Trip Log - Restoule Provincial Park - August 5-7, 2012

I just realized I reviewed Restoule Provincial Park, but didn't do a proper write up of our trip.

Chris's sister and her boyfriend were joining us for this quick two night camping trip.  We were meeting up at Chris's parents house north of Huntsville the day before for their annual family reunion/party thing.  In the past, a lot of Chris's family would show up and sleep in the back field in tents, there'd be a lot of burgers grilled and various types of alcohol consumed.  It's toned down a lot in recent years.   There's still lots of burgers and booze, but each year the number of people camping out in the back yard has fallen.  This year, there was us, Chris's sister and a cousin from the states who brought their little trailer. (It should be noted that the following year, it was just us...Everyone else would rather crash on whatever section of floor they can find inside...)

So since we were already going to be so far north, and Keri had to go back to Petawawa after the trip, we'd head further north and not make her journey any longer than necessary.  Restoule seemed like a good choice.

Chris's dad was upset we were leaving.  He didn't understand why we were going somewhere else to camp when we could camp in his back yard for free, but we had already made reservations (and nobody at Restoule suddenly remembers household maintenance they need help doing since two strong young men are there...)

I felt kind of bad for Matt, Keri's boyfriend.  He'd been having stomach issues the whole day before but swore he was good to go.  He's military, and has a lot of skills in the camping department, so I think it was kind of a let down doing front country camping, and he didn't even get to use his stove or gear because we had all our big car camping stuff.  He did start the fire and impressed the kids by doing it the way they always see in Youtube videos - with birch bark, twigs and a sparker.

The beach at Restoule kinda, well it kinda sucked.  Water levels might have been low and there were fire bans in a lot of nearby areas, so maybe it would be better with higher water levels.  The water stays shallow for quite a ways then drops down to sticks and mush.  Luckily for us it was a little chilly for swimming anyway so we didn't feel like we were missing out.

Dinner was foil roasted potatoes, little pork chops and vegetables.  We had banana boats for dessert.

Keri and Matt only stayed one night.  Matt wasn't sure he'd be able to stay the full time, so we kind of expected it.  They stayed long enough to do a hike with us (The Fire Tower Trail which was awesome but definitely bring good shoes...flip flops are not appropriate as I found out)  and left after lunch.

It was kind of sad for the kids I think.  They really like having other people camp with us. I don't really remember what we did or ate for meals after they left.  Probably spaghetti for supper and cold cereal for breakfast.

I'm not sure where the pictures from this trip are.  I'll try to dig them up but I don't think there were many.  Next time we go camping with Matt and Keri, we are going to canoe camp...we just have to get them a canoe for their upcoming wedding!

Trip Log: Balsam Lake Provincial Park - August 20-21, 2013

This was just a quick one night trip with the Boler.  Bubbie wanted to bring her friend camping with us,  so we just picked a spot fairly close to home, and brought the kids bikes.

For a last minute trip, we obviously didn't have a lot of choices as far as sites go and ended up with one of the back sites in the lakeshore area.  It was fairly close to the bathroom and the park store, so we figured it would be fine.  We'd actually put a lot of thought into picking a site.  Since Bubbie and her friend would be in the tent, while the rest of us were in the Boler, she was worried about being too far back in the bushes (not really a huge issue in Balsam) but since her friend is used to back country camping, Bubbie also didn't want to look like a giant wuss being out in the open.

Mostly, the kids just rode their bikes around.  Balsam is great for that.  There are so many roads through the campgrounds you can ride all over, and the kids had fun making their own little routes.

Supper was spaghetti, and maybe salad or garlic bread.  I honestly can't remember.  Only two memorable things stand out about this trip.  First, Squatch had some issues with his bike, and ended up getting left behind.  The girls showed up without him, and had no idea where they'd lost him. Bubbie and her friend had to go look for him, on their bikes while Chris and I went on foot.  I had a minor panic over him disappearing, but it all got resolved with no problem.

