2013 Trip 11: another season draws to a close

Oct 2013- Cedar Cove, White Lake

Friday
An absolute beautiful fall day today, and the forecast calls for the same all weekend. Dale had the day off and I took the afternoon off work to be able to enjoy as much of this weather as possible and to get up to our site early. This was our close up weekend, where we prep the Alto for winter.
We have a great site at Cedar Cove, right by the water, our favorite spot. We make this place our last outing of the year, and actually our first as well, as having all three services helps get the Alto ready for storage.

Cedar Cove resort is on White Lake in a bay called Three Mile Bay.

Pulled in around 3pm, set up was easy, then pulled out the camp chairs and relaxed by the water. This pretty much summed up the rest of the day.

Aware of everything

A huge pealiated woodpecker swooped into the group of cedar trees by the shore. Those guys are huge, easily 18" high, black and white with a very bright red head crest and massive beak. Little wonder they are able to pound the hell out of trees, looking for tasty bugs, they are built just right for that. Nice sunset, but as soon as the sun disappeared it started to cool off quickly. Watched a vid, then called it a day.  This weekend we treated ourselves to renting two DVDs from our local video store.

Saturday
Chilly last night, dropping down to 44F outside. Our furnace and little electrical oscillating heater quickly heated up the Alto up comfortably. There was a heavy fog in the morning and it was not until the sun broke through near noon did we think it would be a nice day. It really looked like the cloudy weather had rolled in overnight. Some serious paper reading sitting in the sunny trailer was the activity of the morning, and not much else. It's nice having the campground store, which sells the paper, as provincial park stores do not sell papers, so this is a nice treat.

Barley doing what Barley does best

Nice walk around the park in the afternoon, everyone is closing up their seasonal trailers, cleaning up, raking leaves and getting it all squared away before the snow flies.

All tucked away for the winter

As a spur of the moment plan we headed over to their restaurant for dinner, deciding to let someone else do the cooking this evening.  It is just a few steps from the trailer, have a very nice dining room and a deck overlooking the lake.   Very nice decor with a bar and big dining area. The menu leans towards the traditional fare with a slight gourmet bent. Dale ordered their flatbread pizza with pesto, roasted chicken, brie with balsamic vinegar drizzle.  Very good tasting and I had a philidelphia steak sandwich.  It was nice to just sit and enjoy our food and take in the great view overlooking the lake. Another nice sunset this evening. Watched the another vid, a bit of the hockey game on tv, and then tucked in.

Sunday
Being Thanksgiving Sunday and that we are also camping we usually meet up with Dale's parents at a restaurant halfway between the campground and their place for Thanksgiving dinner.  It is our way of combining our last camping weekend and getting together for the holiday dinner.  This year we are trying something new, we brought our crockpot with us and cooked up a large turkey breast (bone-in) with vegetables, and brought our family dressing which we pre-made before the trip and heated up in  the trailer.

After breakfast we put together the turkey in the crock pot. The crockpot was on most of the day, an easy way to put together a meal in a limited space. It was overcast most of the day and rain was on its way. Split the bag of wood we had left over from Murphys Point to have a fire this afternoon when Dale's parents arrived. Not as nice a day, amazing how the lack of sun can make a day feel really dull.

Poked around a bit, then started the fire. We all sat around and chatted until some rain drove us inside. Smells of turkey filled the trailer.  Dinner came out successfully, very nice and easy, the turkey breast cooked nicely in the pot, along with the potatos and carrots and fresh herbs. Dressing on the side, as well as beets and cranberry sauce, a nice Thanksgiving dinner. A crumble topped pumpkin pie with whipped cream finished off the dinner. This showed us that it may be also a good Thanksgiving dinner plan for next year? After clean-up, watched a little TV, then hit the pit.

Monday
Woke up to bright blue sky and no clouds, the forecast had been for rain on Monday...bonus!  Today is our outdoor day winterizing the trailer so we were grateful not to have rain, and especially since Jim forgot his anorak at home. Spent the morning giving the tanks a good rinse and the pumping RV antifreeze through the water system. Winterizing is a relatively easy task. Headed out early as we spent the afternoon taking stuff out of the Alto and doing a little extra cleaning. Stopped in Pakenham for some fries and a few pictures.

Quite an impressive 5 arch stone bridge, barely 2 lanes wide

A good final weekend of camping, now we start planning and looking forward to next season.