Mark O'Reilly this one's for you

We've had some issues getting our awning to work properly but its all good now. After Marlan & I worked on it at Whispering Pines it was extended until we left Mara and it has been out ever since we got here. I've actually even sort of stopped worrying about it when we leave - I've got it tied down and it seems pretty stable. This campground is extremely well sheltered but this morning the wind was up pretty good and the awning came through that just fine.

This afternoon we drove over to Abbotsford in search of a U-Pick. We found a raspberry patch with the most amazing huge berries. They were so thick on the canes that you could actually see the red in the rows from about 150 yards away. We picked way more raspberries than we should have because it was just such easy picking and then we gorged ourselves on about 2 quarts of them on the way home. Which barely put a dent in what we had picked. On the way home it started raining and by the time we got back to camp it was raining pretty hard. This was the first time I have been able to stand under my awning and watch it rain.

Back in the days B.A. (before awning) when the O'Reilly and Sparrow families still came to Mara Mark used to sit under his awning on those rare rainy mornings that we would sometimes get. He would drink his coffee, read the local newsrag and taunt me about the fact that we didn't have an awning. "Hey Evans - what's it like over there under the awning. Ooops - forgot - you don't have one do you?" would ring out over the whole campground. Well today I got to watch the water drip off the awning while I stayed dry and life was good. It would be better if Mark was here so I could enjoy the dryness with him but its pretty damn good anyway.