I Made a Play Campfire

Blackbird Jr is currently clamoring for "white and brown pretend marshmallows". I even offered that we could pretend to cook REAL marshmallows that he could eat later, but he wants play ones.

I used red corduroy with orange and yellow felt for the flames. The large flame is stuffed with stuffing with poly pellets on the bottom to make it stand and the small flame has wire armature so you can shape it.

I used some scrap wood for around the flames but I'd like to collect some sticks on our nature walks to use instead.

Not that I Need Another Craft Project

but doesn't this look like so much fun to play with?





It's a Miniature Travel Trailer kit from Greenleaf Dollhouses.

And on the camping theme, how cool is this pretend campfire? I've been thinking about making one for a few months now (I was thinking felt or fleece flames with a wire armature) and wasn't sure how to tackle the removable marshmallows on sticks. I love that this one comes with it's own little mat!



spotted in the etsy shop of Helicopter Studios.

Carson Pegasus, June 2008

We got back earlier today from camping at Carson Pegasus Provincial Park. We tried a new site this visit, one that was right on the water. It was further to walk in, but the view was really lovely.

Here are some of my photos-

Blackbird Jr tearing down one of the walking trails.



View of the lake from our campsite.



The ducks wander up to you in the hopes that you will feed them.



Bananaboats! I loved these when I was a kid. You wrap them in foil and warm them over the fire.



Photos of a sunset, all taken from our campsite.











We packed Saturday and traveled Sunday, which worked out really well as the campsite pretty much emptied out Sunday. We collected lots of firewood people had left behind and were the only people camping in the walk-in area part of the campsite so it was really quiet and private. Blackbird Jr loved camping and wanted to stay until Christmas.

Oster Lake at Elk Island

On Saturday we headed out to Elk Island to go for a walk and check out the more isolated group camping site along Oster Lake. If you look at the map here, we followed Trail #3 from Tawayik picnic area along to the group campsite and back.

It was a really lovely day for a walk, sunny and breezy so it wasn't too hot. We saw many different species of butterflies, some caterpillars and tiny frogs. No bison or other mammals spotted this trip.

Mr Blackbird and Blackbird Jr heading out along the path:



It took us about an hour or so to make it to the campsite. Blackbird Jr did a great job of walking almost the entire walk and riding on Mr Blackbird's shoulders occasionally.

The campsite is basically a big grassy field beside the lake. It's a group site but there aren't any marked camp areas. By the lake there is a small area with picnic tables, campstoves and firewood as well as outhouses.



No beach but non-motorized boats are allowed on the water, it would be really peaceful for boating.



The nicest thing about it was how quiet and peaceful it was. As it's quite a walk in, we only saw one or two other families the entire walk and picnic out there. Once we got back to the Tawayik picnic site the parking lot was full and they picnic tables there were busy.

We drove to the Sandy Beach campground area to check out the walk-in tenting but were disappointed. There were only a few sites and they were not really private at all. It might be nice if a group of people wanted to go tenting together. We walked near the RV campsite area beside the walk-in and it wasn't much more than a parking lot with firepits and picnic tables. We didn't walk through the Sandy Beach campground area, just the RV camping and walk-in tenting.

Carson Pegasus and Miquelon

Forgive me for yammering on about the camping, but I wanted to post some pics here to share with a friend. Here you go, M.

Miquelon- my June 2007 review, so some information is out of date.

It's clear water (salt water), shallow so great for little ones, a huge beach with nice soft sand, picnic tables right on the beach (a ways away from the water though), a big playground near the water, and there are walking trails. They do have campsites but they are not very private and all gravel, which sucks for tenting. They only have one campsite loop open at present as they are still doing renovations (I heard they are booked for the summer anyway).

It's about half an hour or so SE of Edmonton.

Playground near the lake(linked as it's a big photo). You can see the picnic tables behind the playground dotted along the beach.

Clear water!


Walking trail- there are some backcountry trails but it was too mosquito-y when we went. There is also a little store with ice cream and stuff and you can walk along the walking trails to get to it. The park usually has flush toilets and showers but they weren't functional when we went in June.



There are a couple of other small playgrounds amongst the campsites as well. Miquelon is really nice but crazy busy on a weekend, due to it's close proximity to the city. We've never overnight camped there, but it's a nice beach to visit on a weekday when it's not so busy.

Carson Pegasus- these are from 2006

You can see a map of CP here:
http://www.thecampgroundcritic.com/Carson-Pegasus%20Map.htm

One of the playgrounds:



Seawall path:



Lake



Playground on beach



Swim area/beach. It's pretty small but the lake is clear and shallow. Rocky bottom in swim area, not sand.



Tip of the peninsula- you can hike up to the top, through another walk-in area. There is another hiking trail to the right of the map above but when we started on it we saw a sign warning a cougar was in the area, so we turned right around



Looks like people feed the ducks :) I wanted to too but we read a sign that feeding them peope food means they produce fewer eggs and don't gain weight fast enough, etc so I resisted.



