Camping meals

Dustin and I love to camp. It's our preferred vacation when factoring cost, proximity to home, peace and quiet, and a little challenge. (Sometimes a little too much challenge...)

This past Labour Day weekend, we made our second trip to Massasauga Provincial Park.  The Massasagua is where we go when we have limited time to hike or canoe deep into the back country. From Pete's Place access point, a short 20 minute paddle gets you to some decent interior camp sites.  There are still motor boats that frequent the area, but in general, the sites are quite isolated and the lack of portages allows us to bring more equipment with us despite the two-person trip (Mackenzie has yet to prove useful in anything other than squirrel/chipmunk chasing.)

One of the (many) things Dustin and I look forward to is camping food. It gives us the excuse to be a little junky, indulging in all those "convenience foods" justifying that while camping, we just don't have the space to bring raw ingredients, spices, and cooking tools. We have one camping stove, a small pot set, a swiss army knife, and usually a spatula.

Planning camping meals is always a little tricky -- that is, if you don't resort to the dehydrated packaged food from the outdoor stores.  Any meat that we bring starts off completely frozen, then over the course of the camping trip, the bacon, ground meat, or spaghetti sauce slowly melts.  When picking foods, we pick things that are dense or flat so we don't have to worry about squashing it.  Things like bagels, tortilla wraps, rye bread or pasta work really well. (And crunchy cheetos...) Our favourite lunch and dinner meals include spaghetti, shepherd's pie, fajitas, or BLTs.

Our first lunch meal, grilled cheese. Made with Kraft Singles. Two slices each. Mmmmmm.



One of our dinners was a beef fajita made with stir fried beef that we froze with the marinade. As the beef defrosts, it soaks up the delicious marinade and helps make a little bit of a sauce. A little ziplock bag of premixed sour cream and salsa adds a little fajita tang.



Breakfasts are always a little easier. Bacon keeps well, and the fat doubles as cooking oil (don't judge. We're being resourceful here.) Oatmeal packages take up next to no space in the pack. Pancake mix (the just-add-water kind) is ever so easy.  If you don't want to risk bringing maple syrup (no one likes sticky leaks) we add chocolate chips to the pancake mix. If you're extra lucky and have some Ah Caramels leftover from snacktime, throw that on top of the pancakes. Double mmmmm.



This year's Labour Day weekend boasted rain, wind, and plenty of cloud cover. There were short breaks of sunshine where we did a little fishing off the rocks and out in the canoe.

No fish for us, but nothing beats that peaceful whir of each cast (if I don't tangle my hook on nearby vegetation.)








The Massasauga has a knack for giving us troublesome camping trips. Our first trip 4 years ago included an encounter with a bear and a small incident with a nest of wasps. This year, Mackenzie cut open her foot and the wind and rain gave us a scary paddle back to the access point. Like I said, a little peace and quiet with a dash of challenge.

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Racer-back tunic

About a month before my trip to Mexico, I had big sewing plans. I was going to sew myself a new dress for the wedding I was attending; I wanted to sew a new toiletry bag; I dreamed about how great Amy Butler's Blue Sky Hat would be for the trip. Perhaps a tunic to double as a bathing suit cover up?

I started and ended with the tunic.

But: I created my first original pattern! I knew I wanted a racer-back design, so I used some skills that I learned from the "knock it off" class at the workroom to shape the back of the tunic.

As with my last "dress b", I used fabric from a bolt sale put on by Textile Museum of Canada (there's another sale happening on May 27th!) I made sure to match up the horizontal lines, and by sheer luck, the zigzags lined up to be exactly in the front-center and back-center.

The tunic was great for a beach cover-up in Mexico. For every-day wear, I can pair it with some leggings, or wear it like a blouse.

Now that I'm back and well rested, maybe I'll try and tackle some of those other projects...

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Back and ready to blog!

I'm back from my amazing trip to Los Cabos, Mexico!

I've missed you and can't wait to catch up!!!

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Sir Sam's Inn

For our second anniversary, Dustin and I spent the Thanksgiving weekend at Sir Sam's Inn near Haliburton. What a delightful place! (Yes, I used the word delightful.) The drive up was beautiful: Autumn is, hands down, my favourite season. There was a large tree just outside our window that was just starting to turn a nice shade of burnt orange.

From vacation

From vacation

Unlike a resort hotel, the inn was relatively small and we never felt like it was overcrowded. There is a gazebo on the property that looks out into the water: not quite big enough to reenact the scene with Rolph and Leisel from The Sound of Music, much to Dustin's disappointment.

From vacation

The weather that weekend was mostly spectacular, but a small storm hit just when we were out in the canoe. We managed to stay dry, and Dustin even let me take a few pictures of the storm before running back inside. Why don't pictures of blowing snow ever turn out? My only photo evidence of the stormy winds comes from a (lucky) shot of a leaf blowing by our bedroom window.

From vacation

The absolute greatest thing about Sir Sam's, is the water spa. Instead of a standard hotel swimming pool, they have a fabulous water spa with a circuit of relaxing jets, waterfalls, and bubbles that soothe and massage all parts of your body. Dustin and I could not believe how much time we were able to spend at the water spa, mostly with the facility all to ourselves.

From vacation

From vacation

Our nights always ended with a blazing fire in our room. Being the forever boyscout at heart, Dustin was always able to get a great fire roaring despite the minuscule fireplace.

From vacation

I'm not sure who Sir Sam is, but it sure was nice of him to have us at his inn to celebrate two years of marriage to the boyscout of my dreams.

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The Behemoth

From vacation

If you haven't been to Canada's Wonderland in the last year or so, know this: things have changed. Some for the better, some for the worse, and some for the AWESOME!

This past Wednesday, my "Urban Family" and I went to Wonderland to escape the world of work, research, and whatever it is that Dan does. Also: we wanted to avoid the weekend crowd.

Apparently everyone else had the same idea, so although our first three rides (before 11am) were without lines, the majority of the day was spent standing in line, judging all the thick eyeliner, coloured contacts, impeccably short shorts, tight-see-through tops, double-popped-collars, exposed chest hair, and Lamb of God (the heavy metal band, not Jesus the son of God) t-shirts. We must have missed the memo on Canada's Wonderland dresscode.

We found ourselves saying (on multiple occasions) "my mother would never have let me out of the house looking like that." (The first occasion was referring to exposed cheeks. Not the ones on the face.) How proud my mother would have been.

To prove that we were just from a more "tastefully dressed" era, and not "old," we made it our mission to do The Behemoth as many times as we could. Last year, we did it four times. This time, we only managed three -- limited only by rain and the length of the lineup, and not our Young Roller Coaster Spirits.

From vacation

The ride is fabulous. I recommend to all. Even my mother would love it. Words alone cannot express how exhilirating a ride it is; therefore, I bought a mug. A very large mug. You could say it was a behemoth.

From vacation

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