I could have kissed the lady at the office when she told me that our site was a pull-through. No backing up! Although I have driven and backed-up on occasion a 6-horse trailer, it has been a very long time so I wasn't as sure of my skills as a trailer backer-upper anymore.
The campground was OK. Nothing fancy but it had a fairly nice pool and a small store. There was also a kids' playground from the 1950's complete with steel slide that would burn your legs as you would slide down when the sun was shining on it all day. The old steel teeter totter brought back memories also.
They also offered an adult only WiFi room since the only place you could get access to the internet was at the store/office. The room had old tables, a relic of a computer and it was sweltering hot in there. Thanks for letting me in this fabulous place to work or view my emails and facebook. So most time I would sit in the games room which at least would get a breeze once in a while through the open side where the weird little cars that you peddled like a bike were kept. We did get the internet once in a while in our trailer because of a quite expensive antenna that was supposed to pick up internet hotspots from a distance. It actually worked quite well once all the vacationers were gone after the long weekend.
Talking about long weekends! This place would get packed with tenters every long weekend (we hit two) and would be very busy during the regular weekends also. The campground always put on a dance on Saturday nights and the music would go on way past the curfew of 11 pm. We would go to bed hearing mostly the base go popum popum pum popum. I ended up knowing by heart the base partition of some of the most popular songs. Once the fire ban was raised after several nights of steady rain, it was nice to see all the camp fires with people sitting around them into the night. Firewood is not in our budget so we enjoyed our neighbor's fire pit.
We did meet some very nice people there, a couple from Texas and a woman who had just started full-timing by herself along with her beautiful Greyhound dog. I have remained in contact with them. Our immediate neighbors across from us were there when we arrived and were there when we left but never spoke to us or even looked at us. Strange couple with 4 dogs in tow. The dogs would spend the day in their trailer barking their heads off while they were gone to work (I think). They would take the dogs out for a walk around the campground and then back in the trailer. Not much of a good life if you ask me. The lady had amazing beautiful grey/silver hair down to her waist that she wore in a ponytail most times. I dream of having hair like that.
We did find a nice conservation park about 10 minutes from the campground where we took Cheeka for a walk almost every day. There was never anyone there so we could let her go off leash so she could run like the wind when she felt like it. She does get those spurts of energy when she runs widly and fast with a smile on her face. I started giving her a treat after those runs to show my admiration for her agility (as she often does that off the trail, jumping over branches and darting trees) so now sometimes, she'll run a small circle around me at top speed and stop dead for a treat. Smart eh?
The town of Ridgeway is really cute but I failed to get any pictures of it. The town of Crystal Beach has its own charm too and what I liked were the bikes hung on hydro posts painted different bright colours and surrounded by colourful flowers.
Crystal Beach also has a beautiful public beach (hence the name) and also a smaller beach by a park. We ate at the restaurant by the park which had a terrace right on the water. It was an excellent meal with a million dollar view!
We also walked in a bog - Wainfleet Bog. The first time we tried to walk there we were stopped by a park official because of high risk of fire. They had in fact had a fire there recently and were not taking any chances. We went back after the rains and the lift of the fire ban and were able to walk there. This bog is the result of a pocket of lake Ontario that used to pool there millions of years ago and has created this huge area of rich spongy soil very comfortable to walk on. I kept thinking of what a nice footing it would be for horses! We did reach the area that had burned and it was eerie to see all the burnt trees standing there with burnt leaves still attached. What devastation a fire can cause! I must mention here that the "bridges" we had to cross were very primitive. Reminded me of pictures and movies I saw of my dad on fishing trips having to cross makeshift bridges with their jeep. You would never see that in Burlington as people there would surely fall and break a leg or something.
We also visited Short Hill Park which was right beside a nice vineyard. The grapes looked ripe and ready to pick! There was a trail there that is paired with a trail in Africa to give the African people the same experience we have here. Quite interesting.
All in all our time spent in Ridgeway was pretty good even though we were trying to organize our space in the trailer and get used to the different rhythm of life that is the RV life. It is weird at first to think that you don't have to get up in the morning for anything in particular and you can stay up late at night if you want - but we would be ready for bed around 9 since it would get pretty boring reading and playing games on our tablets - remember we rarely got TV channels.
The next blog will be about our first move to another location with the trailer fully stocked. Stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment