Trip Log: Awenda Provincial Park - August 1-3, 2018

The kids had been complaining that we hadn't been out in the Boler in a while, so I did a bit of searching and booked us a couple of nights at Awenda Provincial Park.  We had never been there, and it looked promising for hiking, swimming and photography.

Packing up the Boler doesn't take too long, and we were pulling out of the yard at around 1pm. We figured there was no real rush since the park was mostly full, and whoever was on the site we booked wouldn't have to leave until 2.  Since we'd had to sit around and wait for people to leave the site before, we decided to take our time.  This was great as we didn't have to come back home after 2 minutes of driving for something we had forgot to pack.

Everything was so green

Getting to Awenda from our house was about an hour and a half, maybe two hours.  For the most part, it's pretty easy driving for towing, not many big hills, and very little time on any major highways.  We arrived, got our permit and made it to our site without any fuss.  It was sprinkling a bit as we set the screen tent up, and both picnic tables were wet from previous rain.  We pulled one into the screen tent, pulled our camp chairs out and then Chris and Bubbie headed back to the office to get ice for the big orange water cooler, and some firewood.

While they were gone, I got started on dinner.  The plan had been to have mac and cheese for lunch, but it was close to dinner so we opted to skip it and move on to Sloppy Joes and salad.  I was supposed to have made the sloppy joes up the night before so we could just reheat it, but I ran out of time.  Instead, I brought all the ingredients, and hoped like heck I hadn't forgotten anything.  I cut up the onion and celery, then set up the stove...and realized the lighter was in the car.  There wasn't anything else I could do until Chris got back and boy did it feel like they were taking a long time!

Turned out, they went to check out the beach, which is where they saw the sign warning that there was a lot of poison ivy in the park.  We quickly realized Biscuit had run through a big patch on our earlier walk to the comfort station, and we spent the whole night (and most of the trip) worrying he would rub against one of us and we would have a reaction.  I should mention both Chris and I grew up in Haliburton where we tromped through the bush on a nearly daily basis and neither of us has ever had a poison ivy reaction.   Either we were just lucky all those years or we aren't allergic.

Sloppy Joes...sort of

With the rest of my utensils and food back, I went on with dinner preparations.  I got Chris to open the can of lentils and drain it.  When I went to add it to the pan, I saw the can was less than half full!  What the heck?  I've never had a can of lentils or beans contain so little lentils or beans!  At first I thought Chris had accidentally drained most of the can into the slop bucket.  It was a valid concern.  He's well known in the family for draining a pot of spaghetti into the sink...and losing have the spaghetti. But I checked and there wasn't even a single lentil in the bucket!

Our Sloppy Joes were looking very saucy and not in a good way.  There was no way it would be filling enough for four people now.  Desperate, I opened a can of sliced potatoes I had planned to make for our second breakfast (we still had 2 but the kids really like fried potatoes so I brought lots) and added it in.  It didn't alter the taste all that much, and helped to make the meal more filling.  We had garlic bread and salad with it.  There was just enough left for Biscuit to have a bit on top of his kibble (since he won't eat kibble when we are camping without a little of whatever we are having mixed in.)

Usually, when we Boler camp, we end up buying a few cases of canned lemonade or some other kind of pop.  We had a partial case, but rather than buy more, I brought four lemons and four limes.  With the big water cooler, we had lots of what the kids call "Sprite Water." This was a much healthier option, with far less to clean up afterwards.

While dinner cooked, Chris and Bubbie pulled out the ukulele's and played a few songs.  

On his trip to get wood and ice, Chris had grabbed a bag of marshmallows and some jiffy pop, but since the picnic tables were still wet, we opted not to have a fire that night.  Instead, we all headed down to the beach to take some pictures.

Sunset on Georgian Bay

The trails around the beach were loaded with poison ivy, and Biscuit has a serious obsession with it.  He makes a beeline for it every time.  We watched the sunset, explored a little, then went back to our site and made sure everything was locked away for the night, then headed to bed.

I had to get up a few times in the night to go to the bathroom.  It was super quiet and calm in the park.  The walk to the comfort station felt pretty long, and with so much tree canopy, it was really dark.  Usually this freaks me out, but for some reason I was pretty calm about it this time.  I had turned on a flashlight hanging in the screen tent to help me find our campsite on my way back.  My little flashlight I carry with me isn't very good, so it was nice to have a point of reference.

poison ivy at the parking area

Biscuit wanted out shortly after the sun came up, then we went back to bed until about 8.  It looked like it was going to be a nice day.

