Back Early from Camping

We’re back a day early from camping. It poured all day today and unfortunately the old seams on Dad’s old tent just didn’t hold up. The drip turned to drips and the sleeping bags were getting wetter, we were getting a little grouchy, and took an hour to decide even if it stopped raining, everything was wet and the dogs were a muddy mess! So we’re back.

I had a great time though. I hope we go again soon. The spot we really really wanted had a trailer parked on it. If you aren’t familiar with Northern Ontario camping, you can find a piece of crown land and camp away. Unfortunately for us, bozos park their trailer on the nice spots and treat it as their own cottage/camp. No one was there, but Herc* didn’t want to share if they came back. It was on a sandy beach, just beautiful. So I had a good idea. Let’s steal their firewood. After all, it’s crown land. So we took several big thick pieces of hardwood.

Then we had to drive for a couple hours to get to the other area. My truck feels every bump so I was the slow one. We had two way radios and Herc would stop every once in awhile so I could catch up.

The spot we ended up at was really good. It was on a lake, had a sandy/mucky beach. Off the road a bit. Sheltered area for the tent. Speaking of tent, whoever the jerk is who lost one of the main roof poles, I didn’t appreciate it. Herc fashioned a stick in it’s place and it worked not too bad.

Here’s our view:

We had amazing steak cooked over the hot coals last night. We had a nice breakfast this morning too before the rain moved in.

There were other campers on the lake, which I found somewhat comforting. Herc likes no people anywhere in sight or within hearing range. I seem to have turned wussy, and in the dark in the middle of no where, well I get freaked about bears. Herc bought a Ghost Stories book because he loves terrifying me, but by the time we were in bed he didn’t feel like reading them because they were a few pages long each. Too bad.

Didn’t end up seeing any bears (fine by me!). We saw 2 foxes yesterday and an osprey was flying around our lake.

OH and YESTERDAY, I was napping in the tent in the afternoon, my dogs were tied up outside, and Herc was reading/napping in a lawn chair. Winger was whining and whining and trying to pull himself loose. I figured he must have to pee so I got up and let him off the rope. He ran into the lake and just started swimming. Like away. I let Surf off. By then Winger was almost gone. I started shouting. He was swimming around the next bend of the coast line! He’s never done that. I took off up the bush road on foot with a leash. I can really hoof it far when I’m worried about my dog. I took the next little road off the logging road we were on and walked back into deep woods, calling him… nothing. After 20 minutes I decided to head it back to camp in case he had returned. He had. WHEW. Knucklehead dog.

Well.. now I’m going to go shower the stink away. The tent is totally muddy and waterlogged outside hanging over a chair. We might seal up the seams and give it another go another time. I’ll check later if I have any pictures worth uploading, I only took a few last night. (edit: added picture).

OH yeah, and Herc’s dog is limping badly, but we went anyway. Poor doggie.

* name changed to protect the innocent