Camp Siblings

Oh, didn’t know I was gone?

It was our family week off this past week and after wrapping up a million work projects, we headed out to Collingwood first for Tasman 6th (six!) birthday and then off to Lake Huron to spend three nights camping (camping?) before finishing it off up at our family cottage on Three Mile Lake.

But for this post, I will focus on camping.  Sure it was car camping, a little bit more civilized than wandering into the forest with a ring of toilet paper in your hand, but we did all sleep in a tent and cook over a two burner Coleman stove.

My sister and her family joined us, which was a blessing as this is a family that not only car camps quite regularly, but also has no problem hitching a canoe to their minivan and disappearing on Georgian Bay for 10 or more days. This obviously made our foray a little bit easier. She arranged the entire menu so we just handed her cash at the end of the trip.  Having someone take care of something so significant was a true blessing. And, to top it all off, my sister and I got on quite famously for three straight days. You see, I can be a bit annoying, as it is my duty as a younger brother, so usually by day two and a half of being together, my sister has had enough of me.

Not this time, maybe it had something to do with where we were staying.

Growing up in Toronto, we either went north to the Muskoka region or northeast to the Kawarthas for our outdoor experience. For this camping experience we went northwest to snuggle up on the shore of Lake Huron, just south of Grand Bend. Well between the ocean-like waves and the sunsets, you can call me a big fan of this part of Ontario. It was awesome. Rippled sandy beaches, beautiful smoothed out rocks, secret sand dunes and tall pine forests. Majestic stuff.

And of course this was paradise for my two boys and my sister’s daughter and son. Ranging in ages from 12 to six, these four had run of the campground for four days, burning then bronzing their skins playing in the waves and the dunes, before retiring to the site to paint smooth rocks as downtime. The nights ended early, telling stories around a campfire, making smores, drinking beers before zipping ourselves in for the night.

So we love our cottage experience and sleeping in an actual bed, but we agreed, at least once a summer we will pack up our coolers, roll up our sleeping bags and head west to Lake Heron.  We had a great time!