i fought a monster whilst a-camping

there were severe time restraints on our camping trip. we had originally planned to go for three or four days, but work and kids-picking-up and stuff changed our plans.

we still had fun, and honestly, i don't know if i would enjoy camping for more than a day without any booze. unless i brought a bunch of books with me.

i just don't have any imagination for things to do once i'm out in the wilderness.

sure, we made up a story about the poor seagull ("chuck") with a broken wing we saw. he disappeared at some point during the day, and ryan thought maybe he had pushed himself off into the ocean to "go surfing"

soon we had given him a soundtrack; for some reason he was sailing off into the sunset at the end of the entire movie we wrote about him to "free ride" (the 70's song by the edgar winter group)

here are some photos, because i remembered to charge my camera battery for once (and ended up taking 360 photos!)








this wasn't a drive-up campground kind of deal. we had to park at a trail head and fill out a form saying where we were going and for how long and who do the camp rangers notify if we go missing.

i had bear mace tucked into the side mesh pocket of my backpack where the water bottle is supposed to go

i think it was around an hour hike. it was just 2 kilometers, but there were a lot of twisty turny up-hilly bits.

and ... a suspension bridge!

i always forget just how terrified i am of heights until i come across something like this.

ryan was like "go stand in the middle of the bridge and i'll take your picture"

so i did. but i didn't stop walking once i started. i yelled back that i was actually scared and he started making the bridge bounce and he didn't realize how close to being punched in the head he was until he saw the crazy in my eyes

anyway it was totally safe and obviously we were fine

we kept walking. suddenly there was a noise

ryan: "do you hear that?"

me: "yeah"

ryan: it's the ocean!

me: oh, i thought it was cars driving by!

(oh, city girl)

we got there all sweaty and joyous

ryan saw somebody he used to work with who lives in the middle of alberta now. in fact they camped directly beside us.

we only stayed one night. this is how our camping went:

1. hike, almost get lost, get passed by an old man who wasn't even out of breath, cross bridge, hike, arrive at the beach

2. choose a campsite, find a dying seagull near it, choose another campsite and dump our heavy bags there

3. walk around, take pictures of caves and waterfalls and a weird bungy swing thing tied to a tree at the top of a cliff, almost get in a fight because i didn't want to go on the swing but ryan really wanted me to

4. set up the tent, collect firewood just in case it rained, unroll sleeping bags, get tired, hang food up in a tree

5. lie in the tent "just for a minute" together and promptly fall asleep

6. wake up like 3 hours later, the sun is about to set

7. get up, make some cajun beans and rice (which was delicious) on our teeny tiny camp stove thing that you should be extremely jealous of because it's awesome

8. take pictures of the sunset, ryan "makes me an ice cream"


9. get cold and have to pee, find out there are outhouses at the top of a really steep climb, decide to be civil and use the outhouses, almost die of the stench inside the outhouses, go back to campsite and put on warm jammies inside the tent

10. decide that it's bedtime even though we just had a three hour nap

11. wake up in the middle of the night freezing cold even though i'm wearing 198459 layers of clothing, realize my sleeping bag is unzipped and the velcro at the top is strangling me, remember that i had been dreaming about being in a farm house in saskatchewan in the winter with no shoes on in the snow, think it's funny

12. wake up the next day to the sound of ships, fall back asleep, wake up, fall back asleep, wake up again. fall back asleep.

13. definitively wake up when the sun is high in the sky

14. have soup for breakfast because it's still chilly out

15. pack up and leave. make jokes about napping while sleeping.

16. get winded and take 5 breaks in the first 15 minutes of the hike because it's all uphill on stairs that are like knee height

17. hike hike hike some more. find "tree porn"


18. collapse into the car, try not to be offended when ryan says he's less tired than me because he doesn't lead such a sedentary lifestyle, go get shot-in-the-darks from serious coffee

19. feel awkward about the plural of "shot in the dark". is it "shots in the dark" or "shot in the darks"?

20. go home and get crunk on a gigantic bottle of wine.

the end.