Our Adventures

Two weeks left of summer and then back to the daily grind. We've definitely had our fill of good times this summer so I'm okay with getting back into a routine. Right now Chris is doing a 20 hour wilderness first aid course so I thought it would be a good time to catch up on our latest summer adventures. About a week and a half ago we headed out to Chilliwack Lake, got a prime camping spot and set up our stuff, then went out on the lake for a canoe ride. We canoed almost to the end of the lake, found a good little beach for lunch and enjoyed the fabulous views. We tried to let Molly swim to shore when we got close to the beach but she just wanted to get back on the canoe and almost got run over by the boat, she eventually figured out that it was safer to just keep swimming straight. Not sure if she realizes yet that her lifejacket will help her float. Chris also went for a dip but not for long because it is one cold lake. We paddled back and went to our site and had a nap before Ryan, Cheryl and Rayna came to join us for the night. We enjoyed a hot dog and corn on the cob supper and roasted marshmellows with chocolate over the fire. This was Rayna's first camping experience and other than waking up because she was cold she did really good, now we know we can go camping with them more!

Last weekend we drove into Vancouver to see the Riders get whooped by the Lions. It was cool to see the new stadium and we did enjoy some delicious pizza after the game but the loss and seeing that our car wasn't where we had left it, made the trip a little less worth it. We parked in a spot that is free on the weekends and evenings but we supposedly parked too close to the curve in a road (even though there wasn't a sign saying not to park up to that point) so our car got towed and ticketed. An extra $150 later, I'd say I don't need to go into Vancouver for another game anytime soon.


More Summer Fun
This last week we did our first bigger canoeing trip out in Manning Park on the Lightning Lakes Chain. Although it's possible to canoe these lakes they aren't necessarily made for portaging but we had read some reviews on people who had done it and thought it would be worth a try. Our trip took about 4 hours one way, with three lakes and two portages, one about 600 m and the other 1.5 km. Chris carried the canoe using the yoke and I carried as much bags and paddles and dog as I could. It was quite a bit of a work and portaging to the 3rd lake probably wasn't worth it since that was the longer portage and the lake only took us 10 minutes to paddle across. We tied up our canoe in the last lake and hiked to our wilderness site and set up in a nice little spot by the creek. We were enjoying the peacefulness of the site thinking we had the place to ourselves when a group of 10 people with their kids showed up at around 7:30. It wasn't too bad except for some little girls that kept wandering over to our site to see Molly while their parents set up and made supper. We did end up enjoying our fire once the families were eating and then I snuggled up in my sleeping bag for night with Molly curled up in the foot of my bag. Our trek back in the morning seemed a little shorter than getting there because we had figured out our system by then. Our canoe is more broken in now, with a few more scratches than it had before but I think we'll be ready to do a bigger canoeing trip next year that has more canoeing and less portaging. We will definitely come back to Lightning Lake and just paddle around the lake though.