All Booked Up

Riverside Cedar Campground May 2019

Today we booked the final campground for the trip west to Alberta. Some provinces let you book so many days in advance of your arrival while others have an opening date when reservations for the whole summer can be made. 

Last week we booked in Birds Hill Provincial Park near Winnipeg Manitoba. We waited over an hour to get into the reservation system. I must have hit refresh at the right time as I got in about 5 to 10 minutes before my sister. As luck would have it, we're arriving there on a weekend and this is a very popular park for people in Winnipeg. You can make up to three reservations so I tried to book my sister's site as well but you need all of their account information to do it.  Luckily, the system gives you nearly an hour to finish your reservations so I grabbed two sites close to each other and held them in my cart until she got on, then I released one which she was able to grab. It did turn out that one of the sites I got was one we had looked at; both look pretty decent and are on the inside of the loop so not far from the toilets.

Today we booked at Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park. The system was already up but you couldn't book until 7 am Central Time. There we're arriving mid week so it wasn't as much of a hassle getting sites, we got our second choice of the pairs we had picked. We're only there two days before heading to Tillebrook Provincial Park outside Brooks, Alberta.  Tillebrook is more of a pass through park being only 1 kilometer off of the Trans Canada Highway but it looks quite nice. Most of the sites are pull thru, great when you're just passing through.  Tillebrook is only 6 kilometers from Brooks, Alberta and just over 50 kilometers from Dinosaur Provincial Park, our last camping stop before Airdrie where we have family. Stopping at Tillebrook will let us have a lazy morning, then we can head into Brooks to do some grocery shopping before heading to Dinosaur.

We'll be in Dinosaur for four nights. Our sister who lives in Airdrie and her brother in law are going to join us. We were lucky to get three sites together there as well. Again, we'll be arriving on a weekend so what we did was book for an extra day, that meant we could book a day earlier for our dates, and then we changed the reservation for the correct arrival date. Much better to pay the $10 change fee, than not have a site. Had we waited until the next day we might not have gotten sites at all, when I looked there were only three sites in the whole park for our dates. I mentioned to a friend that we would be there so she checked online and was able to get a site behind us for three nights. 

We haven't yet decided how long we'll stay out west and what route we'll take back. Now that you don't need COVID testing to cross the border we might come back through the States. I guess we'll have to think about that soon. Kind of sad, that you just can't take off and go camping on a whim anymore. I guess we'd find places to stay even without reservations. 

RPod Adventures - The Long Haul

As you might remember I bought a travel trailer late last summer so I never got the chance to use it. This year, I did two short camping trips with my sisters and brother-in-law and also took it by myself to our agility regional championships which was some three hours away. Well, this month I traveled down to eastern Canada by myself but with the dogs too, of course. I left Ottawa on 3 Aug and returned on 28 Aug, some 25 nights away.

My first stop was in Levis, Quebec at a commercial campground called Camping Transit. I had booked a pull thru site but because there was a large Class A RV parked in behind, I would have had to back in, the owner who leads you down to your site offered to back me in.  I only stayed here two nights so that I could go to either Old Quebec (Vieux Quebec) or the Chaudiere Falls.  Once I found out that dogs could go on the ferry from Levis to Old Quebec, that's what I decided to do.

Campsite 234 Camping Transit

Chateau Frontenac Vieux Quebec

Streets of Old Quebec

Lovely stone building

Church in Old Quebec

My next stop was a provincial park in New Brunswick, the Republique Provinical Park.  I thought I had booked a pull thru site here but it was back in, I did try but after only two attempts another camper came to my rescue and backed it in for me. Right next door to this provincial park are the New Brunswick Botanical Gardens, also known as Les Jardins de la Republique since the area is known as the Republique de Madawaska.

Beckett and Keltic arriving in New Brunswick

Campsite in Republique Provincial Park

Beckett checks out a painted rock.

The botanical gardens were spectacular, the dogs were not allowed in so I waited until my second day there so I could see how warm the trailer would get.  Campers get 25% off their admission to the botanical gardens and your admission is good for the day. I went over in the morning, went back to the trailer for lunch and then back to the gardens again in the afternoon.

Boys at the entrance to the gardens

One of the Mosaic floral sculptures outside the entrance to the gardens.

Pavilion

Canada Goose Sculpture

Babbling brook and bridge

The Chicken Coop

Waterfalls

Horse sculpture

Bison

Rocket with stained glass birds

Rocket points the way.

