I love to camp.  Neil and I both do.  After a long afternoon hike, supper cooked over an open fire, a night sitting by a campfire under the stars, N and I are both struck with an overwhelming desire to never head back to the city.

My brothers had never camped before and thus were uncertain they would enjoy it, but enjoy it they did.  We took them out to Tobermory on the Bruce Peninsula.  The Bruce Peninsula is a little slice of heaven -- so beautiful.  

We camped in the Cyprus Lake Campground and our site backed onto the lake.  We hiked some rather treacherous trails thanks to Neil and his mastery with a trail map.  

Just sitting out on the patio, looking west.  Tonight, I'm trying to disprove the plane theory -- that by looking NW towards Pearson International Airport, you can always see a plane either landing or taking off.  In three years of looking, it would seem to be true.  There is always a plane in the sky.

We've had summer-like weather here in the GTA for a few weeks now, but tonight has been the first night it has been calm enough to hang out outside on our rather high up patio space.  Being on a property with 2 - 20+ storey towers means that you are often trapped in a nasty wind tunnel.  Not tonight though.  Tonight it is calm.  Slightly chilly, but lovely.

N is inside watching the Laker game so I have the space to myself.  

This morning we dropped off my old truck and picked up our new one.  Last weekend we ventured out to Sauble to camp... it was our last trek with the old girl.  May your new owners love you like we did!

Sauble was lovely.  Still way too cold to swim or really enjoy the beach, but it was sunny and warm enough by day to spend the day wandering in the great outdoors. 

Naturally, this being our first night this year in the tent -- the temp. dropped ridiculously low (you could see your breath) but N and I are troopers.  We were quite snug in our tent and slept until 10AM the next morning which is really spectacular for us.

To see more pictures from our first camping trip of the year, click here.

Neil and I decided it was time, once again, to load up the truck and camp for one night this weekend. So we decided to head out to Sibbald Point on Lake Simcoe mainly because it was within an hour and a half drive of Toronto.

To make the trip even shorter, we spent the night at my aunt and uncle's in Bradford Friday night. This is going to sound ridiculous -- but Neil and I both got severe sunburns while sitting on their back deck Saturday morning before we left for our camp site. Have a look:

Nasty!

Anyhow, we did manage to have a pretty good time while camping but it wouldn't be "our so-called life" if things went smoothly. Naturally there were a few hiccups on our trip.

The first being that we had reserved a site in advance, painstakingly handpicked by Neil and I to ensure close (but not too close) proximity to washrooms, water, etc.... When we arrived, we found a group of 6-8 teenaged girls camped on our site. Being the reasonable people we are, we drove around looking to see if we could come up with another site to take... but in the end, we decided to drive back to the camp office and complain. There weren't any nice sites left and we had paid a $12 non-refundable reservation fee by booking in advance.

When we got to the camp office, there were 2 girls from our site already there attempting to move?? or trying to register our site?? I'm not sure... but we were told to give them some time and that they would have to move. Neil and I agreed to this plan and then went off to explore the beach and wander around. Naturally, because this is Neil and I, and we seem to have "SUCKERS" tattooed to our foreheads, when we got back to our site -- over an hour later, the girls were still there and there had been no attempt to take down their tent. So back to the camp office we headed only to be told that the girls couldn't move because one of their cars was dead and it would be at least another hour and a half until a tow truck could come to move their car... (we think they killed the battery playing music...) Absolutely ridiculous!!

So the camp office gave us our $12 reservation fee, offered us an electrical site for no extra charge and gave us profuse apologies. We ended up taking a different site in a "radios banned" area which may have been a blessing as this park had loud and rowdy campers. Given that the sites were pretty picked over, I actually didn't mind the site we ended up with. My only complaint was that it was a fair hike to the washrooms which is not very appealing when you have to make the journey in the pitch black night. **

Finally, we were able to set up camp. After we had our site set up, we took off and walked the perimeter of the park (which was very large) and by the time we got back it was time to get a fire roaring!! The camp grounds themselves were pretty nice. The beach wasn't great but the water was clean and clear and that's always a plus. We hadn't packed for swimming so it didn't matter. I think after camping in BC, our expectations for what a camp site should be are pretty high and this one was only ok. Great for one night, but I wouldn't want to stay any longer.

Overall, the highlights were:

• our crazy sunburns -- come on admit it, Neil's burnt knees are pretty hilarious! (and to his utter mortification, he's wearing Toronto Maple Leaf PJ's in that picture. Bwa ha ha!!
• my wipe-out -- I slid on a muddy section of path and had a glorious wipe-out, complete with skinned knees and wounded pride. Neil naturally documented my humiliation but since he isn't here right at the moment I think I'll pass on posting any pictures.
• our favourite new boat name: The Off-Shoregasm
• freezing our asses off (it was a really cold night) and getting to wake Neil up at some ungodly morning hour to insist he start me a campfire. If you haven't had the chance to see Neil in his extremely agitated sleep deprived state you are seriously missing out -- he HATES mornings.

**To be fair to the park staff, we were very pleased to note that the park warden drove up to our new site later in the evening to offer another apology over the earlier hassle AND to bring us 2 bags of wood (a $14 value).

What to do, what to do... I just found out that it is apparently very hard to get good camp sites in Ontario if you don't book in advance. Sounds pretty straight-forward except for the fact that you can book sites year round here. In fact, you are strongly encouraged to reserve 5 months in advance. So if I wanted to ensure a prime site for, let's say, June 1st, I need to be planned and ready to book on Feb. 1st at midnight to make sure I get what I want.

Ok - so it's really not as bad as I'm making it sound as some dates are more popular than others. However, we were out at Neil's aunt and uncle's this past weekend and were chatting with their camping pals (they camp a lot - see side story** at the bottom) and I was just mentioning that we wanted to camp but that I hadn't picked where or when and that I thought we just pick a weekend and go on the fly... Well, I was told that wasn't the best of ideas. I guess my laissez-faire attitude derived from my experience with BC parks. In BC, the parks were not open year-round and NO reservations were taken until April 1st so I thought I had some time. Though now that I think about it, it is the middle of March... time to start thinking about it...duh!

So now I am trying to figure out (tentatively) when we may camp and have started researching the parks. I know I want to spend a day at Wasaga Beach (but that is close enough to be a day trip). I also know that the area around Thunder Bay was really beautiful when we drove through last summer... I want to find something relatively close for a weekend in June (maybe Sauble Beach) and I'd like to get at least one more weekend in sometime this summer - maybe around Thunder Bay (Kakabeka Falls), Sault Ste Marie (Pancake Bay), or Sudbury (Kilarney) -- these (parks) all seem nice.

Hello friends, is anyone interested in camping with us somewhere in Ontario?? Time to start thinking about it!!

Click here for more info on Ontario parks, etc

**Side Story**
These camper friends told us of a park that has yurts and apparently they are fantastic for winter camping. They went in Feb. and made it sound really fun!! Now I want to camp in a yurt in the snowy cold of winter. I know, I'm a freak. But I do think if the weather isn't too bad that it could be a really beautiful time of year to be out in some scenic provincial park.