Monday, August 25, 2014

Camping in the Wilds of Canada

Hullo bears and not-a-bears! Sandy Bear here... reporting from the wild backwoods of Canada! Actually from a Provincial Park campground. Yup, I am camping!!

This is my first real experience of serious camping. First off, we needed to set up tents. I supervised, of course...

And then there was a lot of cooking preparation that had to be done. Those are Mama's German cousins...

This is Valentin - he's 10!

And Astrid... she won't say how old she is... but she celebrated her birthday while she was here.

And this is Astrid's sister, Irene (and Valentin's Mom). She too is shy with her age.... They were all a little astonished to see a Canadian bear in their campsite but... they quickly realized that I was a beary friendly bear!

Now... one thing that was not nice was that there was a campfire ban in place because it's been so dry lately. So... no evening campfire for us... which was beary sad.

It's kind of boring to sit in a lawn chair with no campfire...

Especially in the mornings when you want to sip your hot chocolate. Sigh... and this Carnation stuff is not as good as my regular hot chocolate... not at all!

Anyhow... in order to make hot chocolate you need a cup... and a spoon and... wow... that tub is full of all sorts of camping gear.

And then we need some water...

Ahhh... there we go... a hot chocolate in the morning is the best!

Of course, camping means you have to do a lot of dishes as well... Mama has three tubs that are full of camping gear so it makes it easy to just grab and go...

At the end of the day, it's time for a little bear to crawl into his sleeping bag...

Whew... I am beary tired...

Just close up the tent Mama... there's no room in here for anybody else!

10 comments:

  1. You get a whole tent to yourself? You are a lucky bear. I usually end up sleeping on a jacket or some other sort of make-shift sleeping bag.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well... actually, I went to bed early and when I woke up in the morning, I found I had been relegated to sleeping on top of the duffle bag!

      Delete
  2. What a fun camping adventure (minus of course the lack of camp fire, REAL hot chocolate, and of course, mouth watering smores with gooey toasted marshmallow between squares of Belgian chocolate and graham crackers...so yummy. Maybe you can make some when you get home...Jerry says "We'll be right over!"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Smores would be great except we have a backyard campfire ban as well! Mama figures maybe September or October will be campfire time again. Sigh...

      Delete
    2. Oh boo! Well, chocolate chip cookies are a nice substitute!

      Delete
    3. Oh yes... the soft chocolate chip cookies!! Maybe Chef Ben has a recipe for those?? Or tips on how to make them?

      Delete
    4. Oh yes, there will be a Ben's Kitchun post about those this fall. Maybe we'll send a tin to Sandy!

      Delete
  3. Looks like you still had a fun time. Let me tell you 2 ways to make smores at home without a campfire. If you have a gas stove, carefully roast marshmallows over the burner, be prepared to blow them out. Yum! Also you can make them in you toaster oven.We place the graham crackers on the baking tray that came with ours, add marshmallows on top, turn the toast feature on for only about 2-3, maybe 4 minutes. Time depends on you T.O. WATCH THEM CAREFULLY, DO NOT WALK AWAY! The marshmallows will puff up and begin to brown, they are done as soon as they start to brown. Take them out, add your chocolate, either from a candy bar or baking chips work great too, add your lid and enjoy! DO NOT TRY THIS IN YOUR REGULAR TOASTER, YOU WILL NOT LIKE YOURSELF.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow!! Thanks Buttons!! I never thought of the toaster oven... hmmm... I can just see Jerry perking up and scampering off to make some Smores when he reads this... I suppose using a regular toaster would make quite the mess - and I think Mama wouldn't like me very much either if I tried that!

      Delete
    2. Jerry says "Smores? Who has smores? Me want smores!"

      Delete