My next stop was Mactaquac (pronounced Mack-ta-quack, my GPS said Mack-tack-quack) Provincial Park near Fredericton, New Brunswick.  I stayed here three nights so had two days to visit both the sites and friends that I had in the area. Here I did have a pull through site and so was able to get myself set up without any assistance. I took the dogs to Odell Park where I used to walk with my first two Shelties, also to the river front and to Officer's Square for the Changing of the Guard.  They fired muskets at the Changing of the Guard, once that happened Keltic wanted to get away from the square as fast as he could.

Mactaquac, Site 383

Odell Park

Rocket at Officer's Square

Changing of the Guard

After New Brunswick, it was time to head to Prince Edward Island. I did stop in Moncton on the way and took my brother out to lunch. I reached my sister's place outside Charlottetown in the early evening.  They have a long straight driveway so my brother-in-law backed my trailer in.  On the drive down I had noticed weather cracking on one of the tires and when I hitched up to leave for PEI saw that the tire tread was splitting.  Since I had a week in PEI, I arranged to get new tires and had the trailer serviced on site to put on the new tires.

Awaiting the new tires

My main reason for going to PEI was to attend the Arsenault family reunion, my maternal grandmother was an Arsenault and with the passing of my mother last year I felt the need to connect with our ancestry; but more on that in another post. I had a week until the reunion weekend so I did get a chance to do some tourist things in PEI.

On the harbourfront

Charlottetown Harbour

St Dunstan's Cathedral

Rocket and friend

Celebrating the Acadian World Congress

Cape Islander

Point Prim Lighthouse

Beckett and Keltic at Point Prim

Red sand beaches

Cap Egmont looking toward Mont Carmel

Rock formation

I really enjoyed my time in PEI. I had a chance to spend time with my sister and her family; meeting my newest great-niece who was only born on 4 Aug.  We went out to dinner a couple times and enjoyed relaxing evenings with bonfires in the back yard.

After PEI, I went onto Halifax, mainly to see relatives but of course to see the sites as well.  I booked four nights at the KOA in Upper Sackville.  When they asked me at registration if I needed anything I said help backing in so they sent a young fellow down to the site who backed the trailer in for me.  There was another woman at the site next to me who was also travelling with her dog. I knew from her plates she was ex-military; well, it is a small world, it turned out she knew my youngest sister.

KOA Halifax West (Upper Sackville) Site D10

Pond at the KOA

The next day I went to the Halifax Waterfront and met up with a friend. I had a chance to walk around before she arrived.  The next day I visited with my uncle (my mother's older brother) and aunt and were able to go see one of my first cousins and her two children.

Georges Island

Tall ship and Cruise ship

The following day I drove to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Lunenburg is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I drove back along the coastal highway stopping in Mahone Bay, at a beach, and ending up at Peggy's Cove.

Street signs in Lunenburg

Lunenburg harbour

Dorys in Lunenburg

Mahone Bay churches

Cleveland beach

The boys at Peggy's Cove

Me at Peggy's Cove

Peggy's Cove harbour

Buoys

The next day I met with my mother's youngest sister and we went to Point Pleasant Park to walk the dogs.

Prince of Wales Tower Point Pleasant Park

One of two Martello towers in Halifax.

The next day I left for my return journey home. I had planned to stay overnight at either the Salisbury or Rusgonis Irving Big Stops so I wasn't at all in a hurry. I stopped at the Nova Scotia tourism centre and stopped at the cemetery where my parents are buried.

When I got the Rusgonis Big Stop it was only 5 pm and I knew I could get to the Mactaquac provincial park in another hour so I got online (free Wifi at the Big Stops) and booked a site. There was a fire ban so no campfire this night.

Mactaquac, Campground 3 site 368

I had already booked a site at the Republique Provinical Park so I only had a short drive the next day. This time I really made sure I had a pull through site as you can't always count on helpful campers.

Republique Site 44

Again I got online and booked at Camping Transit for the following night, I needn't have worried as they were not full. I also forgot about the time change so for my last night out I arrived at the campground at only 2 pm; once I was set up I took advantage of having air conditioning, left the dogs in the trailer with the AC on and went to the pool.

Camping transit, Site 170

Pool time

The next day, was the drive home. It started out well and it ended well but near Montreal there was heavy rain. It seemed like I always hit rain when towing (three times on this trip) but I guess that's better than having your vacation washed out.  I don't like towing in the heavy rain.

It was great vacation. At first I wondered if I would like it but at the end I was kind of sad it was over. Podrick is all emptied out and I washed him off today, I still have to clean a bit inside and check all the caulk before taking him back to storage. Looking forward to another long haul next year!