As anticipated, we had a lazy day today, Wednesday. Well, mostly, and the car didn't move, which is always a bonus.
I was awake early, showered early in a surprisingly clean and sweet-smelling stall in the Comfort Station, and was just settling down to write some nonsense for this blog when I was seized by the idea that I should go for walk. So, at eight-fifteen I sauntered over to the beach, took my slides off and proceeded to walk along the water's edge for an hour. I had come prepared, though, with a wide-brimmed hat and a shirt with a collar that I could raise up to protect my neck from the sun, because even at that hour, it was getting warm. There was a brisk breeze coming off the lake that made walking quite pleasant, but it's that kind of windy weather that leads to sunburn, so I was glad of that collared shirt.
I walked half-an-hour southwards, and then half-an-hour northwards to get back to my original position. The waves were noisy on the shore, but it didn't detract from the cry of the gulls and the shrill "peeping" of the Killdears (A subset of the Plover family really, but Killdear is the local name, apparently so named for their distinctive call. I'd always thought they were Lapwings, but the Internet came up with the full difference between a Plover and a Lapwing, and should you be having trouble sleeping then you can read all about it here.). There are about twelve kilometres of beach from one end to the other at Rondeau, and while I only walked about two kilometres each way, I still saw just six other people in the hour or so I was out. Once you get past the public beach access points, it's only those that live in the cottages on Lakeside Road that are close to the beach, which is probably why the place always seems so deserted, even in summer.
The lake water was warm, I think because it's quite shallow hereabouts, and is great for kids to swim in, assuming you can look past the fact that it's not necessarily very clean water. The sand is fine-grained, although it is filled with all manner of detritus from the lake. Unlike the beaches on the edge of oceans, there's no tide to take stuff away, so there are whole trees washed up, goodness knows from where. But, it's a great beach, and as I say every time I visit, we are so lucky to live close by.
Then I settled into the serious business of doing not much of anything. I was getting my book read, which was nice, but still spent far too much time tooling around in Facebook and Bluesky. When we're at Rondeau we use our cell phones as hotspots for our laptops, and given that we have masses of data included in our (pricey) wireless family package, we never have to worry about breaching our data limit. Now that the screen hinge on my Windows laptop has finally given up the ghost, I took the Hewlett Packard Chromebook laptop this time, one that runs a version of Android as its operating system. Given that it was just a fraction of the price of a full-blown laptop, it performed very well. It's an odd little machine, though, and whoever designed this particular model didn't test it properly because quite often you can't read the grey letters and numbers on the silver keys. Maybe that was why it was so cheap?
Continuing with our rock 'n' roll lifestyle, both DW and I settled in for an afternoon nap; well, we are Seniors. The trouble was that it was past six by the time we woke up and we'd promised ourselves a joint run (walk, definitely not a run) to the beach. Still a bit groggy from the sleep, we staggered beachward and did make while still standing upright. The wind had died down quite a bit, and there were still a few people about, but it was still glorious on the water's edge.
After a supper of stew, a vegan-friendly stew, we sat out in the bug tent, under the string of coloured lights I'd rigged in there for Charlie, and chatted as the daylight disappeared. The park has been busy this week and I'd expected the campground to be noisy, but everyone seemed to be settled in by ten, and we were some of the later people out and about. We took a minute to view the stars, mostly because the light pollution isn't too bad on the lake's shore, and goodness, aren't they magnificent? Mind you, there seemed to be a lot of aircraft navigation lights in among the celestial bodies.
Tomorrow, Thursday, is packing up day. I love being out in the Airstream, but it's always nice to go home, too. There will be a lot of work between now and getting home, and the weather is promising a scorcher, so wish us luck.
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