It had been 5 years since Tim and I last went camping. 4 if you count the time we drove the two hours from Victoria to Port Renfrew with friends, couldn’t find find the rest of our group, so turned around and ended up pitching our tents in our backyard. My family never was super big on camping growing up because we had a family cabin, but the few times I’ve gone, I’ve loved it! So it’s a wonder it took us this long to do it again. So when Tim’s sister suggested going together, we said “yes!” knowing the boys are at a great age for camping (really, what age ISN’T a great age for camping?). We decided to stick close to home and drove an hour to Elk Island.

Upon driving up to our site, I was a little disappointed because there was literally zero separation between our site and the next, and hardly any sites really had privacy, but it turned out alright. The neighbours didn’t show up until after lunch the next day, saying they had looked at the forecast and there was a chance of a storm (never manifested). So they hung out that afternoon and went back home at supper time because it was supposed to storm again. And they had a son a couple years older than Calvin so they basically entertained each other the entire afternoon. Wonderful!

The storm for Saturday night DID manifest. For about 2 hours (or more…I never checked the time). It was massive and sat right above us, giving us an awesome light show and thunderous thunder that the boys miraculously slept through. If I was a little braver and didn’t care about sleeping the rest of the night in wet clothes, I would’ve gotten out and watched the lighting. The next morning was soggy and it drizzled a bit here and there, but luckily, right on the other side of our neighbour’s site was a large group-sized covered area with picnic tables, so we set up for breakfast under there. Mark and Michelle had actually moved their tent during the night to under it because they ended up in a puddle.

All in all, it was a wonderful time of simply hanging out, reading books, cooking food, playing frisbee and resting in a simple weekend. The boys were happy as long as Calvin had somebody to throw a ball with, Victor had sticks to be his “pewers”, and Patrick had a muddy ground to crawl through.

We are all so excited for our next trip, and my secret inner camping enthusiast is emerging!