Growing up some of my most favourite memories are those of family camping. We would most often go to provincial parks a few hours away from our home with a number of my aunts and uncles and cousins. We would spend most of our days on the beach, playing things like volleyball, keep away in the water or riding the waves. We would bike around the camp ground in the evening and sit around the campfires all night. I loved these weeks and think my love of summer started at these events. I never considered that this wouldn't be something that would continue in my life. I figured if I ever got married, we would continue to make camping a priority in our summers. However, when I started dating and began to hear my boyfriend (now husband) talk about sleeping in tents and how nasty sleeping on the ground is, I began to lose hope in this being a forever tradition. As we continued to date, I learned of his love for campfires and then later his love for cooking over the fire and I thought to myself just maybe I can convince this man to love camping after all. I just need to show him that there is more wonderful things about camping that outweigh the horrible things. I gave him lots of time. I talked about planning a camping trip for over a year before I wanted to do it. I convinced him to buy a tent because we needed it for church camping anyways. I eventually got him to book a campsite and give it a try. The closer it got and the more we planned, the more I could see him getting excited. We bought a double high air mattress so that we could be comfortable campers. We bought a tent that he could stand up in because, "there is nothing worse than a tent you can't stand up in!" We borrowed things from both parents and booked a campsite at Wheatly Provincial Park for a Canada day long weekend. As time got closer, the excitement rose. We planned our menu, what time we would leave and our list of things to take with us. Finally the Friday was here and off we went with a car packed full. Colin had fun fitting everything in the car just right. I had fun making our food into just the right amounts for us so they would not take up too much room in our cooler.
The closer we got to our campsite the more it began to rain and by the time we were there it was pouring. We waited it out but soon decided it wasn't going to stop so we eventually decided to embrace the rain and try to hang our tarp. Unfortunately this was a hard task as our campsite had no trees on it. Colin slaved at hanging this thing for about an hour before we drove to a nearby town and picked up a screen house that now works perfectly as our shelter when camping (see pictures below). I was afraid that this start to the weekend was going to dampen the rest but Colin was trooper and the rest of the weekend was beautiful and sunny. He enjoyed cooking over the fire, reading his books, hanging out on the beach, touring Point Pelee and watching fireworks. We were on our way home from the campground and he said, "Can we fit another camping trip in this summer?" I was thrilled but also a little skeptical we were going to get another one as the majority of our weekends the rest of the summer were booked. However, he was determined and we planned another trip for the end of the summer. This time we went a bit closer to Turkey Point. We learned from our mistakes, like simplifying our menu a little, took a long a camp stove that worked and picked our campsite a bit more wisely. We made some new mistakes, like forgetting sweaters and needed to pick some of those up.
There are so many great things about camping. These are just a few big ones:
1. Quality time spent with loved ones. ( no work, phones, tv's, or house projects getting in way of your attention )
2. Rest and refreshment ( lots of time to sit, read, walk, bike, swim and just do very little with no schedule)
3. Cheap vacation ( much cheaper than a cottage and more affordable)
4. Near the lake ( to me camping needs to be near something to swim in preferably a lake, this may differ for some of you )
5. Challenge and excitement of open fire cooking
Here is a glimpse into what our camping trips look like. (These pictures are all from our second trip)
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| Coffee is not something you need to sacrifice while camping if you don't want to! |
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| Coffee Perk and Hot water kettle for dishes |
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| Bacon over the fire is a nicer idea than reality we found. |
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| Master Chef prepping our blueberry pancakes. |
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| Our new and much loved screen house. |
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| A tent you can stand up in. |
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| Warm blankets are a necessity when going camping the end of August. |
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| When you both enjoy making fires you have to take turns. |
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