So how’d the camping go?

Funny you should ask.

We rolled into a campsite outside St. Thomas, Ontario just after 4pm. I’d picked this particular campground solely for it’s proximity to Port Stanley, Ontario where we had a full slate of family fun scheduled for the next day. (Stay tune for a full recap of that adventure in a day or two.)

So we pull up to the campsite I booked online a mere six hours later than we’d planned. Though, if I’m going to be completely honest, I knew that the 6am getaway time was pure fantasy from the moment I dreamed it up and declared it “the plan.” This meant we had just enough time to set up our campsite, make a fire and eat dinner before sunset and no time whatsoever for family nature hikes, swimming or other camping activities. (Uh? Capture the flag? Help me out here.)

First, we had to drag our tent around the camp site for twenty minutes trying to figure out if there was a magical angle that would highlight the sliver of woodland running along one one side of the campsite and completely hide the huge, densely populated trailer park on the other side. There wasn’t. We finally remembered how to actually pitch our tent and had started to unload the sleeping bags when we discovered our new $100 king-sized air mattress with the built-in pump did not, in fact, come with batteries. Fun!

This is why I highly recommend camping within a ten minute drive of a Canadian Tire. In fact, Canadian Tire should consider running campgrounds around the periphery of their parking lots. Somebody’s going to get rich off that idea. Just wait and see.

We did finally set up the tent, get a fire going and enjoy a picnic dinner of veggies sticks and cold sandwiches. Night fell and we roasted marshmallows and danced around the fire to the explicit lyrics and heavy dance beats that blared forth from the massive party on the campsite just beyond our little stretch of woods. Then we all snuggled into our sleeping bags and I spent the night getting kicked in the face by an almost-three-year-old and listening to drunken conversations directly outside my tent.

Ah, feels good to get away from it all.

Still the kids had fun and we were sure the next camping stop would be even better. And I’m sure it will be great when we go camping again next summer because I threw in the towel and we stayed at friend’s homes and in hotels for the remainder of this year’s trip. And I don’t regret that even a little bit.