Head Tale

We’re back from a week and a half of camping – one week at Greenwater Provincial Park and then, after a quick night in Regina, another few days at Shea’s parents’ seasonal site in Weyburn.

Both parts were great but Shea and I agreed that the week in Greenwater was maybe our best camping trip ever.

Why?

1. We were able to change our reservation to arrive a day earlier than planned which meant this was probably also our longest uninterrupted camping trip ever.
2. We had amazing weather all week – not too hot, not too cold, no rain except briefly in the early morning of our first night.  The mosquitos weren’t that bad either which was a pleasant surprise.
3. We had two other groups camping with us – my parents camped at the next site down the road plus a family we know who have a boy in Pace’s grade and another boy who’s a couple years older than Sasha ended up camping right across the road from us.  (We had planned which campground to be in and roughly which area but given the “first-come, first-serve” booking system that Saskatchewan uses, it was pure luck that they ended up so close to us!)
4.  We had a week that was a perfect mix of relaxation (sitting drinking coffee with Bailey’s in the morning waiting for the kids to wake up, campfire every night) and activities (playing football in front of our sites, stand-up paddle boarding, going on a pontoon boat ride.)
5. My family had gone to Greenwater numerous times when I was a kid and I had fond memories of the park but hadn’t been back in years.  So it was cool to be there with both my parents and my kids to experience it again.
6. We had a variety of great meals but most memorable was our “Appy Hour” pot luck where everyone brought a couple different appetizers and all were delicious!
7. Moving beyond “smorts” (as we still call “s’mores” after a mis-pronounciation of Pace’s when he was little), we learned how to make “Campfire Eclairs” (and had some R-rated humour joking about how the whipped cream got injected into the roasted dough!) 😉
8. We did a homemade “Campground Bingo” scavenger hunt (example here) with the kids and it was both great fun and great exercise.  As with the “Campfire Eclairs”, we re-did this in Weyburn and both were big hits each time.
9. Instead of pulling the rPod with our van, we borrowed Shea’s dad’s truck for the trip and although our van pulls fine most of the time, my main takeaway was that I had no times where I felt nervous pulling with a truck.  When I pull with the van, I still get nervous going up and down bigger hills, pulling in rain (or sometimes pulling up and down hills *in the rain*!), if there’s wind, etc.  With the truck, there was none of that.  As well, having a truck allowed us to pack a lot heavier than we normally do including all three of our bikes plus Sasha’s pull behind carrier which we enjoyed using to explore the park, both as a family and also so Pace and his buddy could explore at will.
10. Pace and his friend also got to have a “Movie Night” where they showed a few of the videos they’d created at the home-based babysitter they both go to which was pretty fun too!