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| Hwy 60 - are we there yet? |
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| I'm surprised that we remembered how to set up this tent |
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| Bed head, coffee, compression socks and sandals. |
Walking:
When you're in a large campground, your first exercise is walking - everywere, but especially to the washrooms. To sum it up, our tent was located 200m away from the washrooms and we counted an average of 5 bathroom trips a day, that's 2km/day... times 10, you do the math. Hurray for pee pee and poo poo to keep us in shape.
Next, trips to the beach, located at 500m from our tent, it provided us with a nice opportunity to bank a km each time we became beach bums. Over 10 days, I estimate those trips to 8.
Walks to the store - we were lucky to have one about 500m away and because we had regular needs for drinking water, ice, bread and ice cream, those trips became quite usual by the second day. Estimated 8 of them as well.
Total walking distance (just around camp) - 36km, two of them were barefoot, just because.
Hiking:
Hiking was our second source of fitness, combined with geocaching, because you have to put some extra motivation in those hikes, you know, dangling a carrot in front of a donkey, that works pretty well. Suited up with backpack, GPS, a good dose of deet, sandwiches and at times, not enough water, we went into the following adventures:
The Lookout 2.5km
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| Sitting on top of the world |
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| Jungle gym |
The Spruce Bog Boardwalk 1.5km
Beaver Pond Trail 2.1km
Total hiking distance - 19.1km
Swimming:
Even since I knew we were going to stay at the Lake of Two Rivers Campground, I gave myself the challenge of finding the geocache placed on a little island in the middle of the lake and what best way of getting to it other than commando, aka swimming. Since I am not such a strong swimmer and the great outdoors still overwhelm me, I chose to do the swim in my wetsuit. People looked at me strange every time I put it on, but hey, I rather be comfortable and relax than drown in front of their eyes.
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| Commando geocaching |
Finding the cache was no problem, quickly signed the log and put back in place. Happy to see an ammo box as well, that was like the cherry on the cake. Here's me with cache GC82F0. We spent the rest of the day on the island, diving in the lake and fishing, that was an all around awesome day. Since I was still sick though, I decided to go back to the beach in the canoe with hubbs and the boys and postpone the longer swims for later in the week.
Speaking of which, the day before the last, I suited up once again and went for a swim around the island, happy and relaxed. Here is the Runkeeper activity for this epic loop.
Total swim distance: 2.2km
Biking:
We didn't bring our bikes with us, not only because we wanted to rest, but because they are both road bikes and we were mostly interested in doing the Old Railway Bike Trail, which required mountain bikes. So one day we rented mountain bikes for all of us and we went on this adventure without quite knowing what to expect. What we feared the most was BEAR. And we found bear poop right in the middle of the trail, which was as close as we got to meeting a bear. It made the bike ride even more challenging, in which we were all secretly running away from an invisible predator, without saying it out loud for fear of inducing panic in each other. The bike ride was a 12km out and back to the camp along the Lake of Two Rivers and Whitefish Lake. Just at the end of Whitefish Lake there was this bridge from which people were jumping in the lake. We were not prepared for this, but the chance was too good to pass on, so without taking our clothes off, we jumped in as well. Below is a picture of me, soaked wet and proud. The bridge was so hot it was burning my feet, the smile only lasted for a second :-)
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| Wet and wild |
Total biking: 24km
Running:
The second day after we arrived, I was still pumped up after the tri and went on a short 30min trail run with hubbs. Alas we didn't repeat the feat as my cough got worse and worse and it was physically impossible to keep a running pace without coughing my lungs out. I even threw up once because of coughing too hard. Not fun at all. That was a reckon mission on the Old Railway Trail, before our bike ride. Looking back, after finding the bear poo, I am glad that we didn't run again on the same trail, yikes!
Total running: 5km
Kayaking:
Before leaving the camp, we had one last mission, that was to rent kayaks for the boys so they can get in some paddling action of their own. That day the current on the lake was a bit too strong though and my youngest son decided that he had enough after crossing to the island. While he spent the rest of the day diving, I took over the kayak and went in a bit of exploring with my older son and later, hubbs.
This is what my first rowing activity on Runkeeper looked like.
Below are more totals:
Wildlife sightings : moose 2, snake 1, frog 2, turtle 2, bear poo 1
Ice cream: regular scoops 3, soft serve 1
Alcohol consumed: beer 1
Fish caught: 0
Jumps from bridge in water, fully clothed: 2
Hours spent in hospital: 1
Campfires: 0
Marshmallows eaten: 4
Geocaches found: 14
Mosquito bites: 2
This has been by far the best vacation we spent as a family. So much fun, such beautiful scenery that we discovered, breathed, tasted, and touched. The only downside was my illness (which is now officially bronchitis) and the impromptu trip to the hospital that I had to make one night with an UTI. Not sure how we can top it off, we wanted to make another family trip at the end of the year to mark our 15th anniversary but all of a sudden, it feels a bit superfluous.
Until then, there will be work, work and work and another marathon for which the training started... oh wait, yesterday!
How was your vacation, if you had any? What are your autumn goals?
How was your vacation, if you had any? What are your autumn goals?
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