Second memorable thing was sometime in the night, I could hear the people across from us talking.  The grandparents had brought their two grandsons, and they had two tents.  One of the tents was a pup-style tent, and I guess the grandfather and one of the kids had slept in it, while the other kid was with the grandmother in the dome style tent.  For whatever reason, they didn't have the pup tent zipped closed all the way, and the grandfather woke up to an animal nosing around his face.  He figured it was a squirrel and swatted at it.  Turned out it was a skunk.  They ended up spending the whole night showering and washing bedding and clothes.

Oddly enough, none of us smelled anything.  Usually if a skunk sprays 10 feet from you, you notice.  I picked up a hint of it in the morning, but not very strong.  We woke up to a bunch of sleeping bags drying over the side of their truck's box.

We had spam hash and eggs for breakfast, did some more biking, then headed home.  The kids had fun, Chris got to relax a bit, and I was just happy to be out camping.   We didn't take too many pictures, but the ones we did take...well Bubbie's friend doesn't like having her picture taken I guess and she deleted most of them.

Day Trip: Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park - June 10, 2014

Chris and  I went for a little spin in the canoe to check out the campsites on Bottle and Sucker Lakes in Kawartha Highlands.  I offered to keep Squatch out of school for the day (Bubbie was on her class trip) but he very responsibly declined stating he didn't want to miss track and field practice.  While it was nice to spend a day with just Chris and I in the canoe, it also meant we had a schedule, making sure we got back to be there at bus time.

We still had lots of time to explore, checking out most of the sites on Bottle Lake, and the ones we hadn't been to on Sucker.  Some are clearly emergency sites (the little island one on Sucker Lake for example) but there are some really nice ones.  The one we were really eager to check out had people on it, though I think they were just out for a day trip as well, as we saw no tents or gear, just them and a canoe on the beach.

Kawartha Highlands isn't remote, or secluded.  There are cottages scattered throughout the park (with a few being on Bottle Lake across from some of the campsites) but we did manage to see some wildlife.  A few loons on Bottle Lake, a lot of seagulls on Sucker, and a garter snack on the portage back to the car.  Say what you want about seagulls being annoying birds, but baby seagulls?  So cute!  There were a small cluster of the birds on some rocks off shore on Sucker, and about three were babies.

The mosquito population was very healthy (for them...not us) on the portages, but we didn't notice any on the campsites we got out to explore.  It could be that we only got out at ones that had a fairly open look to them.  Anything that was very closed in, we didn't get out to explore.

We didn't end up eating our lunch until we got into the car.  It was just nibble-y stuff like trail mix, dried fruit and crackers with hummus.  Last week I made up a bunch of hummus (three types - roasted red pepper, everything, and lemony) and dried them for camping lunches.  We took one of the packets I'd made up, and it rehydrated beautifully.  Unfortunately, the lemony hummus is rather mild, and the only crackers I had were not a good match to it. Ah well, I'll pick better crackers next time.

All in all, a good day out, with a little bit of sunburn here and there, and a just a few fly bites.  Not really any pictures though.  I kept forgetting I had my camera, and the ones I did take (of the baby seagulls) we weren't close enough to get any decent shots.  Next time...maybe we can go back this weekend!

Another Moose Spotting Trip - May 3, 2014

This weekend was supposed to be spent camping at Rock Lake.  As anyone following the annual ice out news is probably aware, Rock Lake's opening was delayed.  Our back up plan was to stay at Mew Lake, but the weather didn't look promising at all, in fact, the whole week prior to our planned trip had been rain, rain and more rain.

After finding two small leaks in our Boler, we decided it would be best not to risk it.  We hoped it would only rain lightly, but nothing is ever certain.  It turned out, Saturday was a pretty wet day.  We did, however, manage to get up and do a drive through looking for moose.

As per usual, we stopped at Henriettas for some pastries and did our drive through.  Spotted 3 moose this time.  One at km 2, one at the little clearing across from the Pog Lake campground entrance, and one that was way back in the bush (can't remember the km mark) which was really hard to spot.

Lunch at the visitor's centre a quick pop into the Opeongo road to look for ducks and then we headed home.  Kind of a let down after spending months looking forward to a weekend of camping, but I suppose even a brief visit is better than a day spent watching television.

