Hello and welcome back to this week’s blog! Today, I’m going to tell you what I did last summer and all the places I visited with my family. Sometimes it’s cool to visit places in and around close to where you are from. You never know what hidden gems you may find.
In my case, most of these places I had visited in prior years, so I kind of knew what I was getting into. The summer of 2022 was probably the most we’ve ever travelled in one season before. We usually take only one or two trips every summer, sometimes including the local fair, which is called K-Days here.
Generally, when we go camping, we stick to the hottest months of the year, generally July and August. Our weather here is generally hot and dry in summer, but there are times when we get some pretty good storms. Also, it’s difficult for us as a family to know ahead of time when we can plan a trip. My husband works out of town, and sometimes his schedule changes. With the camping system (Alberta/Canada Parks), it’s easiest to book ahead online so you can get the time and campground that you want. Albertans are crazy, and since the system has opened up to year round booking, people are booking their trips for the next year already.
Our first trip was on the Canada Day long weekend, July 1st. We went to a campground that is super close to our city of Edmonton. It’s called Miquelon Lake Campground. In recent years, the lake had dried up due to the hot weather and not enough rain. The water is no longer safe to go into (as are most lakes in Alberta). However, the campsite was rather nice. We generally book camping for two to three nights when we go. Considering my daughter was new to the experience, I probably should have listened to reason and stuck to two. I really wanted to extend our trip though, so I booked it for three nights.
Our first night was tortuous because my daughter woke up at 2am and screamed straight for about 20 minutes. Neither my husband nor I could console her, and I’m pretty sure we woke up everyone nearby. We had a lot of rain that first trip. We made sure to bring three tarps, but that still didn't help with the shoe situation. Apparently I didn’t have the foresight to bring rubber boots for anyone (a must here in Alberta every season of the year) and we came home, drenched as drowned rats.
The trip overall wasn't bad though, despite the rain. We had fun, despite the sogginess and since it was only a 40 minute drive, it’s super easy and quick to get back. I think the hardest part about camping is the unpacking afterward. At least when you pack to go camping, you have something to look forward to. When you’re unpacking, you have to wash everything before you put it away again. (Sometimes when I forgot to dry our coffee pot completely, I would find bugs in it the next time we took it out).
The next trip was actually our local fair, and since it was the day before my family reunion, it kind of felt rushed and super busy. We were so jam-packed schedule wise that it was really the only day we could arrange to go. It happened to be on the Thursday before the Civic holiday weekend, and it was also the hottest day of the year. I believe the temperature hit a high of 34 or 35 degrees Celsius. I don’t think any of us got heat stroke, but we all definitely got tans. There’s not a lot of shade to be found on the fairgrounds. There is a place to go inside, but it’s so crowded you can barely move. We managed to provide our kids a good time. They got their faces painted, and went on a bunch of rides. I’m not a huge ride person, so my husband got the pleasure of accompanying my daughter on most of the kiddie rides. We ate some awesomely greasy food and played a few games.
That same day, we had decided to drive to Red Deer to visit my sons Grandpa before heading to my Family Reunion the day after. It takes us about two hours to drive to Red Deer, and I made sure that we had most of our stuff packed and ready to go before we went to the fair. It was probably one of the longest days I’ve experienced this year. To be honest, most summers in the past, we usually tried to visit in Red Deer at least once a month. This year however, my husbands schedule did not really accommodate that.
So, we got to visit in Red Deer for one day and night. The next day, Friday, we had to pick up a few things. We stopped at the mall in Red Deer and at the Sobeys to pick up some things for the reunion.
My reunion is bi-annual, which means we have one every two years. This takes place on my Dad’s side of the family, which is from a Norwegian background. They always take place on the Civic Holiday Long weekend. I had to skip out on the last couple due to circumstance, but I made it priority this time to go since we had our daughter and no one had yet met her.
Usually, whomever hosts the reunion tries to keep it fairly local. Most of them are held within Alberta, but occasionally, they have been in other provinces, as well as one in Minnesota, where our ancestors immigrated to from Norway. I did have the opportunity to see the Dahl Family cabin there one year, which I’m very grateful for. This year, our reunion was held in a small rural area called Eagle Hill Memorial centre close to Highway 2 (Queen Elizabeth highway). Fortunately, it was fairly close to where we were coming from. but we ran into a terrible storm on the way there and it was really hard to see in the rain.
We had a great time, and it was nice to catch up with family we hadn’t seen in many years. Everyone was happy to meet our two year old daughter as well. (She had a grand time too!) I feel like as far as family goes, we have a good mix of ages. A lot of our family is elderly, and so there are usually some deaths that are announced at each reunion. However, there were lots of kids there that were both my children’s ages, and they had a great time, running free amongst the safety of family.
Our next (and last) trip of the season was one more camping excursion. This time, we went to a place called Pigeon Lake Campground. This is one we used to go to quite often before we had our daughter. It is about two hours away from Edmonton, and is quite a boring drive. We hadn’t been out there in quite awhile, and almost forgot the back roads to get there, despite Google Maps.
This trip we also had a good rain. The thunder was quite loud, but it ended up drying up before it go too muddy. (This time I learned though, because I remembered the rubber boots!) The only main problem we had on this trip was we were in the middle of a no wifi zone. There was no internet service at our camp site whatsoever - we couldn’t even make calls out. We physically had to leave the campsite in order to call home.
As adults, we were technically ok with this (Except for safety reasons of course). We were camping, and we wanted to experience the full force of nature. Our eight year old and two year old didn't understand of course. They were born into this technology laden world, so they expect it’s just something that is all the time. (Little do they know!) So, we had our hands full with trying to keep them busy. We ended up coming home a day early because they were constantly getting into trouble and just not sleeping well. This was bittersweet for me because I knew this was our last trip of the summer. However, I also was really looking forward to having a shower and climbing into my own comfortable bed.
We did have a few fun excursions on this trip. We took a scenic road trip to check out all of the holiday homes on the beach. It was slow going, but nice to see all the beautiful landscaping and gorgeous homes. We stopped at the store a few times to get ice, treats for the kids and slushes for me. (I was pregnant and there was another heat wave and the vehicle we took did not have air conditioning).
We also managed to take the kids to a playground the day before we left. We checked out the beach (it was super windy, but at least we had wifi). There were other people in the water, but apparently it wasn't safe to go in (there were high levels of contaminants in the water like the last lake we visited and we just didn't feel comfortable going in). We had purchased some sand toys from the store prior and my daughter had fun playing and digging in the sand. Overall, it was a very good experience despite leaving early.
The one thing I can say is that camping is so much fun when you’re a kid, and a LOT OF WORK when you’re an adult. We still tent, and we had to set up, take down and clean up everything. (Need I say work again?) Would I do it again? Of course. I’m glad we have all of the memories and the pictures from the trips we took this summer. We want to give our kids lasting memories like these.
Thank you so much for reading! What did you do last summer? Leave it in the comments! Next year, maybe we’ll head somewhere a little more exotic than rural Alberta! Wish us luck 🍀🤞
Sandra
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