- Dave Barry
Morning Folks,
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We're back from camping finally! It was a lot of fun despite the weather not agreeing with us most of the time...
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We started off Friday getting away late. Regardless of how prepared you think you are, there are always certain things you are missing as you're pulling away from home. I have made it a point now to make a couple errand runs (to the bank, to get a coffee, etc) before we make any big trip because there is ALWAYS something and we need to turn around and come home. This way, I'm already near home so I just pop back over to the house and pick up the item we're forgetting and we head back out.
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We took off around mid afternoon on Friday and made our way to the camp ground. We followed my niece and brother-in-law out there and made our way to the camp sites. First off, this was a picture of the camping site we booked from the website:
As you can see from this photo, the site looks fairly nice, the sun is shining and it looks clean and dry. OH wait! What is that date in the bottom right corner? {sigh}{slurp}
We spent the first night in this site and it was a complete mess. The picture doesn't give you a good idea how big it is. You also can't tell that there are actually 2 flat spots there and two hills. When we showed up, the whole site was covered in grass and it was very "swampy". Every step you took you got your feet wet and it wasn't even raining (yet). We tried to move but the whole place was booked up solid and we were not able to. Also, on the booking website, the camp sites look a lot closer together but at the campground, it was a good couple minutes of walking to get between them. This proved annoying the first night when we spent the evening at the other camp site around the fire and then had to walk back to our camp site to go to bed.
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The next morning I made my way down to the camp administration office to see about moving yet again. Only one site was available this time and it was on the other side of the camp ground. It was flatter and dryer but it wasn't what I was looking for. Finally, someone came up with a great idea of moving our tent and things over to the camp site where my sister and family were at. The site was big enough to fit everyone and we would all be close. A great idea that the park was willing to allow us to do at no extra charge. We even were able to extend the camp site another day.
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This is a picture (again from the website) of the camp site where we all moved to. At the very back of the picture was the tent trailer that belongs to my brother-in-law and sister. They had it set up with the door facing forward. Then beside it on the right side of the picture was our 10-man tent set up facing into the middle of the camp ground. Then in the bottom right of the picture was a perfect spot to put our screen tent where we put the picnic table and such. On the left side of the picture you can see the fire pit so it was perfect for us to put chairs up and sit back and enjoy the evening. An empty 40 of Rum between 3 of us was all that remained after the end of the night (sorry again Mom), despite the Alcohol ban in effect.{slurp}
We spent Saturday night in comfort and style close to family and enjoyed our time. There was this brief lapse in that when our camping neighbours ran out of alcohol and began fighting (verbally) with each other. They ended up packing their tent and things in the middle of the night and disappearing. The next day when the park rangers came to clean up their site, they ended up producing at least 40 bottles of beer from the woods around the camp site and from the camp site itself. Amazing.
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Sunday went fine. The rain started off as a fine mist in the morning and by the time we took off mid afternoon to my grand-father's place (birthday and father's day celebration) it was coming and going in spurts. It was enough to need wipers all the way there on the slowest setting. We had a good time with all the family members from my father's side of the family. Almost all the cousins were present and all the aunts and uncles and their significant others were all there. It was a good time and even had a moment to talk gaming with my father and brother and make some semi-plans for this coming weekend when my Father is camping out at the same place.
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We decided as the rain started to worsen that it would be better to head back to the camp site, pack up our stuff and head over to my sister's place to spend the night in dry comfort. Of course by the time we got everything down and packed up, it was almost 9pm so we thought it would be better to just get together tonight instead and go our separate ways until then. I'm glad I did now because it gave me an opportunity to relax and recoup from the weekend camping and when my head hit my own pillow, I was out within minutes.
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Now I'm sitting here dreading the task ahead of me. Unloading all the wet gear from the van. I left it all there last night (minus some things that needed to come out) in hopes it would dry a little bit allowing me to not get soaked today. Alas, I doubt it will be very dry, but here's to hoping.
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What that out of the way, it is time for me to say farewell. I hope you all have a great day and with any luck, I'll get a chance to post again soon. Tomorrow is Canada day here so I expect we'll be doing some celebration and drinking!
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Cheers for now,
Al
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