Total moose for 2014 - 11

Ultra low budget camping - Part 2 - The Opposite Extreme

You can't talk about low budget camping without exploring just how much money it's possible to blow on a one week trip.  This is just for fun, and not anything I would actual do in real life, but there are probably people out there that do.  Glamping is pretty popular now a days.  We've stayed in yurts before, and talk about one day renting a cabin, but I don't know that we ever will.  Maybe a back country one for a night.  I did a quick look into renting an RV for a week, and it was well over a thousand dollars, before you add in any kilometres and gas.

A while back, I was reading a forum discussion about how Ontario Parks are raising their rates this year.  Someone mentioned that they don't count the cost of buying food for their trip because they would have had to eat at home anyway.  This is true, but not entirely.  The types of food you buy for a camping trip are often vastly different from what you'd buy for a normal meal at home.  I know we don't have anywhere near as much junk food at home as we do when we go camping.  We don't usually buy cookies, chips, and we almost never buy cans of pop for at home.  We also do a lot of vegetarian nights at home, but we often find that when camping, chopping a lot of fresh produce is awkward so we take bagged salads or canned veg.

Okay, but this is your vacation.  You don't want to be scrimping and starving yourself just to stay on budget.  Steaks and beer for everyone! (Not the kids obviously.)  Lots of people do a big dinner for their first night out, whether it be a car camping trip or a back country adventure. Steak seems to be the popular choice. If it was me, I'd do a big beef roast in the dutch oven, baked potatoes, vegetables, maybe even yorkshire puddings in the reflector oven (I'd be willing to temporarily abandon my attempts at a vegan lifestyle for a yorkies and gravy...)  For lunches, lets load up on sausages, burgers and hot dogs, for breakfasts, eggs, pancakes, french toast, and bacon.  Dinners can be big pots of stew, grilled ribs,  pork chops, baked potatoes, and lets not forget desserts.

So a weeks worth of camp food, with this kind of mind set, you can imagine just how high the food budget would be.  Then add in buying bags of firewood, marshmallows, Jiffy Pop, chips, pop, cookies and other snacks, and there's no surprise a week of camp food can run more than double what it costs to feed those same four people for a week at home.

But this is kind of an extreme example.  I doubt any but the most die hard carnivores would eat a week of dinners that went like this - roast beef - pork chops - ribs - burgers - steak - baked ham...not to mention the amount of cooler space you'd need. And ice!  Ice can get pretty expensive when you buy it from the parks, especially if the park is far from the nearest town.

So let's see what we can do to have an enjoyable trip without depriving ourselves or blowing a months worth of grocery budget on 6 nights worth of food.

Just for fun, what's the most expensive camping trip you've ever taken?  What made it so expensive?  What was the most expensive camp meal you've ever made?

Ultra Budget Camping - part 1

I've read lots of blogs and watched lots of videos on Youtube on ultra light camping.  It's a pretty hot topic, and yes there's lots of people out there posting ideas on how to make your own gear out of items that are incredibly affordable alternatives to expensive options you'd find in an outfitter.  Making a twig stove out of an IKEA cutlery stand for $4.99 rather than spending $70-100 for a Vital Stove or BioStove for example.  Sure you have to put a little effort into it, and it won't charge your cell phone, but still, for $4.99...

Anyway, the point of this post wasn't to talk about making cheap gear.  On a recent trip to my parents, I was flipping through a book called Wildly Affordable Organic. In the introduction the author talks about how she decided to do what is called a Food Stamp Challenge.  This is where you try to feed yourself for a week on the amount of money a person in the US, in a low income situation would get in food stamps - on average $3 a day per person.

The point of the challenge (and the documentary called Food Stamped) is apparently that it's impossible to eat a healthy diet and not starve on what you can buy for that amount of money.  The authors of the book disagreed and set about to prove you can eat a healthy, satisfying diet on such a little amount.  I thought, "huh, lets see if I can plan a menu for the four of us, for a week, using that as my budget."  Turns out it wasn't that hard, but I have a good supply of things like rice, beans and lentils on hand.  Still, using the flyers and picking sale items to help decide our menu, I managed to put together a weeks worth of healthy food.

