Rubber Ducky Resort & Campground – A family campground located in Warren, near Winnipeg, Manitoba

Today is the proverbial April showers day to bring May flowers. I am just glad that it is rain showers, not snow showers like Alberta got this week. It is not much of a camping day today, but they are saying things will improve dramatically for the weekend. Right now the forecast calls for sunshine starting Friday morning all the way into next week.

The good news this week is that the water is now flowing into the pool. It won’t be quite warm enough for a swim this weekend, but it is always good to see it full of water. The hot tub is still out of the hole to get the jets replaced. This has turned out to be a rather large task which we don’t want to have to do again anytime soon. So, if you or anyone you know has ever sat in a hot tub and poked and played with a jet, please stop.

 We are going to have hot waffles again starting this weekend. Like last year you can have plain or chocolate chip and we are also adding saskatoon waffles to the menu. I’m not sure if everyone knows what a saskatoon berry is but in a nutshell they are a purple berry similar to a blueberry. Saskatoons are native to Manitoba and grow wild in lots of places. I personally grew up eating the berries fresh off the tree and still go hunting through the campground bushes in search of ripe berries every summer.

We have poker night planned for Saturday evening at around 7pm. You don’t really have to play poker if you come since it is really just an excuse to get together on a small town Saturday Night.  We have one of the new rental hot tubs still set up and getting test driven. Last weekend we got it up and running and had a few willing volunteers to help make sure everything worked as expected. And as expected it was warm, bubbly and relaxing. One interesting feature that we didn’t really know about was that it has a waterfall and fancy light system in one corner.

I have been getting a fair bit of feedback about our new advertising campaign. You will recall from my previous posts that we had put some signs up around Winnipeg. Well I am ready to divulge all the details- we have 5 bus benches around town. The ones at St James/Ness, and St James/Ellice have been identified on Facebook by our winners Nicole Abbott on Rubber Ducky’s Fan Page and Justin Park on Scrapyard Paintball’s fan page. The others are at Ness/Sharp, Grant/Oakdale, St Annes/Barton.  Nobody has mentioned the one on St Annes to me yet so I am starting to wonder if I picked a bad location.  I have not seen the benches myself so if anyone has the opportunity to take a picture and send it to me I would be very appreciative. Just don’t do it while you are driving please.

It has been a busy couple days around here as we get full swing into Operation Spring Cleanup.

• The rec building is undergoing a complete spring cleaning complete with all the chairs steam cleaned.
• The pool is now all melted and we have started draining, cleaning and etc to get it ready to open (I personally don’t really know what all the steps are to opening the pool so we are just going to call them ‘etc’ lol
• The hot tub is out of it’s hole ready to get some maintenance done.
• The biggest project this spring is the replacement of the carpet on the mini golf course which is coming along quite good. The guys got a good start on it today and shouldn’t take much longer to finish.
• Last on the list for this week will be to bring home our Rubber Duckies

Many of our seasonals have also started their spring cleanup.  There have already been a few out this week to rake leaves and cleanup the winter ickies. If the weather holds up I am sure there will be a lot wandering around this weekend. I have already talked to a few that are planning to come out and some will even be having their first overnight camp of the year.  After tomorrow the shelves in our store area will be almost stocked . I will have all the important things like chocolate bars, chips and candy ready for sale ; ) I think there will be some strawberry slushees available this weekend too.

I heard a rumour today that Scrapyard Paintball will be opening April 24.  There will be some season opening specials happening but I haven’t got all the details so will post the information once I get it.

I have got a few reports of people spotting our bus benches. We have had our first person post on the Rubber Ducky Facebook fan page, but are still waiting for someone to post on the Scrapyard Paintball fan page.

Yes, believe it or not I have campers staying here today. Some of our seasonals had made plans when the forecast was much better and still decided to come out anyway.  Really it is not much different than Thanksgiving weekend was last fall and I don’t think last May long was much better on the Friday evening. They won’t be having any bonfires but they said it is still nice to get out of  the city and relax with friends. I just hope that we don’t wake up to snow on the ground in the morning.

Was anyone made the fool this morning? I was watching Breakfast TV this morning and their fool was a story about a seeing eye cat, also heard of someone doing the traditional turn all the clocks ahead and make someone think they are late. Me, I got no fools this year. Last year I think my joke was that the campground was open and the pool ready for swimming. Of course there was still a foot of snow on the ground so that actually somewhat worked. This year, not so much.

I made an executive decision the other day to ‘officially’ open the campground today. Really all that was involved was posting on our website that we have some sites open. We are having a much busier spring break than in past years. I am going to give a lot of credit to the weather as it has put people in a much better mood than if there was still that foot of snow. We have had a couple staying in on of our rooms all month, but they are ready to head out today. They have purchased a fifth wheel and it sounds like they will mostly be going wherever the wind takes them. I had another family in a room for a couple nights earlier this week.Yesterday,  I got a last minute booking for a room tonight, and I already had a booking for two rooms for Friday and Saturday night. Wow.  Hopefully this is a sign of the season to come and not an April Fool’s Joke.

I had some seasonals asking about getting early power so that they could stay out this weekend, but now with the forecast change I am not sure if they will venture out. Unfortunately Friday sounds like a write off with lots of rain on the way. Hopefully they are wrong yet again.

