It seems like I’ve been waiting a while for the lovely Spring weather at Valens! I spent four nights up there last week hoping for lots of sunshine and some warmth. I wanted winter, I really did, back in January and February. When it didn’t come, I gave in and accepted the unseasonably warm temperatures. Then, in March, winter returned and I didn’t want it!

The Wednesday I arrived it was unseasonably cold but fortunately Valens had a lot less snow than back home in Niagara. No shoveling to do at the park! It took a lot longer this time for the fiver to warm up, in part due to the malfunctioning fireplace. Yup, if you read some earlier posts, this is the second fireplace replaced under warranty. I brought in another small heater and ran that until much later in the day when the fiver was warmed up and of course, the fireplace finally decided to blow heat. The wind howled most of the day but I stayed warm inside.

Thursday was another cold day but at least the sun was shining! My friend Cindy joined me for a couple days at camp. We hiked around the lake and enjoyed a beautiful campfire which burned all day! I was reminded as our wood pile grew smaller that I’d better get back to splitting some wood at home!

Friday we headed into Cambridge to refill a 30lb propane tank, then on to an antique market in the little village of Freelton. This antique market, aptly called “Freelton Antique Market” was immense in size with just about anything and everything you could be looking for! Old and not so old items I suppose. A great place to go to kill a couple hours. We then hit the little bakery, “Bakers Corner” but were disappointed to find not many homemade goods left. Still, I have to say the light rye I bought was delicious! Cindy left late afternoon and I received word that my daughter and son in law were coming for dinner and to stay the night! I made a beautiful roast beef dinner in the crockpot and we had a wonderful night! We joined our winter camping friends Derek and Tatjana for a fire and birthday visit to celebrate Derek’s 50th! It was a very, very nice day and evening!

It snowed overnight and we awoke to snow covered trees and roads at the campground on Saturday. Winter just can’t seem to let go! We worked on our fresh water system and Dave was able to isolate where the trouble with the pump was. Behind the water control panel is a mess of lines and elbows going to different places. One of these elbows had come completely apart! We were able to reattach it and once that was done, behold – our pump started working! Once it started pumping pink, we noticed and cracked elbow leaking. I had spare parts from the last broken one, so we were able to fix it up ourselves. Although the lines still had pink in because we’ve never been able to use the pump to dewinterize, we pumped more pink through the system to test the pump. It worked flawlessly. So, when we’re back up again this weekend, we’ll be using our fresh water system! Yay! Hot water on demand! Honestly, I won’t miss having to heat up water to do dishes and it will be so nice to wake up and shower at the fiver instead of warming up the truck, putting on winter gear and driving to the comfort stations!

Sunday was supposed to be a little warmer, but we really didn’t hang around long enough to see. We left camp mid morning to head home. Joey sang me a song the entire way. Although both Joey and Sir Arles travel well, Joey talks a lot when in the dog crate. He’s not in distress at all and doesn’t mind traveling, he just likes to meow.

It looks like we’ll be up to Valens again this Friday for a couple nights and that will wrap up March. It’s so hard to believe after this weekend we only have two more in April at Valens. We don’t usually stay the last weekend in April, but we have to pay to camp somewhere and I’m really hoping to have some nice Spring weather. I’d love to hear the Spring Peepers in the woods behind our campsite!

Cheers and Happy Camping!!!