Because there was such concern about a place to go to - between fire bans and rain storms in the forecast - and FINDING a place that wasn't full up for the long weekend... we ended back at Wyndham-Carseland Provincial Park. $20 a night, gone up from last year, even if you are in a tent!! And the $20 gets you..... nadda. A smelly potty. No firewood. No drinking water. And if I had a trailer - no trailer hook-ups! And the campground was full!!! Go figure!!
All this whining is coming from someone who just spent time "roughing it" in the mountains! LOL But at least there, it was FREE!!
One nice thing about the campground, and the spot we were in, is that we were on the river side of the road/campground (WOW, is the Bow River ever low!!), and the spots have really decent space and trees between sites. So a person isn't camping on the neighbors doorstep, so to speak.
I got there at 11:30 on the Thursday morning before the long weekend. I didn't even bother with the closer loops, I went directly to Loop C, where we had camped last year. HOLY MOLY!! It's darn near full!! Wait, there is a combined site - # 154 & 155. Hmmm.... let check some more. By time I hit the end of the Loop C, I actually drove down the road the WRONG way to get back to the site FAST!! Damned lucky I was to find it!! (A combined site is two picnic tables, one fire pit, and lots of room)
So there I am, in this large site, just me and my truck. I get my tent and tarps put up.
My tent... (and tarps!)
Looked around and decided where the best place would be to have the girls' put their tent. Put up a tarp back wall and "ceiling" for them to have shelter - hooked it to a picnic table.
Also created a "kitchen" shelter. Okay, that's done. Now what?
It's hot. I'm getting some decent sun here!! Proceeded to split all the wood I had bought from C.T. WOW. Talk about nice dry wood!! In the meantime, some "neighbors" (read "guys") had passed by a few times, with fishing rods. Making comments about how busy I've been. Had an offer to go over to their place to have a wobbly pop. Do the smile and laugh thing (read "please go away" here!)
The girls called (gotta love cell phones!), they are on their way, should be at the campground around 7ish. Yep, about 7:10, they showed up. Horns blaring as they came down the road! LOL
We got them all set up under the tarps I had put up for them, with one eye on to the west, 'cause yep, it's beginning to look nasty!! Sure enough - here it comes!! Blowing and raining! Thank goodness they had put "walls" onto the tarps I had hung, but we still got dumped on!
Our kitchen, after the storm -
This is what it did look like, BEFORE... when I had made it all pretty!
And Deb, drying out...
This is Sophy, our resident wood hunter/gatherer
She LOVES to throw rope over dead branches and yank them out of the tree! Kept stealing my leather gloves, SOMEONE GET THAT GIRL HER OWN GLOVES!!
This was pretty cool, we had put one of the long tree branches in the fire, and kept shoving in as it burned; then we pulled it out later so that it would be out by time we went to bed. But it kept smoldering, and where there was a knot, the smoke curled out of it. Looked kinda cool, so I had to take a picture of it!!
Then Friday, it's cool and breezy. Which turns into COLD and WINDY by evening time. We all toodle to our respective tents about 9:45 p.m. cause it's just too damned cold! Poor Gracie shivered 2 nights in a row, but by the 3rd night I figured out how to keep her warm. Place a rubber backed fleece blanket down first, then cover her with another fleece/rubber backed blanket. Keeps her toasty warm. On Friday, I opened the truck door to get something, and she jumped immediately into the back seat and was NOT coming out!! "I wanna go home!" it was like she was saying. So I left her there for a few hours to have a sleep. :-)
But Saturday, awoke to bright blue sunny skies!
We had beautiful weather from that point on. Whew! Even got sunburned! Would rather have the crappy stuff at the beginning - nothing worse than putting away gear that's sopping wet!!
Unfortunately, I didn't take pics of this.... but get this - Deb dry shaves her legs. And Sophia actually has shaving gel with her, and proceeds to shave her legs!! White foam everywhere!! What on earth?????
And S - man, we began to call her "Ethel". You know, from the song "The Streak"?
Ethel! Is that you Ethel? What do you think you're doin? You
get your clothes on !!
Whoa, yes they call him The Streak!
Ethel, where you goin'? Ethel, you shameless hussy!!
Say it isn't SO, Ethel!!
Because she must have done at least 5 clothing changes a day!! We MADE her go under the tarps, so that the neighbors wouldn't be INcensed. (to quote the song)
We all read our books. Mine was "Chill of Fear" by Kay Hooper. Pretty damned good book.
And here is Deb, buried in her book!
Each cooked a supper. We had salmon. Pork chops. Taber corn. Baked spuds. Of course, we had to have weiners over the fire. And marshmallows!! :-)
Last night we played Crib - man, that Sophy creamed me every time!! Every time I'd lay down a card, she's peg points off of me!! Gracie got some swimming in; like I said, the river is LOW! Walked down to the weir.
Saw Great Blue Herons and Pelicans and Flickers, Chickadees came right into the camp while I was cooking breakfast one morning; and Goldfinch and sparrows, and some kind of strange black goose thing that made really bizarre croaking calls - there was a whole bunch of them up and across the river from the weir. Every so often, one would fly overhead, with this almost raven croak happening - continuously. For the life of me, I can't find out what kind of bird that was!! Driving me nuts!!
I finally got to see Deb's new tat... mine is on the small coloured one, and hers is the BIG one! LOL
So even tho it cost me $80, plus wood, plus food.... It was a GREAT weekend. Once the weather smartened up!!
Sophy left camp first. Then Deb & I kinda hung around. Took our time putting everything away. Visited. It was a nice way to finish the weekend. And then off to our respective homes... probably last camping trip this year!
I had taken the Tuesday after the long weekend off, so that I could do laundry, etc. Whew. In the process of cleaning stuff up, I'm thinking I need to do ONE more garage sale... maybe the weekend before the long weekend? Do the sale, and THIS year, take what doesn't sell to Sally Ann. Then maybe I'll have room in the garage to put away my camping gear!! LOL
TTFN
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