrival at the park, we had to sit patiently in the line to get to the waste tank dump station, which doubles as the water fill station, too. Nearly everyone was dumping, that is leaving after the long weekend, so the water fill island was free, allowing me to scoot around and approach from the other end, and without upsetting everyone else in the queue. Water tank filled, we still had to dump the waste tanks, part full as they were with anti-freeze and flush water from winter storage. I chatted briefly with a man who was just emptying out his big Fifth-wheeler’s black tank but had to make a sharp exit as it smelled like he’d been staying the weekend with a herd of incontinent buffalo. Emptying the tanks is never a great part of camping.

Given that this is our first trip of the season, surprisingly I did manage to get the Airstream well positioned for the back up on to the site, which was a good start. We took our time to back in and with hardly any wiggling around, set ourselves up with only the tiniest bit of sideways lean. It wasn’t the mechanics of parking that was the issue, it was the heat. Temperature in the high twenties isn’t really seriously hot, but I don’t think we’re used to the heat yet this year, and it was humid, too, as it often is down here by the water. We had a bit of a time crunch as well, with Emma and Charlie about arrive at any second. Setting up camp can be a bit of a chore, but it gets fraught with frustration when there’s a three-year-old trying to help. They did arrive and we did finish setting up, but I was a big ball of sweat and irritation by the time we were done, so DW whisked the young ‘uns off to the Camp Store for ice cream while I sat inside, cooled down and decompressed. All praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster for inventing air conditioning for travel trailers.

Supper was taken, another ice cream was taken, and the kids were hustled back into their car so they could go home and leave us in peace. We in turn broke out the booze, sat out under the awning and relished the copious birdsong echoing through the woods, and stayed doing that until the bugs started to bite, and then we repaired to the Pleasure Dome, our fancy new bug tent (it really did take just a couple of minutes to erect this time), to continue the relaxation. The weather was looking a bit grim as the light faded, with forecasts of thunderstorms and heavy rain, so the somewhat fragile ZipDee awning on the Airstream was rolled in for the night, and the tables and chairs put in the car. We left the Pleasure Dome up, though, as it was securely pegged in place. An early night coincided with the start of the rain, but we both crashed out quickly despite the thunder and the hammering of the rain on the roof.

A not unsuccessful first day, or rather afternoon, and we survived the hot and humid weather. Tomorrow we are on our own and the number of things we have do is resolutely stuck at zero.  Happy days.