Haunted Halloween Weekend! I had been so excited to get Chris to this event, but getting him to take time off work proved a challenge. He was only able to take Saturday off, and so we ended up getting up to the campsite at about 9:30pm on Friday night. Mum and Dad had arrived earlier and gotten the trailer set up, so we had little to do but lay out our sleeping bags and eat a few snacks.
Chris and I had just bought new cold weather sleeping bags. Price wise, we hadn't wanted to spend a lot of money and good winter bags are costly. We weren't planning to go winter camping (yet) but wanted to be able to canoe camp earlier in the spring and into the fall without freezing at night. We ended up purchasing Hot Core -20 bags from Cabela's for $129 each. I admit I wasn't optimistic about their performance, though they'd gotten decent reviews. We were in a heated trailer the first night so there wasn't really a chance to test them. We would be sleeping in the tent the next night though so we'd get a chance to see how they were.
I got up early to let the dog out since he was bugging everyone. He'd had a big drink before bed and was getting pretty desperate. Mum came too and after a bit of shuffling we managed to go to the bathroom ourselves, then took the dogs for a walk through the unused part of Two Rivers, scoping out some cool campsites for future trips.
It was kind of chilly (to be expected) and Mum wasn't keen on just having the planned oatmeal for breakfast. Instead, once everyone was up, she talked us all into going to the visitor's centre for eggs and bacon. It was a drab, miserable looking day so we set up a tarp over the trailer before we left (Dad had just bought a nice big one that actually covers the whole thing with room to spare so we don't look quite so ghetto.)
No wildlife was spotted on the drive, but there were still some leaves to look at. We checked out the bookstore (I might have bought a book…) and had some breakfast. The kids tried to get my brother to see them on the webcam but there were technical issues and it wasn't loading up for him. We headed back to camp to start decorating.
I should say by this point, Chris wasn't all that impressed with the Halloween thing. Not many sites had decorations up, and the ones that did were minimal. I too was a little disheartened, but we hadn't been around Mew Lake yet and I was confident there would be more to see over there. Chris set to work carving pumpkins and we got the site decorated and had some lunch (beef barley soup and grilled cheese sandwiches) then it was time to head to Mew for the costume contest. Mum had purchased a bigfoot costume which Bubbie wore, while Squatch dressed up as Bobo from Finding Bigfoot. They won a prize! Now the kids were really excited and they knew from a quick drive around that we had a decent shot at the pumpkin carving contest prize as well.
We headed back to camp to get treat bags, then Chris and I headed back with the kids to trick or treat. There were some cool sites but maybe for me there wasn't that wow factor because I'd done it before. Chris seemed to enjoy it, and made sure to check out all the pumpkins. There were a lot of people, and many of them were letting kids pick out their treat from a bowl. Poor Bubbie couldn't grab anything because of her bigfoot hands so Squatch had to pick out stuff for her.
On our way back, Chris dropped us off at the start of the loop around Two Rivers and the kids went trick or treating around the few sites there. Then, all of us chilled, we headed back to camp for dinner, then Chris took the kids back over to Mew Lake ice rink to see the presentation and see if they had won the pumpkin carving contest. And we had! (I shouldn't say we, I think Chris did all the carving...) Unfortunately, I can't find any pictures of them, but the moose pumpkin on the Ontario Parks blog post about Halloween in the parks? That's his.
Chris and I had set up a little 2 person tent we had bought and only used once. During that trip, we had a horrible problem with no-see-ums and we haven't yet figured out if the tent's mesh wasn't fine enough to keep them out, or if they got in when the door was opened and we were setting up. (You can read about that trip here.) We figured that wouldn't be a problem at the end of October.
We did worry a bit about rain though, since it had been drizzly all day. The tent was only about $35 and so we doubted it's ability to keep us dry. We had a small tarp so we set that up over it and left only a small tunnel for access, thus keeping us protected a bit from wind as well.
After enjoying the fire for a bit, we all headed to bed. Being a bit concerned still about staying warm, we opted to use our polar fleece liners, and boy were we warm. Other than a little condensation in the tent we stayed dry, and not once was I chilly that night. It was great. I can't recall what the temperature was, but it was at least around the 0 mark. The only disadvantage was that we couldn't zip them together since one was a mummy style. Also, since they have hoods we weren't even sure we could zip them together if both were rectangular. Something to look into for later.
The next morning we had breakfast and packed up. Getting some of the decorations down proved to be a bit of a challenge, but we've learned our lesson...don't get those bags of spider web stuff! They stick to the trees really well for decorating, but they don't come off without a lot of little strands being left behind. The parks staff don't like that.
Chris and I had set up a little 2 person tent we had bought and only used once. During that trip, we had a horrible problem with no-see-ums and we haven't yet figured out if the tent's mesh wasn't fine enough to keep them out, or if they got in when the door was opened and we were setting up. (You can read about that trip here.) We figured that wouldn't be a problem at the end of October.
We did worry a bit about rain though, since it had been drizzly all day. The tent was only about $35 and so we doubted it's ability to keep us dry. We had a small tarp so we set that up over it and left only a small tunnel for access, thus keeping us protected a bit from wind as well.After enjoying the fire for a bit, we all headed to bed. Being a bit concerned still about staying warm, we opted to use our polar fleece liners, and boy were we warm. Other than a little condensation in the tent we stayed dry, and not once was I chilly that night. It was great. I can't recall what the temperature was, but it was at least around the 0 mark. The only disadvantage was that we couldn't zip them together since one was a mummy style. Also, since they have hoods we weren't even sure we could zip them together if both were rectangular. Something to look into for later.
The next morning we had breakfast and packed up. Getting some of the decorations down proved to be a bit of a challenge, but we've learned our lesson...don't get those bags of spider web stuff! They stick to the trees really well for decorating, but they don't come off without a lot of little strands being left behind. The parks staff don't like that.
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