Last weekend we pulled our trailer home from Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park. It was a bittersweet moment. We were sad that the camping season is over but the days are getting shorter and colder, and we're busy with the usual fall activities, so in some ways we were ready to see the end of the season.
This summer had it's challenges. As we have seen in my start-of-season post, we had a beautiful camp site. Bison Hollow #2 had a lots of shade and a great view of the lake. But even with ground mounted panels positioned out in front of the trailer, we had trouble with panel shading from the trees. It wasn't always a big deal, but on days with some cloud it did hurt our charging performance. If we end of in that site again next year, we might not park the trailer quite as far back, allowing the panels to sit further out from the trees. I will also quite likely add another panel so that we can charge faster with the sun we do have.
Another issue we ran into was that this summer was so hot compared to the last few. We had to remove the little freezer from the trailer as it ran constantly and used up a lot of power through the day. Combine that with a bit of cloud and it became quite a concern. So we hauled it home and replaced it with a shelf unit to store odds and ends.
Along with the hot weather, Saskatchewan experienced a drought as well. We had little snow through the winter, and that trend continued through the spring and summer as well. It got so dry that the Ministry of Environment implemented a fire ban, which eventually covered the southern 2/3 of the province. That meant that from July 14 onward we could not have campfires. Camping is just a little less fun without campfires to sit around in the evening! But considering how many grass fires had to be fought this year in the province, it was understandable. The firewood at the Landing this summer was very dry so it spit a lot of sparks which would have been rather dangerous in the dry grass. The fire ban was finally removed just the week before we moved the trailer home.
But on the plus side, we got to use our boat a bit more this year. The 135hp Maxum ran terrible last year, but worked great for us this summer. The kids enjoyed a knee board this year and our son Michael got to be pretty good with it! For our last outing with the Maxum, we took it down the lake from the Landing to the mouth of Swift Current Creek, a trip of about 10 miles. That's the farthest we've ever taken our boat, which we would never have attempted last year! We dropped anchor for a little while and had lunch while Michael tried fishing. He had a nibble, but whatever it was decided to swim off rather than be caught. But it was still a fun cruising the lake one last time!
So assuming the Landing has another draw for seasonal sites in Bison Hollow next year, Carla and I kept an eye on the other sites to get an idea which one's we would put on our preferred list for next camping season. As the park kept that side of the park closed until the camping season opened we went in a little blind this year, relying only on satellite photos and word-of-mouth to make our list, as we have never camped in Bison Hollow before. When the applications open for next year (in January) we'll have a better idea of what we want, having seen all the sites in person. As we've seen this year consideration has to be given to sites that allow good solar charging, but shade is definitely appreciated to protect us from the summer sun. It's a question of which one wins out when it comes time to rank sites on the application.
I'm looking forward to January when we start planning the 2018 camping season!
