2018 Trip 5: sun drenched relaxing

What are those damn flies? Zooming around your ankles at warp speed, they then land and quickly settle in to gnaw away at your flesh with what feels the point of an ice pick. Any attempt to swat or crush them is generally thwarted by their keen eyesight. Incredibly annoying little bastards.

Regardless of the flies on this particular trip, Driftwood remains one of our very favourite parks. Securing a waterfront site makes for a perfect stay. The sites are nice, the beach nicer, and the swimming is the nicest...or should I really say the floating.

nothing beats waterfront

Arrived on the Thursday before the Civic Holiday weekend, and backed into what is perhaps our favourite site. We took the opportunity to use the caravan mover wheels to manually position ourselves perfectly on the site, facing the water. The wheel set consists of two nine inch inflatable rubber tires, which are used in place of the basic plastic version. This double wheel setup provides a much greater footprint, which allows for easier movement along the ground. These wheels are available from the Safari Condo online store.

I had fashioned a T-shaped handle that screws into a fitting I added to the axle on the wheel set, and this allows the wheels to be pulled and steered at the same time. We were amazed how easy it was to change the angle on the Alto, especially when it was only a few feet of movement. Certainly not the same flexibility as offered by an actual caravan mover installation, but for small movements, it sure does the trick. I’ve detailed this in a separate mod post.

Once set up we went for a refreshing swim, and floated in the sun drenched water for the longest time. What a great way to chill out and start the weekend. The plan was no plan this weekend, so a whole lot of relaxing happened, with a few power walks around the park thrown in for good measure. Even our meals were super casual, typical basic camping fare, mostly revolving around the BBQ.

you can never have too many noodles

Naturally there were a few little things I wanted to have a look at from the mod side of things, and a newly arrived Weboost cellular signal amplifier had me plotting out how this would eventually be set up. One little mod that was a hit was the door screen. It was a hot and muggy weekend, and as it was definitely cooler outside, Barley spent the better part of the days in his little screened enclosure. We then put up the screen on the door opening, and gained oh so much more airflow through the Alto. This is a mod well worth doing for those with an R series...it can make a huge difference. I’ve detailed this little mod in a separate post.

those windows...

a contented little man

walked through our feet without a care in the world

simple...

a storm was brewing

The rest of the weekend was more of the same. The weather was perfect, but we did have a hell of a storm blow though late Sunday evening. As is the norm at this park, the wind just howled down the Ottawa river, big burly clouds, lots of lightning, a quick torrent of rain, then it was gone. Another front rolled through later, but it was more of a steady hard straight down rain. This was though, a welcome rain, anything to help combat the handful of forest fires that are burning in the general region.

We headed out in the morning, as it was overcast and very muggy. So yet another nice time spent at Driftwood, cementing in our minds that this is truly one of our faves.