Sat, Dec 16 2006, Sun, Dec 17 2006 - Introduction to winter camping II: The Pinery (View Original Event Details)
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The winter camping that wasn't
I thought we'd get some snow, or at least some sort of winter chill in the air, but we didn't get any of that. This was actually a GOOD thing, since I had planned to bring 3 tents and ended up with 1.5 tents - poles, but no tent :( I won't get into details as it was plainly a source of stress, which I took out quite liberally on Dominic and Elliot. In fact, I picked on them all weekend, since I also blamed them for getting us lost by missing the exit to the 402 after London. It wasn't their fault, other than they were in the car with me and I was feeling in a foul mood. It's another GOOD thing that I was going away for the weekend - I think too much city living makes Steph into a bit^^^^not a nice girl.)
The tent dilemma was easily solved the first night as Hassan was happy to sleep in his hammock, thus earning the nickname "Banana Boy" from Elliot. This was only his first nickname of the weekend! Once this was established, I went to bed as she didn't want anyone else to have to incur her wrath that evening and promised that she'd be much more pleasant in the morning. Hassan, Jenn, Sara, Alex, Cordelia and Elliot set up tents while Lorie and Jason, who had arrived a few hours earlier and were quite toasty by the fire as well as "toasted" in general - while waiting for everyone to arrive, Jay opened his 4L box of wine. It took a few hours for us to get there, so Jason and Lorie were having fun, but completely useless when it came to setting up tents. We practically had the entire park to ourselves, except for a few scattered camper vans and another group that was partying it up in a Yurt, we could make all the noise we wanted and no wardens around to make us shut up!
An evening of sleeping in hte fresh wooded air and I woke up much happier. Not only did everyone survive the night, but the sun was shining and our tents were warm. I said on several occasions that I've woken up on late summer mornings in colder weather! Hassan had been up early and took his sporty rental car out driving for a few hours, tearing up some dirt roads. Then he and Jenn offered to do a Tim Horton's run to Grand Bend. While they made their way, the rest of us lazed around the campfire, eating non stop. Got to keep your energy up when it's so cold...oh, never mind, it was just nice to cook over an open fire. Alex brought out some homemade meatballs which were DELICIOUS. If you ever have him on a camping trip, make sure that his meatballs are mandatory. Rocky managed to lose his Bear bell overnight, so we couldn't hear him, except when he tried to play with Simba. It was all fun and games, until Rocky got tired of puppy play. Then Simba learned a valuable lesson about dogs - there are some dogs that are much bigger than you.
Some time after we received our tim horton's, Hassan decided that he was going to nap in his hammock and the rest of us decided we needed to go for a walk, maybe check out the beach. Also, we got our first and only glimpse of the park warden who reminded us to pay for our sites. The Pinery is a huge park, full of slow rivers, 33Km of x-c ski trails and bike trails (even a skate ski trail!), an official 'tobaggonning" hill and a beautiful many KM long strip of pristine beach. All of which was useless to us, since there was no snow, but then we got to the beach. The sun was shining and there was no wind, so we started to walk up the beach. Rocky played in the water, fetching sticks and the like. Lorie, Jason, Dom and I fell behind the other group, looking for interesting rocks and skipping stones and just being generally slow. Sara lost her hat, and in a fit of desperation, wrote in the sand "I have lost my hat". This started a slew of messages from the front group to us, starting with the plaintive question "Food?", so I knew we'd been out too long and Elliot was suffering. This continued for a while, as the beach was long. We finally caught up and we were told it was our turn to make up things for them to follow. We started with the seven sins, and Dom wrote our names beside each Sin as we named them - I guess he started with Pride, I suggested Lust, Jason =Greed, Lorie = Anger (well, due to the injustice in the world!). At Sloth, we felt that the only person who wasn't with us needed to be mentioned and Hassan collected his second nickname - the three toed sloth -get it? Hammock boy in the tree? Slow and Lazy? Anyways, we ran out of names, so we put Elliot's name at Envy to give him a complex, then put his name again on Jealousy, to give him a bigger complex. it worked
As we walked up the empty beach we saw 4 figures in the distance. As we got close we realized it was our lost group - Michelle, Rob, Wei-lin and Trish! Michelle's car had gone kaput at 11pm the night before so we were never sure if they would make it, but they piled into Rob's tiny car packed with gear and made it. It gave me another tent dilemma, but Rob was quite willing to set up an homemade tarp and sleep outside. We could have made arrangements for everyone to be in a tent, but he insisted. And with the weather - who could blame hiim?
Eventually we rendezvoused back at campsite 415, where Hassan had just awoken from his nap. He was not aware that the other group had come. We toasted some sausages for a late lunch, which eventually turned into a dinner. The one-nighters came back from their hike and made dinner at their site - apparently being squished into Rob's car made them quite close. After we had eaten, we all gathered around the fire. The wood was wet, so it was quite smoky, so all the 'fire experts' took their turn taking apart the logs and rebuilding the fire to no avail. Then Rob wandered in, told as all that he'd show us how it was done!!! and preceeded to do the same thing that everyone else had done previously. Of course we all kept our mouths shut for it was quite humourous and there was no stopping Rob, once he got started. He ended up with a smoky fire and not much different from what we had gotten before. But the grass was a good idea.
Michelle, Trish, Rob and Wei-lin wanted to head off to beach again to catch any stars before it got too cloudy. They all had hot drinks to take with them. Elliot wanted to go too, but he needed some hot tea before going. It took a while, but eventually a small group headed to the beach, while the rest of us sat around the fire, telling stories and whatever else one does late at night on a camping trip. Instead of singing camp songs, we blasted some Bob Marley tunes, since there didn't seem to be any noise restrictions
Eventually we all went to bed. I slept in late - one of the last to get up. But we had a lazy breakfast and while the one-nighters, plus Cordelia and Elliot went for a last day hike, Alex, Sara, jason, Lorie, Dom and I just hung out and relaxed around the fire. Dom and I went for a shower (ahhh, the luxury!) and we took our time cleaning up our mess and our tents. Rocky found his bear bell, which led us to believe that he never lost it, he just put it aside for the duration of the trip. Finally we packed up, left the site pristine of course, and headed back to the city. I was in a much finer mood much to the delight of my carpool
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