I have been finalizing the advertising for our 2010 campground map. We picked up a couple new advertisers this year – the West Interlake Trading Company ( http://www.westinterlaketradingcompany.com) will have an ad. Another new advertiser is The Creative Cake. Crissy is will custom make a cake to whatever you want. You can see pictures on her facebook group http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/group.php?gid=121230273882 or for nonfacebookers I have posted a few of the pictures here. Last year there were quite a few camping birthday parties held here so I am thinking that once the word gets out she might get a few orders from here. She is based right out of Warren, so would be handy to go and pick the cake up and not have to worry about storing a big cake while camping.

   It is amazing to see what she can create.

I never thought that I would hear myself saying this in March, but if someone drove in the campground today towing a camper I wouldn’t hesitate to say sure I have a campsite for you.  Of course that is not likely to happen but if things keep up like this we will be ‘officially’ open quite early this year. I actually had some seasonals inquire about staying overnight next weekend. Normally the power to the sites is not turned on until April 15, but it looks like we will be making special arrangements for this unusual year.

As of right now the weather network is saying we will see a high of 18c tomorrow. I really, really hope so, but like everyone else is thinking we will believe it when we see it.  Sounds like perfect spring break weather to me.

I am just planning out my advertising for this season with part 1 beginning next week. This is a joint effort with us and Scrapyard Paintball. I can’t give away too much information because we are planning to do a contest in conjunction with the advertising. Let’s just say it will involve 2 people winning free camping and free paintballing. I am going to try running the contest through our facebook pages, so if you are not already a fan you may want to become one this week. The details will be announced on April 5 and then all you have to do is keep your eyes out for our ad.

I must admit to just having one of those well blonde moments (my apologies to any blondes that are offended). At this time of year it is quite common to have people come out just to drive around and have a look. So I am in my kitchen and am watching this van drive around and making sure this is what they are doing and all is well. Then I see it stop in a strange place near the back of the campground and sit there for quite a while. Not really somewhere that you would be looking around at anything so I’m trying to figure out what they might be doing and then they drive out again. So I’m thinking that is a little weird but oh well. About half an hour later I get email from geocaching.com that someone has posted a log entry on my geocache and ‘click’ on went the lightbulb.  I put the cache right close to where they were parked and really should have figured out what they were doing but nope nada did not clue in.lol

Manitoba Campground Association area of RV Show

More of the Manitoba Campground Association booth

Next we go to the Parks and Beaches area of the Manitoba Adventures display. We were volunteering for the Interlake Tourism Association and they had a big part  of setting up this area. This was a busy section of the show as you can tell there was lots of stuff to look at and they had some highland dancers stop by and put on a show while we were there. I heard a rumour that the Eriksdale Creamery Museum was going to be there churning some butter on Saturday. A big Kudos to Gail From ITA, Jacques from Oak Hammock and everyone else that helped to set things up because it was a great display.

The Marsh and Boardwalk area (note the Rubber Duckies)

This guy was just hanging out

Jacques from Oak Hammock Marsh was measuring people to let them know which birds had the same wingspan as they did.

Some of the local wildlife

The show wasn’t just all fun and games. We did some work too. After much examination of the hot tub that Krevco donated to the MACAP site we decided it was time to upgrade our rental hot tubs.

I think this weekend is the unofficial start to summer dreaming in Manitoba. It is the RV show at the convention centre. We will be there tonight so if you are coming down stop in and say hi. We will be starting the evening on the main floor in the Manintoba Campground Association booth. We are at the bottom of the escalators as soon as you walk in the main entrance. Also on the main floor is a whole bunch of tent trailers. I am not sure what all is on the second floor since many exhibitors hadn’t set up yet. There are usually displays from Krevco, Happy Camper, and a bunch of other camping related retailers. The third floor is where everyone always goes Wow. This is full and I mean full of all sorts of RVS. Everything from normal size family trailers up to the big diesel pushers. It is interesting to just walk through and see what kind of new toys are available. Right in the middle of the third floor is a display that represents the 5 tourism regions of Manitoba. One of which is Interlake Tourism Association and this is where we will be finishing off the evening. They spent many hours working on the display and they have even set up a whole mini marsh area complete with boardwalk.

I am sure we have all been watching the snow disappearing over the last few days and hoping. I am trying to remain positive and think that spring is really here. But, a little piece of me seems to remember that last year went much the same as this and then wham, we got hit with another storm. If we dare listen to the weather forecast that won’t happen this year. In fact according theweathernetwork.com it is going to stay about freezing for the next 2 weeks. One can only hope. We deserve an early spring and a hot summer.

This post came my way via facebook and I thought I would share in case anyone out there can help Gail and our community out.

From Gail Spencer Lamm I have been asked by my employer, the West Interlake Trading Company, to organize a “Turkey Shoot Fundriaser” in the RM of Woodlands area – seriously I don’t even own a gun. Somebody out there is going to help me with this, somebody who knows all about it. Are you that person? If so please contact me right away because… right now I’m crapping my pants a little. Thanks!

If you are that person or know of that person you can contact Gail directly through http://www.westinterlaketradingcompany.com/ or I can also put you in touch.

There has to be someone out there who knows something about this and hopefully she can find them.