Sunday, July 19, 2009

Epic camping weekend!

Fish. Rain. Hail. Rain. Frogs. More rain. Canoes. And yet more rain.

If I told you that you could go camping with your friends, their wives and kids numbering twenty-four in all, and you'd have to drive over four hours to get there including an hour deep into Algonquin Park, AND it would rain every day AND you'd go fishing for your kids, who would throw one line in the water then give it all up to catch frogs, how'd you like to take that trip?

Epic. Camping. Weekend.

We didn't see anything exciting like this - at least not while we were there. I was told however that the early arrivers (night before) did have one trample through the campsite "next door". That seems to really be the "wildlife" spot, and not in a "go clubbing until 2 a.m." wildlife spot. Last year we were informed that the rangers had set up a bear trap on that very spot in hopes of catching and moving a pesky black bear. The bear never returned, but apparently Junior the Moose came back to say hello this year again.

I had plans for some open-water swimming and a trail run while up in the park. The rain and the temperature scotched those plans - it rained steadily, including hailstones (!!) on the first day and was eight degrees C (47F) when I woke up the next day. Couldn't convince anyone to canoe out and "ride shotgun" on the lake in the rain. Made for a great euchre tournament, however.

Fishing is not really my thing but I did catch the only thing anyone caught - a clam! I've never heard of anyone hooking a clam before.

All in all, not exactly the weekend you would draw up in the planning stage, but memorable nonetheless.

Peace.

1 comment:

Darren said...

Nice Algonquin RR. Even though weather sucked, that's quality time - memorable quality time.

Any thoughts on giving LaCloche a whirl in September? :)