New tow vehicle

In preparation for our big trip east, we upgraded our tow vehicle. Here is our new truck, a GMC Acadia.

Farran Park June 29 to July 2 2012

For the first camping adventure of 2012 we booked a Canada Day weekend in the Parks of the St.Lawrence with some close friends.

The setup is getting to be a bit easier with time, though I am still pretty bad at estimating how long it takes to leave the driveway. So after our not noon as planned departure, we arrived at Farran Park with plenty of daylight and sunshine to set up. In the lessons learned department, the electrical hookup should be at most 24 feet from the trailer, not the 27 feet I chose. Lesson 2, get more extension cords.

Our Friends showed up after dark, but we were able to serve Birthday cake and have a camp fire once they had pitched camp.

A happy Canada Day was had by all, until  there was at least one set of little fingers that had less fun, all was fixed with First Aid

Who doesn't like the opportunity to go fly a kite

We were able to sit down, relax and enjoy the company of friends.













The successful camping adventure wrapped up on Monday with us packing up and heading home, we even had a desire to go out again.

Farran Park
- Inexpensive ~$35/night for 2 service
- Lots of grass (and I am not talking about the peculiar odour that wafted down the campground on Friday night)
- Large sites, like really big I would guess 40 feet wide and 100 feet deep (yes that is bigger than the lot I have my house on why do you ask)
 - lots of trees and shade
 - More fire pits than you could shake a stick at.... which is odd as keeping kids with sticks away from the fire was a challenge this trip.
- A beach, though the sand was a bit muddy
- Could have used an extra set of showers, but the facilities were functional and not tooooooo dirty
- Repeat: Probably, though I think I want to do McLaren Island (one park over) just to see

Camper's log - Summer 2011

With Emmett now almost 2, we decided that we could try camping again. Well let me clarify, Laurie said if we had a trailer so she wasn't sleeping on the ground we could go. In no time flat I had acquired a trailer and set up the van for towing.

"That is an RV." Cousin Eddie


July 8-10 2011

For our first trip of the summer we opted for somewhere close, Ottawa Municipal Campground. It is a lovely little campground within city limits. Most of the lots are nice, it is close to home and only 2kms to Walmart in case you forgot something. This place is close enough that I can camp here even while on-call =]

We ended up leaving the house later than planned, which we really should have anticipated, which meant we showed up with just 30mins of daylight left. After we were given a bit of a run-around because someone was in the site we had reserved, we found our site just as the last of daylight disappeared. A beautiful deep site that could have easily housed 2 more trailers. After amusing the other campers with my backing prowess, I prepared to do my first set-up. Cue the rain. The next door neighbors took pity on me and brought over a head mounted flash light. The setup process was finally completed well after bedtime

The girls loved the campground, lots of woods, a play structure and very clean. Wrangling in Emmett was a bit tricky until Laurie told him the bears slept in the woods. He kept real close to the camper after that. The campfire and mandatory Smores on the second night was perfect and a definite camping memory.

The first outing was a success, and I would definitely go back to this campground.

Ottawa Municipal Campground
- Cost: very reasonable, with a CAA rate, it was <$30 a night for a water and electric site.
- Bathrooms: Clean. Making sure you are a close walking distance would be a good idea, there may be some sites where it would be a bit of a hike.
- Activities: Lots of outdoors, a playground and a small splash pad. No swimming.
- Repeat: Absolutely

 August 26th-30th 2011 
After having originally planned to drive east and camp on PEI, the prospect of the long drive with a 1 year old convinced us to fly instead. For our next camping trip, we opted for a trip to the Ivy Lea KOA. The KOAs offer kids programming that seemed fairly interesting, and with this site being close to the US border we saw an opportunity for a trip to Cracker Barrel. We coordinated with friends of ours from the neighborhood who spent the weekend with us.

The IVY Lea KOA has a great pool area and activities, but site selection is critical, The back in sites towards the tenting area are nice, but the pull throughs in the main field are small and close to neighbors. Fortunately due to our early arrival we had a back-in by the woods that was a nice site. The Dionne's site was not quite as nice, that just meant we hosted the campfires which was fine by us. Between cannon ball competition, tie-dyeing, wagon rides and movie night, the kids were amused (edit: awesome according to Rachel).

Sunday morning the remnants of a hurricane blew through so we opted for a day in Watertown NY with a trip to Cracker Barrel. Yummy as always.

Monday we opted for a drive out to Boldt Castle. It was a wonderful adventure.

Ivy Lea KOA
- Cost: Quite expensive $45/day and you can't reserve specific sites
- Bathrooms: Clean, but only 1 for the entire site.
- Activities: Lots and lots and lots.
- Repeat: maybe.