Hot, Hot, HOT!

 We went camping last week at Woodlands campground, it's one of the Parks of the St Lawrence. It's located on an island on the Long Sault Parkway on the St Lawrence River. We were facing Ontario and not New York state at this campground. The weather was very hot so we didn't do very much at all during the week.

I arrived first; they no longer give out campground maps nor were there signs directing you to your campsite, I couldn't find the road to my campsite. I had planned to try to back in but after driving around once, I decided to just drive over the grass to get to my site. Afterwards I found out I was turning, one turn too soon, had I gone a little further I would have been on the loop that went to my campsite. 

My sister and brother in law arrived while I was still backing the trailer in place. From the time we arrived until just before 5 pm, they mowed the grass in the campground. We thought it was a maintenance day after the weekend and that would be all we'd see or hear of the lawnmower. No such luck, they started at 8:24 am on Tue, 8:14 am on Wed and 8:35 am on Thurs. On Thurs, thankfully there wasn't hardly anything to mow so the mowing didn't last all day, that and there was a few downpours during the afternoon. 

The first night was a bit of a crisis, my sister and brother-in-law got locked out of their trailer and had to sleep in their car. They had the trailer keys but they weren't working. An early morning call to a locksmith got them back into their trailer. It turned out that some screws inside the lock had been shaken loose and the deadbolt had slid across. 

We did have a beautiful sunset the first night due to all the wildfire smoke in the air. 

We didn't do much on Tues but try to stay cool, chasing the shade from two big maples around our two camp sites. I took the dogs for a walk to see if I could find a place for them to get in the water. There used to be a few places where there was a sort of path on the shoreline but most of it has grown over.

It was even hotter on Wed. I had made plans to go visit a friend in Cornwall about 30 minutes from the campground.  My friend has Shelties too, as a matter of fact, she had the litter sister to my Beckett. We thought they would enjoy playing but at 34C, they didn't even want to play a little; the dogs just wanted to be inside with the air conditioning. She invited another friend and her Sheltie over too.  All the dogs except Teddy are from the same breeder.

I did take Teddy and Liam to get wet when we got back to the campground. We tried the boat launch across the road but it filled with algae and branches so we went back to one of the campsites where you could get down to the water.  It was a bit grassy but Teddy didn't mind and even Liam didn't have to be coaxed to get in. That night we had a bit of a downpour. I got up to make sure rain wasn't coming into the trailer as with no AC, I hadn't closed the door, just had the screen door closed. After I got back in bed, there was flash of lighting and a crack of thunder that seemed like it was right overhead, then almost immediately the rain stopped. It was kind of weird.

The next day, it was still hot in the morning but there was a weather front that was to move through and the temperature was supposed to drop. There were weather warnings about hail, wind and even possibly tornados. In the afternoon, we went to a dog-friendly brewery, the Lost Villages Brewery. I think Teddy and Liam were happy to relax on the cool concrete. They got a bowl of dog beer and a cookie too.

The wind had really picked up by the late afternoon.  I was making pulled pork sandwiches for supper. We served them food truck style. I kept all the toppings in the trailer and after getting pulled pork onto a bun, I put whatever toppings each person wanted on their sandwich. Had we put the food on the picnic table much of it would have blown away. The temperature did drop; it was a good thing as the wind lifted up my awning up over the trailer so I had to take it down and so that last night I had to close the door to the trailer. In fact, the temperature dropped so much we had to put on pants and jackets and the fire was for heat and not just camping décor.

So we made it through another camping trip with stories to tell, being locked out, lawn mowers, more good food and beer, and on the this trip, the HEAT!  I hope on our next trip it won't be so hot or at least that it will cool off in the evening.