Then I got to thinking about how to incorporate a tight budget into our camping trips.  Chris's biggest complaint is that I spend too much on food for each trip, and he's not wrong.  Even when I have 95% of the things we need already on hand, that last shopping trip always ends up being stupidly expensive.  We walk through the aisles, filling a buggy with chips and cookies, 4 types of granola bars (because we can't ever agree on one kind we all like), a case of water (even though we brought a big jug...because little bottles are easier to take on hikes...and yes we packed our reusable ones, but sometimes the water is kinda dirty looking and we'll probably use the big jug for cooking...yeah, I know.  We can talk ourselves into anything.) By the time we've left, we've gotten enough stuff for a few extra days worth of camping...and none of it ever gets used.  The packaging gets all mangled...sometimes wet, and usually anything inside gets crushed a bit.

I've never been too good at sticking to a menu...

With the economy the way it is, it's getting harder and harder to take a family vacation, and even when we can afford a week of fun, it's probably not going to happen more than once a year.  Some things we can't really control - gas prices for example.  Towing the Boler to Pog Lake in Algonquin last year cost us $160 in gas, round trip. But in other areas, you can totally pinch pennies and make your trips fun without draining the bank account or running up your credit card.

Maybe I'm greedy, but I want to get as much fun packed into our summers as possible.  See, if I can make sure our camping trips are inexpensive, I can convince Chris that we can take more of them each year.

So this is going to be a series of posts exploring how to have a week long camping trip for as little money as possible.  We'll see how just how cheap we can manage to make a 7 day/6 night camping trip for a family of four. I'd love to hear your ideas, advice or stories about how you budget a camping trip.

Easter Weekend Moose Spotting trip to Algonquin

Spring has finally decided to make an appearance!  It's slow going though, at least in Algonquin.  Our trip for the first weekend of May will probably be cancelled.  The park has had to postpone the opening of Rock Lake campground until the second weekend of May because of a slow melt and iced up lakes. Sad, but it's one of those risks you take when you camp in the spring.

Easter weekend was beautiful, weather wise, at least for the most part.  We had hoped to go and camp at Mew Lake for the weekend, but Dad didn't want to dig their trailer out of the snow bank (that was his excuse...he just doesn't like camping in the cold)  So we just did a drive through, stopped at the visitor's centre, and had a picnic.

Usually we stop at the Tea Lake Dam picnic area but it wasn't open, so we drove a few hundred meters down the Opeongo Road and stopped at the Costello Lake Picnic Area.  There was a few good sized snow banks, and lots of mushy spots, but the weather was nice.  Mum had precooked some mini burgers at home, and we just heated them up using her BioStove with the grill attachment.  That, along with some celery with peanut butter, chips and goodies from Henrietta's Bakery in Dwight made a perfect lunch.

Hooded Merganser seen in southern inlet of Opeongo

We saw 4 moose during the drive.  For the most part they were far enough back into the bush to make it hard to photograph them.  While at the visitor's centre, the kids had a lot of fun trying to photograph the birds at the bird feeders.  They saw Downy woodpeckers, common grackles, evening grossbeaks, blue jays and possibly a pine siskin.  Unfortunately, a couple of people were either let through the lower exit or found their way around the building and got super close to the feeders with their huge lenses, managing to scare away all the birds.  You'd think they could have gotten good shots with those big lenses without having to get to within 4 feet of the birds themselves...

On Monday, Chris was off work, so we did another drive through with him.  It was rainy so we didn't really get to do the picnic thing, but we went through the visitor centre displays, something we hadn't done in a few years, then continued our moose spotting.  It had started out with a bang.  Upon entering the park, we spotted a cow moose with a yearling calf at KM 2 and thought we were going to see tons.  We didn't see anymore until we passed the Sanitation Station.  Just past the road in a little pond, we spotted a big bull moose but he was too far back to get a good shot.  On the drive back west, we spotted a moose at KM 29 but Chris didn't stop to let us take any pictures.  It was drizzling and the moose was kind of tucked behind a few trees, so not the best for photographs.

We spotted lots of turkeys on the second trip, and only one Blue Heron, where as we saw at least 4 Herons on the Saturday.

All in all, not a bad weekend of moose spotting.  Despite the slow spring thaw, there wasn't a lot of snow in Algonquin, (that we could see anyway) and we left feeling cautiously optimistic that they might change their mind about opening Rock Lake for the weekend of May 2nd - 4th.