Charleston Lake Provincial Park

Peter and I started our camping season early this year during the last week of May. After a stressful drive through Toronto and running a bit late I met Peter on base in Kingston and we headed off to Charleston Lake Provincial Park. This location Peter picked and he loved it because it's highlight was great canoeing, and since Peter just purchased his own brand new canoe that appealed to him. The park was located about 40 minutes past Kingston and was a small sized park I would say. It had 3 loops of camp sites and several hiking trails, 3 small beachs and lots of water space. We stayed in the Shady Ridge loop on site 340 and it was spectacular amazing I was in love! There is a little video tour below to show off our awesome little location and my love for it :)

So since it was a long eventful picturful weekend so i'll break it down by day the same way as I did for my last camping post.

FRIDAY

We arrived in the early evening around 6pm and we were starving so we quickly unpacked and made dinner at the same time and then finished setting up the tent and then we went for a canoe ride. However this was the first time in the canoe with two of us so i get paranoid that we will flip and ruin my camera so I left it at camp until I got a good feel for the canoe

The only photo I have from friday is of dinner but it was scrumptious and so deserving of a picture

SATURDAY

Up at 630am, nothing unusual for Peter of course, we got to sit along our river view and just enjoy the morning air and the little water wildlife floating around lol, followed by breakfast - camping is pretty much all about what you eat, when you eat it, and when you'll be eat next - its great! key words, SNACKING SNACKING SNACKING

This was my trap for the chipmunks to join us for breakfast, there were about 3 that hopped around are site. Our site was covered with manyyyyy crunchy leaves, so even these tiny little 2 pound chipmunks sounded like hugeee animals bouncing through the leaves. They were awesome but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of them :(

So in the early afternoon we took a canoeing trip to explore around the waterways and we packed sandwiches and goldfish snackies. We stoppe at a picnic area which we nicknamed dragonfly point because there were thousandddddsss of them there. Peter and I decided that dragonflies are the best insect though because they do their job by eating mosquitos, they aren't pesky, you're never scared or annoyed by a dragon fly you just like to watch and enjoy them. sold!

Anyhow so we ate our lunch at the picnic stop, stepped in the water a bit, and then did a 2.0km hike around the area. it was very nice.

AMAZINGGG! we saw this dear on our little hike and it was almost surreal. We were literally like ten feet from it and i stopped dead like : | : | i turned to Peter like "ummm is that a real dear?!?!........" and it didn't even move it just stood there and stared at us, sooo great. I wanted to see another one but unfortunaetly that didn't happen.

On our canoe ride back to our site I snagged a few pictures and Pete notices and AWESOMEEEE turtle I could have looked at it all day but it was difficult in the canoe.

We returned to camp took a little rest and then went and laid on the beach, which quickly turned into napping on the beach, it was a little chilly.

"no open containers of alcohol off registered camp sites"

Took some time to explore the park on our bikes and look at all the other sites if we were to ever come back. We decided that our site and the site beside us were the best in the entire park!

DINNER TIME! burgers and friessss yummm. our original plan was to do fish and fries however we found out that the lake was filled with little bass which is not quite what we were looking for, so burgers were an awesome alternative, omg so good.

SUNDAY

Peter was annoyed by my photos :)

AHH SNAIL HOLOCAUST!!!!!!!!!

So sunday was our last day and we had to be off our site by 2pm. We got up at 830 and made breakfast then we went on one last canoe ride before we had to get the canoe back on the car. We packed a lunch and packed up our whole campsite and we were set off on our 10km afternoon hike by 1pm

This trail was very amazing i was completely in love. It was so well laid out there was no chance of getting lost. It told you every time you hit a kilometre so you knew how much longer you had. It had very hilly areas and very flat areas and tonssssss of different terrain; shady forest, wooden bridges, open grassy fields, sunny forest, pond areas, high level solid rock face, just tons of awesome! it took us 2 hours and 45 minutes given that we took a twenty minute lunch, stopped for some pictures and to take in the view, however we jogged some of it so rough estimate on the time.

At this point in our hike we had been jogging for about 1 km and i honestly thought that we were at like 6.5km so seeing this sign was horrid!

This exceptionally creepy little shack was at about the 8km point and was pretty much something straight out of a scary movie. Peter got close enough to take a picture but i was like hell nooo! He said he got some chills too.

