Camping - finally!

Stuart, Ursa and I spent last weekend in Kananaskis.  We normally get into camping a lot earlier in the year, but there were two stumbling blocks this year: a) a late spring (although, with the right gear, we laugh at weather! and b) buying a house.  And really, it was the move that slowed things up.  Why spend time breathing fresher air in spectacular surroundings when you can be putting more of your stuff in boxes or taking it out of boxes again?  Sigh.

We booked Friday off, tossed everything in the trailer, stopped on the way out of town for massages and then it was westward ho!  Because of our various injuries and the fact that we haven't worked with Ursa as much as we'd have liked, we've opted for car camping this summer.  Our first trip was to Boulton Creek.  Stuart scored us an awesome site at the back of the campground and away we went!

The weather was darn near perfect.  There were a few showers Friday afternoon, but they pretty much cleared off before we were ready to start cooking dinner.  Saturday was sunny and warm, with just enough breeze to keep you from overheating.  Sunday had a bit more cloud cover, but still nice and warm.  The mosquitos weren't even bad - I only picked up about 4 bites.

We spent the whole weekend napping in the hammock, reading our books and taking Ursa for long rambling walks.  She practiced carrying sticks and checked out all the creeks we came across.  We ate smokies, smores, fruit, salads and cheese and discovered that hot chocolate with Bailey's is pretty darn drinkable.  ;)  We'd brought bones for Ursa, but she just buried them all and would have left them, if we hadn't gone and fetched them for her.  Silly dog!

She's also coming more and more into her protective instincts.  She'd bark at people going passed our site and growled when the park person came in to tell us about the evening's entertainment.  We're working with her now to say "one or two barks in enough, once we've acknowledged you, you've done your job"; we'll see how that goes.

On the way back into Calgary, I discovered an email from Kaylene, so we swung off the highway to stop and see their new acreage.  Stuart was all for going home to work on the baseboards, but I put my foot down and instead we stayed to soak in their hot tub and have bbq.  A much better ending to the weekend!  It's a nice place on two acres with a pond, so we'll definitely be going back.