Summer Travels

This summer, we're staying close to home for our camping trips. We've already had two trips and have two more booked. 

The first trip was to Murphy's Point Provincial Park. We went there the week of Victoria Day weekend. The week before was nice weather as was the week after but the week we went, it was very cold. Luckily it wasn't too wet; there was only one day where it rained most of the day. We did have a campfire each night though. We all had pull through sites, so I was able to get in my site by myself. 

Podrick and Strider

I did need help getting the awning up. My brother in law can get the rope up higher and tighter than I can.  The power posts were quite far away. My sister had to borrow an extension cord from me and I had to use one as well. I was camping with two of my sisters, their husbands and another couple, friends of one of my sisters. 

This was the first trip out with Strider, other than bringing Podrick home from storage. Everything seemed to be working fine, a new converter was installed last year but I found at the end of the trip that the battery still wasn't charging when the trailer was plugged in.

One sister and her husband bought a bigger fifth wheel last year as they live out of it for two to three months and found the smaller fifth wheel to be tight especially when they have their grandsons to visit. That trailer was most welcome on this trip as we ate every meal in the trailer. It was just too cold or wet to eat outside. The weather did keep the bugs down.

In the glamping trailer

Even though the weather wasn't great, we did get in a couple walks to two old homesteads that are in the park. If it had been later in the summer, there is also an old silver mine you can visit.

And it's still a good camping trip when you set up in the dry, pack up in the dry and have a campfire every night!

Last week my youngest sister, her husband and I went to Bonnechere Provincial Park. It's one we hadn't been to before but it's only about a two hour drive from my place. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere though. I arrived before my sister and her husband did. I had planned to try and back into my site myself but when I saw how tight the road was and that there was a big tree that I would need to get around I knew that wasn't happening. I went back out the waste disposal site and messaged them to see when they'd arrive. I walked the dogs and then went to the dump station while waiting for them. It turned out to get into my site, you had to come the other way down the camp road.  There happened to be someone parked in my sister and brother-in-law's site so they had to book another. They ended up taking mine and I took the site that they had just booked. My brother-in-law still backed me in as this site is on the passenger side. I did get everything set up myself, even the awning.

We had much better weather here. It still wasn't really warm but we didn't get much of the rain that had been called for. We ate outside for every meal. The first day we just hung around the campsite. We did do the FIT trail. It's not an exercise trail but stands for Footprints In Time. That evening we also saw the Strawberry Moon rising over Round Lake. The picture doesn't do it justice, the moon really was strawberry red.  The next day we drove into Petawawa; it's about a 40 minute drive. We went to Centennial Park and then to the Dog House Brewery.  

The next day we drove into Pembroke, again another 40 minute drive. They have a series of art murals throughout the downtown area and a nice waterfront park on the Ottawa River.

City Hall

Again we ate well and enjoyed a campfire every night. This was our last night's meal, Italian sausage and Corn and Tomato Gnocchi. The Gnocchi side dish is done in a foil pack with white wine, butter and red pepper flakes served with Parmesan and fresh basil. I had bought Gnocchi filled with Asiago cheese. It definitely was a do-over side. 

We are off again next week, all of our trips are booked Monday to Friday. I noticed this past week the campground got busy on Thursday night as people got a jump start on the weekend. 

I did pop the GFCI plug on my trailer and so far have not managed to get it to reset so for now I have no outlets that work. I'll have to bring extension cords on the next trip until I can get Podrick back in for service. Oh well, we managed without electricity when tent camping.

Camping Meal Preparations

Hard to believe on a day like today when it's barely above freezing that in less than a month, we'll be on our first camping trip. The first trip is to three Ontario provincial parks, and we'll only be gone just over a week. 

Our big trip is down to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. We just finished doing all the bookings and we'll be gone a month. It was an adventure booking the Nova Scotia provincial parks as they lock the web site for the 15 minutes prior to the time reservations open, then you're assigned a random number that is your place in line to get onto the web site. The first morning we tried to book a park, my sister got in right away, and I had a five-minute wait. As a result of that reservation system, we didn't get any of the sites we wanted but we did get into all the parks we'd hoped to, except one, so we had to change our itinerary a bit. 

So, I've been doing a bit of meal prep, it makes it easier when you have part of the meal done. So far, I have made savoury breakfast muffins and egg bites. The muffins tasted delicious both warm and cold, the egg bites on the other hand will need some added flavour, maybe hot sauce. The muffins have sausage, onions and cheese. The egg bites are made three ways, bacon and cheese, basil and tomato and mushroom and onion.

Savoury Muffins

Egg Bites

I've also prepared some evening meals. I made Donair meat; I still have to make the sauce.  I've also made the filling for Quesadillas. The Donair loaf doesn't look attractive but with all the spices it sure tastes good. With the Donair meat, we've found when camping that Donair pizzas are easier than making individual Donairs. We use Naan bread for the crust, the Donair sauce as pizza sauce then Donair meat, tomatoes, onions and mozzarella cheese for the toppings. I'm thinking maybe I'll make some pulled pork too. That makes an easy supper, you can either do tacos or sandwiches and pulled pork freezes well. 

Quesadilla filling

Donair loaf

We do eat quite well when we're camping. Not all our meals are elaborate, sometimes it is just hot dogs and chips. Occasionally, we do eat in restaurants, especially if the weather is bad, but if you do that very often it gets expensive. 

I'll need to get my camping grocery list put together soon so that I don't forget any of the key ingredients for the meals. I once forgot the shrimp to make a Shrimp Sambuca. 

I sure hope the weather warms up in the next few weeks. Camping is not as much fun if it's too cold.