At one with nature
I know I’ve been slightly M.I.A., but with good reason. A few days ago, I went camping with my family in Algonquin Park (in Canada, for those of you who aren’t avid campers).
It’s something we haven’t done in years, but with my dad turning the big 6-0, we let him choose how he wanted to celebrate, and next thing we knew, we were booking off time from work and mentally preparing to have a battle royale with the mosquitos.
So we packed up the car (which ended up with a surprising amount of stuff for only 3 days in nature), buckled up and prepared for the – let’s call it the “coziest” – car ride to our beautiful destination. We arrived, and set up our campsite. The weekend progressed as you would imagine, with laughter, canoeing, swimming and hiking… plus some family hijinks along the way. In the end though, we had a wonderful time, and I learnt several things from the time spent with the mosquitos and theoretical bears (and here are 10 of them).
1) Golden oreo smores are amazing. I mean mind blowingly amazing. Trust me on this one.
2) My mother is extremely afraid of running into a bear, which lends itself well to many hours of entertainment for the rest of us (sorry Mommy).
3) Playing with a DSLR camera is super fun, editing photos however, is not. (Photos to come once I can figure out the darn computer business.)
4) I really, really, really like nature and camping and hiking. A serious amount. Which makes me all the more excited for my travels.
5) I’ve now learnt to knit, and really quite enjoy sitting in a dry space during rainstorms while knitting. (Perhaps I’m actually an 80 year old woman.)
6) Mosquitos like me in equal proportion to how much I dislike them.
7) Everything tastes better cooked on (or in) a real fire. Even when it’s fully charred, it still somehow manages to be delicious. Go figure.
8) Hammocks are a great idea, but impossible to get into gracefully, or even with a little bit of dignity.
9) Small children and yappy dogs are much more aggravating at 6 AM than they are in the middle of the day.
10) Families should go camping together. It doesn’t have to be hardcore camping, but being away from TVs or radios for a few days with nothing to do but hang out with each other and the world we live in is incredible. All families fight (if you don’t then you’re lying to me), but somehow storming off and sitting next to a lake with dragonflies landing near you and birds chirping is enough to make you reconsider how important that fight really was. Try doing that when you can lock yourself in your room with a computer and TV for hours, just brewing.
In the end we all made it back without getting eaten by a bear, and can you really ask for more than that? I didn’t think so. But now I pose a question to you, what other great activities are there for families? Or are you a camping family, and what great moments have you had out in the wilderness?
