July 14-15
I’m quite behind in my posts, so I’ll try to keep the next few summaries brief.
Had quite a nice dinner with 700 of our Safari Condo friends on the evening of July 14. Met up with Denis and Christianne just prior, and headed over with them and our Alto group.
Many of us were surprised at how well the serving went, and how delicious the food was when it got to everyone. There was a cheesy potato casserole with a superior filet mignon and it was truly (and unexpectedly) delightful. The wine, however, apparently ran out early and we had to satisfy ourselves with a marginal California red.
Many of us had to leave early to catch the Beatles show, and that was pretty good, but overly, incredibly, unnecessarily, painfully LOUD. If it hadn’t been for a very nice person in the row behind us handing me some earplugs, I would have had to leave.
The act was pretty good, with fun costume changes taking us through the songs of each of the major Beatles’ “eras.” But whether it was because they had to do two shows in a row without time to let their voices rest between, or if it was just the guys in the band, most of their voices were blown pretty badly by the time our show launched. The singer playing John Lennon was the best of the lot. Also, there was some serious orchestration going on behind the “fab four” and those musicians were stellar.
Another late night (it was midnight before we got back to the trailer) was followed by another early morning as we all returned to the site of our dinner for a mass breakfast. Again the food was totally excellent considering the number of plates that needed to be handed out. There were a few folks who missed out on hot tea, and the coffee refills were slow to come around, but overall the quiche-like breakfast casserole, fruit, bread, and sausages (bangers) were delicious. After brekkie, folks began breaking camp to join the “parade” to the Safari Condo factory, and self-guided tour.
We took our time, skipped the parade and the tour and went hunting for a place somewhere between there and our next stop in Ottawa.
Unfortunately, we got confused about where Denis had suggested we try, and by the time we messaged him and he got back to us, we were an hour past that destination. So he suggested a place that, when we found it, appeared to have a very long line of very big rigs trying to get in.
So we headed further west.
And finally pulled into a place another of our Alto friends had suggested, Parc National D’Oka, around 7PM. We were very tired, and when we hooked up at site 115, the pole with the power outlets was wobbly, and our voltage/wattage checker read “OFF.” Not good.
So we un-did everything and went back to the registration place to report that the electric service was not suitable. With apologies (“We’re so far away from everything out here.”) they re-assigned us to site 89, which was closer to the main road and check-in, and whose power pole was steadierut our safety unit still read OFF. Still, the ceiling vent powered up when we plugged in, and we were so very exhausted, we decided to chance it. Shortly after going through the minimal setup we slept like logs.
peregrinations 