2012 Trip 10: closing the cottage...sigh

Cedar Cove, White Lake - Oct 2012

Headed out on Saturday of the Thanksgiving weekend. Our last trip of the season, to a White Lake trailer resort where we winterize the Alto to put it away. Nice drive through beautiful countryside with full fall colours everywhere.
Stopped in the town of Pakenham to check out the Pakenham General store which is a favorite stop of ours. It is a well run business that makes excellent home-baked goods, including cinnamon rolls and butter tarts.
amazing butter tarts found inside...
Arrived at Cedar Cove and it shortly went from sunny to dark skies, then came down a mixture of rain and snow. Thank goodness that it was short-lived, because it was pretty ugly for a while. We were already set up by this time, which is always a bonus. Quite a few campers here this weekend, and by that I mean trailers, as most of the sites here are seasonal. Put the heat pump on to take the chill off, and it soon became quite toasty. Relaxed and read the paper in the afternoon, and grabbed a nap as well. 
Dinner is fresh pickeral fillets, floured, seasoned and fried in butter on the BBQ griddle. We brought our awesome little rice maker along, and cooked up some brown basmati with lemon and dill. A tasty and light dinner. Maple butter tarts for dessert, from Pakenham. Getting cool, and it may go down close to freezing tonight. No worries though, given our multiple sources of heat. We are now prepared for most any weather.

Sunday
Low temperature was 38F last night, but we kept the little electric oscillating heater on low to take the chill off. According to our indoor thermometer, the lowest it got inside was 58F, quite comfortable for sleeping.  In the morning, we put on the new furnace and with the sun streaming through the window it warmed up to a high of 78F.  We took it easy staying inside sitting in the sun and reading newspapers, our favorite past time.
a paper or a Kindle... either works fine
Today's expected high is 8F but it feels much warmer due to the sun.  In the early afternoon we went out and took a walk on the trails around the edge of the lake. This is quite a large campground with numerous seasonal trailers and lots of park models. One clearly contained a Habs fan, given this sign in the back window.
A nice hike around the grounds, but the clouds soon rolled in and changed the temp a lot. Hung out inside, where it was still nice and toasty.

lined up and waiting for the snow
Lounged around the rest of the afternoon, then I worked on a little project. Ian, of Ian & Karen, who bought an Alto last year, emailed last week to say that he had moved the cutlery tray from one side of the pullout tray to the other. This made perfect sense to do, because as it is now, you have to open the door the entire way to be able to pull out that little tray. This will be a lot more convienient. Simple task as well, a few screws, a few drilled holes, and we are done. A great simple project with immediate results. Fabulous sunset this evening, so we went down to the water and took some pics...
Dinner this evening is Glebe Meat Market chicken kabobs and ceasar salad. These kabobs are very tasty, whether it be the beef or chicken versions. Anything that includes bacon is automatically awesome. The ceasar is from Marty's cookbook, the guy of Muskoka Diner fame. His ceasar dressing is fabulous... simple but classic.
After dinner we watched a really bad movie called Garden State... written, directed and starring Zach Braff, in a totally forgettable piece of cinematic drivel. The only good part was the closing song by Imogen Heap... Might go down below freeing tonight, so I suspect the little oscillating heater will get a bit of a workout tonight.

Monday
Not quite below freezing, but damn close at 34F. Inside it went to 57F, which is fine for sleeping. The grass and leaves outside are covered with frost. Turned on the furnace to give the electric heater a bit of help and it was soon once again toasty warm in our little enclave. Walked up to the comfort station for a nice hot shower, not many stirring this early in the morning, had the place to myself. Dale brought the small crock pot and put together a root vegetable dish for Thanksgiving dinner later this afternoon. Before we leave today we will be cleaning the tanks and pumping the RV antifreeze through the water system.

Winterizing went well, as it is not that difficult a job and this being our 3rd time, it is almost old hat. Gave the Alto a good clean and wipedown, so now it is looking extra spiffy. Pulled out around 1:00, all set for storage, which is kinda sad, as it marks the end of another camping season and a 6 month wait till the next one. It was a great season though, covered a lot of miles, saw a ton of new sights, and met a lot of interesting people on our way. Can't wait till next year already...

5 comments:

  1. why not extend the season into early winter?

    Peter

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  2. Peter,
    One of the main issues with trying to go longer into the season is finding places to camp at. By this time, most provincial parks and private campgrounds are closed, so you run out of places. As well, the 9-5 job hinders the ability to venture further.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey, did you see they're working on a 1743 fixed roof Alto?

    ReplyDelete
  4. last comment was from me, Peter.

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  5. Hey Peter,
    I just saw that the other day on their site. A nice looking design,and it seems tall enough to stand up in. Would have been nice if they could have curved the upper part of the side windows like on the original Alto, but that would surely add to the cost. Lower price point is nice, but to me it all comes down to the side windows of the original design...they make a huge difference to the spacious feel of the trailer. As well, the lower profile tows so well. Nice to see the company is clearly still continuing to innovate. Can't wait to see more photos.

    ReplyDelete