Glad that's over with!

Yesterday was the first day that we start to take reservations here at the campground. It began at 8:00am, and the phone rang constantly. As soon as I finished with one person and hung up the phone, it would ring again instantly.

Although we have around 110 full hookup sites, 80 of them are taken up by seasonal campers. It's a popular park and there is also a waiting list to become a seasonal camper and there are around 35 names on the list.

So with only 30 sites available to the general public, it's no wonder the phone line never stopped.

But, I did this exact same thing last year, and so I had some experience going into it this year. I think I was a little faster taking the bookings and doing the computer work. The phone had pretty much stopped ringing by noon,  whereas last year it was closer to 1:00pm.

Last year, I took a total of 47 bookings for the day, this year it was 52.

It's a pain in the butt for four hours, and we've looked at other ways of doing things to try and make it easier for me as well as the people trying to make reservations (some of them tried for more than two hours to get through) but this way I'm able to talk to each person individually to get them into the sites that suite their needs. You don't end up with any double bookings or screw ups in any way, and in the end everybody seemed pretty happy with what they got. The whole idea is to have happy campers and even though this one day isn't a lot of fun, it's over pretty quickly and everything works out.

May long weekend is early this year. It's supposed to celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday on May 24th, but I guess somebody a few years ago changed it to be "the Monday prior to May 25th".

Well this year, May 25th is on a Monday, so the holiday becomes a week earlier. So we no longer celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday on her birthday. Anyhow, this year the holiday is the earliest it can be which means that May long weekend in Canada starts May 15 with the holiday Monday being the 18th.

We have two reservations for that weekend, although I'm sure a few of the seasonals will bring their trailers in that weekend if the weather is decent. It's typically a quiet weekend at this particular park.

Low water level at Lake Diefenbaker.

Our water level doesn't usually rise until mid June, but this year it's lower than normal. There was a very mild winter west of here and in the rocky mountains and so we're not expecting as much spring runoff. We're curious to see how it all ends up next month.

12 month chart of the water level.

You can see in the chart above that the water level is lower now than it was one year ago at this time.

We've been watching our owls, but they haven't been posing for photos very well....this is the best we've been able to get over the last few days...

Baby great horned owl twins!

We're in the market for a new GPS, but we need one that includes maps of Mexico.

So I've been keeping my eye on prices, and I did come across a great deal this morning although this deal is not for us because it doesn't include Mexico. However for most of you it's a good deal. Especially the deal for Canadians! Not very often a truly great deal comes up on Amazon.ca, but this is one of those times...

This 5" GPS includes lifetime free map updates, as well as detailed maps of both Canada and the U.S., and this is the cheapest price I've ever seen for this unit in Canada...

Garmin nuvi 54LM 5-Inch Portable Vehicle GPS with Lifetime US and Canada Maps on Amazon.ca - Canada

The exact same unit is also on sale at Amazon.com in the US, however it includes only maps of the U.S.. Still, it's a great deal if you never plan on leaving the States!

Garmin nüvi 52LM 5-Inch Portable Vehicle GPS with Lifetime US Maps on Amazon.com - U.S.