This concluded the end of our spectacular camping trip! We had an absolute blast. We made our way back to Kingston, relaxed a bit on base and then went out on the motorcycle so Pete could show me a bit of Kingston. totally IN LOVEEEE with the city, its so cool and I would love to live there its so mellow. We went out to dinner at a place called Zappas and ate delicious food on the patio and people watched. Afterwards we got icecream and walked along the Kingston harbour. Perfect way to end our weekend. XO

Letchworth State Park

This long weekend we took a short hour and half trip across the border for a camping trip to letchworth state park. This park is suppose to be known for its natural waterfalls along hikinh trails. We explored a few of these while we were there and they were beautifullllll and fun to walk around. Peter and I went with his mom and dad, his uncle kirk and aunt sam and their young daughter Vera. Also 2 of petes 3 dogs, Gypsy and Cassie went. The park only allowed 2 dogs per site on the "dog loops" so that means Billy had to stay home, kinda sad. There were plenty of other great dogs on our loop that were great to meet since i adore dogss. We left from fort erie on friday morning and stayed until sunday evening, as i had to work monday. I took quite a few photos & videos, so i'll break it up down below, you'll feel just like you were there!

FRIDAY 

We departed friday morning around 9am so that we could get across the border before the traffic started and our plan worked. We made a quick stop at the duty free and also a stop at a Topps to get our food for the weekend.

 Cassie drove, just kidding :) I got to share the backseat with both Cassie and Gypsy.

We arrived at 1pm and the rest of friday was pretty much spent setting up or campsite and getting the camper all together. We ran into a few propblems with the electricity on our site which ended up blowing up the converter in our camper, notttt goooddd. Luckily the nice people at letchworth park investigated and decided that it was infact their fault due to their wiring and they are going to pay for the repairs. pheww!

SATURDAY

LOOK HOW HUGEEE THIS PARK IS! i would say it was easilyyy like 30+ miles across. Saturday morning Peter and I went for an hour and half bike ride, unfortunately i didn't bring my camera for that trek. Lunch I think was burgers and hotdogs and then we headed out about 10 mintue car drive across the park for a Cival War ReEnactment that the park was hosting that weekend. The battle of the Genessa was what they were re-creating although I'm not sure what that is.

I've never been to a war reenactment and im surprised that i enjoyed it. It was fun to watch, so take a look!

Near by the actors had set up tents and little camps and were taking part in activities from the era of this battle. It was so surreal. Also is was blooodddyyy hot out this day so I can only imagine how hot these people were in their costumes

Following the reenactment we followed a short path near by to this amaazzinggg look out into a large gorge. We took in the view and got some awesome photos!

The below video is only us trying to make some echo's, which don't turn up on the video. BUT the look on Les's face right at the end of the video is sooooo funny I couldn't help myself

After checking out the gorge we decided we needed some icecream from the parks store :) YUM! it was awesome on this hot day. Also right near by there was a view spot to check out the dam to control spring run off water. It looked pretty damn dry and almost useless but on an information board there was a picture of the damn dam actually being full at one point.

The rest of saturday consisted of some lounging around the campsite and having Spahgetti, Meatballs and Garlic Bread for dinner. mmmmm sounds so good still thinking about it. In the evening Peter and I rode our bike over to loop number 5 (we were in loop number 1) because as luck would have it, one of my A Platoon co-wokers Andrea, was camping with her husband at the same place! on the same weekend as us! so we went to vist and have a drink and look at her brand new camper, very nice. We also took a little family hike down a trail with the pups to just explore, Peter and I ended up scaling the side of a mountain pretty much down some make shift trail almost falling to our deaths, thankfully not though :)

 SUNDAY

Peter and I were up early to be chefs for morning breakfast

A little view of half our camper, the bed of the left side is actually suppose to be the booth table but we had it down so peters little cousin could sleep for an afternoon nap there. The bed on the right is where Peter and I slept and it folds up into a couch during the day. Behind me on the left is the bathroom and on the right is a storage closet and directly behind me is the bedroom, and a second door

The deliciiousssss end result :) great start to the day!

Some lounging camp shots

Les and Vera

After a quick trip to walmart and a tasty sandwich lunch we were off to check out these waterfalls we had heard so much about! There are a bunch of beautiful photos below of the paths and all the great steps in nature.

This was one of my biggest mistakes of the day was wearing flip flops for hiking. GRRRRR. wasn't to bad when it came to the mud though, like you seen in the video, i just walked through and about 5 minutes later it would all dry up and be fine, didnt have to try and tip toe around it

Our last stop of the day was along the way back to our camp site was another little walking area called "Wolf Creek" it was lovely :) I would have liked to walk around and explore a little more because hiking greatt nature trails like this is one of my most favourite things to do, but it was a hot day and most people were tired so called it a day.

After all was said and done we headed home around 630. All round it was a GREAT trip and i would mosttt definitly go back to this place, even if like just for a day trip it would be lovely! and camping in the states is much cheaper than in Canada so we will definitly be visiting letchworth again :) Leaving for another camping weekend tomorrow, this time in Canada so you'll see some more great camping photos coming you way, SUMMER IS HEREEEE!