Waffling: Camping at Balsam Lake!

I had quite a busy weekend with a bridal shower and a half marathon, but first I feel we need to travel back in time to a week ago when I went camping with my girls!! I have been camping with my friend Lisa and Ginny (and a few others some years) annually since 2008...however we hadn't managed to go for the past couple years, which sucked. So one day this spring I picked a random July weekend and messaged the girls to see if they were free and we booked it! We all also ended up taking the Friday off work so we could get up there earlier! :)

Me, Lisa, and Ginny in 2008! Such youngin's we were...

On the Thursday I met up with Ginny, went grocery shopping and I stayed at her place for the night since she lived closer to the campground and no one wants to come downtown to get me during rush hour. Lisa showed up at 8:30am on Friday and we were off! We ended up staying at Balsam Lake. The same place we stayed in 2012. In fact, the exact same campsite!! We set up camp, made a beer, ice, and firewood run, and then got down to the business of relaxing.

I like to tell people we have a 20 person tent. It is just sort of a ridiculous huge thing we bought many a moon ago. We actually found a giant hole in it a couple of years ago so this year I bought a tent repair kit and we patched it up- hopefully she will have many more summers with us! Also, mine was the only air mattress to not deflate while we slept #winning.

Friday involved a lot of trips to the camp store to try and fix one of the air mattresses and to buy more wood because we kept burning all ours (weird how that happens). On one of those trips we bought a cake. It twas a good dinner that night!

Friday night it was FREEZING. I dont know how we managed to go from 40 degrees celsius a couple days prior to THIRTEEN, but it happened. We went to bed with all of our clothes on! I got up around 7am to go for a run and found Lisa sitting in her car with the heat on! Also, while she was sitting there someone maybe tried to steal our beer?? WHO DOES THAT? Anyway, Lisa scared them off.

And yes! I went for a run! I originally had an 8km run and a 19.5km run for Sat/Sun, but since I ended up getting lost on the trails on Saturday morning (lol), I called it even at 10km for the whole weekend. It was such a nice run though! I was pretty slow thanks to rocks, roots, and mud, but it was super enjoyable and I never saw another soul the entire time- just me an nature! I don't get to do much (ie any) trail running downtown. Here are some pictures!

I got back and Ginny was up so we started making some breakfast. We never bring a stove with us, preferring to cook everything over the fire with our cast iron pot and pans. It always turns out so much yummier that way! Though I think the other girls voted we get a little stove for next year (I think the wait for coffee is unacceptable at our age...)

After breakfast we headed to the beach! But it was still SO COLD. We actually lay on the beach in sweats! I even debated not blowing up my giant inflatable flamingo floatie, but thankfully by mid afternoon the sun came out and it ended up being a very enjoyable day and I let my flamingo flag fly! I loved that floatie man...for once I was the one wanting to go in the water and stay there. Usually you find me bathed in sunscreen on the beach (I love to lie in the sun). I wish I had gotten a shot of Gin and I sharing the thing back to back inside the ring. Good times.

Then it was back to the campsite for dinner! Lisa has these hot pocket makers so it is a tradition to eat most of our meals with them. I had a pizza one, a grilled cheese one, and a marshmallow/chocolate/strawberry one. It is a delightful, well-known fact that calories don't count when camping. MMM

Then it was back to bed for a thankfully slightly less cold night! PS- I wake up every night to go to the bathroom at 4am. This was really not fun on a cold night when the nearest washroom is an outhouse. Sigh. Sunday morning we woke up, I made french toast, and then we packed up our site and headed back to the beach for a few hours! It was much hotter and sunnier on Sunday and we had a fun time before heading home.

Overall it was a great mini-vacation with my girls, but I think 2 nights is not nearly long enough!! I hope we can get together for a longer trip next summer!

Also, in case you are interested, there are no Pokemons at Balsam Lake.