It's Camping, not Glamping

Our family loves to go camping and we have been doing so yearly for the past 20+ years. This year we headed to Algonquin Park, near Barron Canyon. Now we need to clarify what we mean by camping. Camping means you pack up your gear, you put the canoe on your car and you head to the nearest lake. After paddling for a while to the other side you put the gear on your back and the canoe on your head and you traverse the woods, carefully avoiding all nasty tree roots and pointy sharp rocks. Then you put all gear back in the canoe and schloop, schloop schloop your way to the other side. Eventually you will end up at a campsite where there are no cars, no radios, certainly no phones or showers or running hot water and no bathrooms. Well, there is a bathroom, but it is a box with a lid in the middle of the woods aka "the magic treasure box." Anyway, it's peaceful, quiet and the waterfront views are amazing. Glamping (glamour camping) is the other kind wherein you drive your car in and set up camp. We found a beautiful campsite complete with a pre-made stone couch, a luxury indeed.

We spent one day hiking/canoeing to a spot where there is a beautiful waterfall (High Falls) and a naturally made waterslide. It's rather odd to be out in the middle of the Canadian wilderness where there is no way to get to unless you hike/canoe or fly in and there are people everywhere hanging out at this waterslide having a ball. I attempted this slide in my 20s and again took it on in my 40s - maybe I will come back again in another 20 years. It was a first for the kids and they loved it!

On our travels we ran into a variety of wildlife: a very friendly fox who met us at the gate, some big hairy spiders in an outhouse which caused me great anxiety as I don't do well with spiders. Also, while Randi was washing up the dishes in the lake it would seem the frying pan caught the interest of a very big turtle. It came right up to us and popped his/her head out. Now I know turtles breathe very slowly, in and out, like divers, but it is kinda water-snuffly. We also met Mr. Bunny at the Magic Treasure Box and a menagerie of chipmunks and birds. I fell asleep listening to a bullfrog carrying on across the lake and the Loons crying and sighing in the distance.

I know our family vacations times will soon be coming to an end. Camping trips like these I will cherish and remember forever.