Sunday, August 22, 2010 (Clearwater Lake Provinical Park, MB)

It was cloudy and a little windy this morning when we got up...good day to go do laundry. We loaded 4 big bags...everything was being washed, including all bedding and bath mats...into the truck and were off to The Pas just after 10:30 a.m.
We easily found a Laundromat right on the main street. It was a big one having about 18 washing machines...which meant I wouldn’t feel guilty about using 6 of them. While I started loading the machines, Steve went to fuel up the truck and see if he could find a grocery store open...things were pretty quiet in The Pas this Sunday morning. He returned to report that neither IGA nor Extra Foods were open...but good news, the liquor store was! It’s a privately owned liquor store that even gives Air Miles points!

So...we had the usual fun time waiting for the laundry. It was good that we got there as early as we did because as we were finishing up, it got pretty busy in there. I guess Sunday was laundry day for The Pas residents. It was one of the more expensive Laundromats...$3 each for the washer and dryer...by the time we were done, it had cost us $42!

As it turned out, the grocery stores were open on Sundays...just not until noon, though. So after we finished folding and packing our clean laundry back into the bags and hauling it back into the truck, we stopped at IGA which was located in the mall. I was expecting the prices to be pretty exorbitant here in northern Manitoba but they weren’t bad...I was pleasantly surprised. Mind you, we still spent over $170!

I drove the truck back to the campground...I needed the practice driving it, besides it was nice to give Steve the “passenger” experience. It’s a big brute to drive, but actually very easy once you get used to it. I stopped at the park entrance and let Steve drive the rest of the way into the site while I went into the office to pay for our last night. The Conservation Officer was also there so I asked if they had caught the bear...no, not yet...they hadn’t seen it for a few days but it was a weekend and he usually only comes around during the week when there are fewer people around.

It was almost 4:00 p.m. by the time I got all the laundry put away and the bed made up. Steve had been cleaning up outside and putting the barbeque away in preparation for our departure tomorrow. He then got a fire going so we could enjoy our happy hour sitting by the campfire. Just as he got it going, it started to rain...sheesh...but we decided it wasn’t raining hard and didn’t think it was going to last, so we sat out by the fire anyway. We were right, before we knew it, the sky was clearing and it was turning into a nice evening.

After dinner, we went for a power walk around the campground...this is a good routine we are getting into! It was lovely out and there was a beautiful sunset happening with a great view at the lakefront but Steve hadn’t brought his camera. Of course, I hadn’t either but the funny thing was that he was going to but then decided not to bother...and there ended up being numerous things he wanted to take pictures of while we were on our walk. Once back, he went out again with his camera to get pictures of the bear trap and the yurts.

We sat out by the fire for awhile then headed in to bed. We wanted to get on the road fairly early tomorrow.