Walking trail



Walk-in tenting site right beside the water



The lake is stocked with some kind of fish I can't remember, so there were lots of people boating and fishing. Lots of big rvs, I think I only saw one other tent! There is a store that sells ice cream, some food items, fishing supplies and a few toys.

I really liked the campsite. The service was so-so (the people in the check-in place were semi-rude when I called to book, when we got there she didn't know how far the walk-in sites were from the parking lot as she "had never been up there" and didn't know what the weather forecast was for the next day) but the campsite was clean and well-maintained. We were really happy with our site, as it was far from other campsites but close to the playground, trails and showers/bathroom. It was super-quiet being that it wasn't a weekend and it was only June so that was nice too. It was kind of a bummer to come back to the city and be surrounded by traffic and fast food joints after spending a couple days outdoors in the pretty forest by the lake.

Edited to add: firewood used to be free, but either this year or the last they started charging and it's 6$ a bundle now.

It is about 200 km north of Edmonton, almost all of it on major highway. It is easy to get to. If we didn't stop it would have taken 2.5 hours (half hour to get out of the city, 2 hours to campsite). It took us 4 hours because we stopped for coffee and lunch. Next time we plan to leave right after breakfast and pack sandwiches to eat at the site for lunch when we get there.

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Sadly, the campground critic site is no longer up but I found another link that has people rating alberta campgrounds with comments:

http://www.prairieoutdoors.com/outdoors/camp/albertaparkratings.php

What I'm Reading

Left Hand of Darkness- I've been reading a bit more fantasy stuff of the werewolf and vampire genre and I thought I would maybe give Sci Fi a chance. In the lovely book and movie The Jane Austen Book Club, the lone male member of the book club is a huge Sci Fi fan and gives someone he is interested in a copy of The Left Hand of Darkness to introduce her to Science Fiction. I really liked the Jane Austen Book Club so I thought I would trust the author's taste and give Left Hand of Darkness a shot. So far though, I can only say "mildly interesting". I don't mind reading it, but when I'm not reading it, I'd almost rather find something else to do than return to it.

Sister Noon- I've just started this one, and it's by the author of the Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler. I'm really liking it so far, it's got interesting female lead characters (like JABC).

Excerpt from amazon:

Subtle undercurrents of race and class propel this intriguing novel laden with historic fact and fancy, mystery, voodoo, frontier rough-and-tumble and turn-of-the-century social conventions. The characters rooted in this rich, exotic loam are an unforgettable crop. In 1890s San Francisco, Lizzie Hayes is a 40-year-old spinster, the well-born volunteer treasurer of the Ladies' Relief and Protection Society Home, familiarly called the Brown Ark because of its "shipwrecked, random air, like something the tides had left. In this respect, it matched the fortunes of most of its residents." One day, the notorious, fascinating and possibly dangerous Mrs. Mary Ellen Pleasant arrives at the door of the Brown Ark with a girl, Jenny Ijub, a disturbing and winsome child, perhaps four years old, rumored to be the daughter of a mother buried at sea and an unknown father, though Lizzie suspects he could be rich and thus a valuable resource for the Home. Every character's tale is complicated, unpredictable and often engrossing. Mrs. Pleasant, for instance, is a former slave (or is she?), wealthy as a railroad baron, charitable, a witch and a legendary cook. Still beautiful at 70, she is a purported dealer in underground markets where sex, opium and even murder are for sale. Fowler (Sarah Canary; The Sweetheart Season) moves her principals through time and space seamlessly and gracefully, and exquisitely renders San Francisco as it grows from outpost to city. The temporal shifts and the unreliability of some characters' histories may be temporarily disorienting, but readers who bear with Fowler will be handsomely rewarded.

I am also looking through Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which is really interesting and I'd recommend to anyone who is interested in knowing more about their cycle. For anyone looking for information on birth control or pregnancy it would be really useful as it helps you determine exactly when you are ovulating and when you can expect your menses.

I started reading the Camping with Kids book I described below and had to laugh outloud when I read an excerpt about how the author was asked to write a book about camping with children when she was pregnant. After camping in a tent for 5 day with her 8 month old she said the book would be one word: DON'T. I tented with Blackbird Jr when he was 3 months old in a 2 man tent we had to crawl in and out of (while holding the baby) and he was too little for mosquito spray or suntan lotion. Other cherished memories are sitting in a mosquito tent double pumping breastmilk (part of my daily routine made more special through camping) and fantasizing setting the campsite on fire. So yeah. Don't. Wait until they are older or at minimum, a big enough tent.

Back to the campsite book though, it has some nice reviews of campsites but the ones for Alberta are mostly all larger campsites that are for RV'ers, as the author ended up purchasing an RV to camp with her kids. That made it less relevant for me as a tenter as we prefer the smaller, walk-in tenting sites.

Recent Library Requests

I've got the bug. I really want to get out of the city and into some greenspace.

S is for S'mores: a camping alphabet



This one is "Camping with Kids: The best family campgrounds in BC and Alberta""

Starting to Get Ready for It

Anyone else thinking about camping already?