We made hot chocolate and coffee, then a starter of strawberry Pop Tarts, before making pancakes, then the kids broke out the GORP again.  Before we left, Chris and I made a trip to the Bulk Barn and loaded up on GORP stuff.  I brought us each a Ziplock bag so we could make up our own mixes.  Chris pretty much just makes himself a big bag of raisons and peanuts.  He probably would have added Craisons but I forgot to bring some from home.

With the poison ivy issue, we weren't sure what to do with our day.  We had wanted to do some of the hiking trails, but with Biscuit's love affair with that plant, we didn't want to spend the whole time dragging him out of it.  Instead, we opted to go to the beach.  Chris and Squatch would swim and Bubbie and I would walk with the dog and try and take some pictures.  In theory it was a good idea, in practice not so much.  We let the boys get out of sight before we let the dog out of the car, but it didn't matter.  He knew which direction they had gone and tried to drag me that way.

Beautiful day on Georgian Bay

Even though they hadn't planned to be gone long, it felt like forever.  We tried walking Biscuit the other way, but the parking lot was getting busy and every time a car came through, we had to hug the edge of the lot, which was over flowing with poison ivy.  It was also hot and muggy and every place shady had more poison ivy, so there wasn't really anywhere for us to stand to stay cool.  Finally, I sent Bubbie down to get the boys.  They would have been done soon anyway.

We ended up walking down towards the dog beach to see if we could get the dog cooled down.  The trails were busy and he either tried to jump on people or tried to run through poison ivy.  It was not a fun time.  Once we got to a quiet part of the beach, we were able to relax and got him into the water enough to cool off.

Rain coming over Georgian Bay

Once back at camp, we made up the mac and cheese we should have had the day before, and relaxed. The boys played Viking Chess for a while, then Chris took the kids to the park store to get ice cream. It started to rain a bit, and looked like a storm might be blowing in, so we quickly cleaned up the site and headed back to the beach, hoping to see Georgian Bay with big angry waves, but it was actually pretty calm.  We could see rain falling in the distance, in two directions.  We hung out a bit, hoping to see the rain come closer, but eventually we headed back to camp and started making dinner, which was spaghetti.

After dinner, Chris got  a good fire going and the kids toasted some marshmallows.  We sat around for a while before breaking out the Jiffy Pop, then the kids headed into bed.  Bubbie was pretty tired, but Squatch decided to read to her from the book Chris had brought, a book about conspiracy theories.  Chris had been reading it earlier, and Squatch was peeking out the window of the Boler, reading over his shoulder.

Chris and I stayed out until the fire was almost out, then headed to bed and read a bit of our own books (he'd brought a second book - Against All Odds by P. J. Naworynski.  It's about the Canadian Olympic Hockey team in 1948.)

Our screen tent has seen better days

It wasn't as hot that night.  We still didn't really need the blankets, except to protect us from the dog's nose, but he mostly slept on the floor until it got light outside.  Surprisingly, I didn't have to get up to go to the comfort station in the night, and Biscuit didn't wake us up at dawn to go outside.  We all ended up getting up around 8 again, and had coffee and hot chocolate, then Pop Tarts and potato and pepper hash.  We had also brought some vegan bacon to try out but it wasn't very good.  I've heard rave reviews about some types but I'm guessing this wasn't one of them.  Chris gave some to Biscuit, which we all cursed him for on the way home.

 Everything was wet, and because the tree canopy keeps everything shaded, it didn't really dry off much.  We started packing up, but with the Boler it really doesn't take very long.  Since it was the Friday of the August long weekend, we figured it would be best to head out early before the roads became a nightmare of congestion.

The drive home took longer than the drive there.  The roads were already busy, and a good portion of those people were towing trailers.  We finished off all the trail mix on the drive and made it home by 2pm.

Final thoughts on Awenda Provincial Park?  I'll be writing a park review, but it's a lovely place.  The sites are well space, designed to make it easy to back trailers in, and the beach is beautiful.  If we hadn't had Biscuit, we could have checked out the trails, so I can't comment on them.  All in all, it was really nice, and we would definitely go back, especially in the fall when the leaves were changing colour.