This week we decided to try our hand at camping with Alex.  After having all of our stuff stowed away, I took to cleaning out and restocking the camp totes.  I had one moment of hilarity when I mused aloud to Neil that there were a few items like granola bars, etc in the totes from our last outing that were long expired, "why didn't we camp last summer?"  Duh! Might have had something to do with giving birth.

I then took to the web to try and book us a site for a couple of nights.  While still debating on where to go, my cousin Katie told me of her plans to camp with her boyfriend Jeremy and their dog Cash out at Awenda Provincial Park.  We were invited to join them and we did in fact meet up with them.

It was a lot of work to get set up and to watch Alex but he was having so much fun exporing our site that it was hard to get too upset that things were taking longer than in our pre-child experiences.  Alex is so naturally curious he was touching everything: trees, rocks, dirt, camp stuff.  He crawled into our half setup tent.  He kept checking the tires on our truck.  He chased his ball all over the place.  

One thing that shocked Neil and I was that he insisted on walking everywhere.  No whining for mom and dad to carry him.  He walked to the playground, to the bathrooms, to Katie & Jeremy's site, etc.  This was a lot of walking for the little man.

Alex really enjoyed camping.  He was eager to help - he was pretty funny trying help dad get the campfire going - don't worry, he was perfectly safe.  He just brought dad kindling and crumpled up newspaper.

My only complaint is that Alex was so stimulated by the whole camp experience that I had trouble getting him to sleep and as a result missed a lot of my favourite part of camping: sitting by the fire.  

Trying to mimic his bedtime routine I gave him a bath (a very cold, icy bath) in a camp tote.  This probably didn't help matters.  He did eventually fall asleep.  Mom was so tired she only managed a little campfire time before she turned in too.

In the middle of the night, a storm rolled in and there was some really loud thunder and lightning.  Alex slept through most of it but was up for about an hour at 6am.  We took some silly family tent pictures during this time.

It rained steady until 10am.  We finally emerged from the tent when it was only drizzling but the site was a big muddy mess by that time so we decided we didn't want to stay another night.  

Overall, our first camp outing with Alex was a big success.  Next time hopefully we will have drier weather.

To see all the pictures from this trip, click here.

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.  

N and I have come to a conclusion.  While I somtimes grapple with whether I think T-dot is all that, we LOVE small town Ontario.  Especially cottage country small town Ontario.  First -- these towns are super cute; beautiful and interesting.  Who said small towns need to be boring and uninspired?  We have never been more curious or reduced to tears in laughter with the quirky/cool factor of small towns than on our last camping trip.  We saw a gas station called "Just Jugs", we saw more advertisements for pig roasts (even one hosted in the Mayor's backyard) than we could count.  We passed through a town with pop. 1700 -- and saw signs for not just any garage sale... but a "Rock and Roll" garage sale!  Seriously -- what do you think they were selling??

The town names are fantastic too.  Ever been to Penetanguishene?? Well we have!  It is lovingly referred to on all the road signs as Penetang! N says to add that I kept referring to it as "Tang Machine".

Further -- no trip to small town Ontario would be complete without a Special K's "foot in mouth" celebrity encounter.  The town: Midland.  The scene: the local Tim Horton's.  I enter the doughnut joint to buy a coffee and a doughnut (go figure, eh).  N beelines it to the washroom where en route he observes Jason McCoy.  Meanwhile, back in line, I too observe Jason McCoy.  My purchase is made, I sit and wait for N, sipping slowly on my hot coffee.  N arrives, he asks if I saw Jason McCoy.  I say yes.  Now, I suppose you need to know that my back was to the rest of the coffee shop.  N had a clear view of everything.  I say,  "Hey N, why don't you try and snap a picture of the RoadHammer with your cell."  N starts laughing quietly, desperately trying to send me a telepathic signal to shut up (one that I do not receive --> we are now convinced I am incapable of telepathic communication via N).  He refuses to snap a picture. So we eat our doughnuts and drink our coffee all the while I am blathering on out loud about the RoadHammer.  We get up to leave and N quietly asks me to turn around.  Lo and behold, Mr. McCoy had been sitting right behind me.  I felt like a tool. 

Anyhow -- I bet you are all wondering what any of this post so far has to do with camping.  Well, these are little vignettes of what happened on our camping weekend.  Awenda Provincial Park, is situated on Georgian Bay/Lake Huron.  It is a beautiful park.  The campground is massive but the sites are very private (best we've seen in Provincial Parks here in Ontario so far). 

On the first day we had nice hot dry weather.  We set out on a hike that ended up being about 6 km round trip. It was shady along the wooded trail and the mosquitoes where unbelievably bad -- my legs received 60+ bites this trip.  

Most Special K swatting mosquitoes.

Needless to say, to battle the bugs, we used copious amounts of bug spray and were wearing long pants.  I even switched to a long sleeve jacket.  This is sad because when we got to the beach we were way overdressed and this is the sight that we took in:

Sunbathing and swimming on Lake Huron - 1st Beach - Awenda P.P.

Still, we pulled up a rock and took in some sun.

We'll definitely go back to Awenda next year.  We had a great trip.

To see more pictures from this trip, click here.

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).