Trails!

"Come on kids, let's go on an Adventure!"  exciting words :)  Every now and then I will pack up the kids and off we go, spontaneously and randomly.  They love it.  This was the biggest 'adventure' we've done to date.  I had been kicking around the idea of going somewhere for an overnight on the long weekend for a few days.  I mentioned to my mom that I might see if there were any available rooms in Riding Mountain National Park. I've always wanted to go.  She seemed interested in coming as well.  Saturday morning she called and pointed out that it was pretty grey out and rain was predicted.  I was fairly tired from having stayed up WAY too late on Skype with a buddy. I had not told the kids anything specific, although Josh knew we were possibly doing 'something'.  I paused.
Then I decided to just call and see if I could find a room.  The girl who answered at the first place I called, Clear Lake Lodge, said in a surprised voice "yes we do have one room available"

:)

And so it was to be.  We packed up overnight bags, I LEFT (brace yourself, this is shocking!) the dishes in the sink and we headed off.  Ok, it might not have been quite that efficient, but we did do those things.  We stopped at Safeway and I grabbed a bunch of picnic type food, we gassed up and then we were off.  As soon as I said we were going on an overnight adventure, Emily wanted to know where we were going, but when I asked Josh if he wanted to know, he said "no".  That about sums up the difference between my two children ;)

I wanted to play Willie Nelson's "on the road again", as that is the song that always runs through my brain when heading out on a road trip, thanks to the countless road trips of my youth and my parent's habit of popping that TAPE (heck I remember when they played 8 tracks! ahhhh) in at the outset each and every time.  We would be singing the chorus before we reach the end of our street!  Alas, I do not have that particular song on CD, something to work on before the next road trip adventure.  After almost 3 hours of driving, and only one pit stop (at a CO-OP that is NOT Red River CO-OP sheesh), we arrived at the gates of Riding Mountain National Park.  We found our Lodge, checked in, got the grand tour and decided to head out for a walk about town.  It was very windy, and we even got a little bit sprinkled on at the end of the stroll, but what an incredibly cute little place!  We walked out to end of the pier, saw two bride and groom pairs being photographed, observed several people fishing off the end of the pier and unfortunately stumbled across a dead pelican on the beach.  We found the Visitor Center, which was really good as I picked up the Xplore booklet, which lead to all sorts of fun the following day.


Josh and I noticed that there was a big 'family' feeling to the area, it was nice to see. Once we found our way back to the Lodge, we made a picnic on one of our beds.  The kids were pleased with mini cheeses, turkey sticks, salads, fruit, crackers and taco chips with (homemade) salsa and layered bean dip, along with veggies and humus!  Yum

Then we went down to the main area of the Lodge to find games to play as they have many stocked and set up around the main area.  Happily there was a fire going as well.  The kids played mastermind and then chess, while I wandered over to the partially done puzzle... (uh oh! haha)  Other families started wandering in and of course Emily found a friend her age.  They started roaming about, in and out of our room and the other family's room, up the stairs, down the stairs, into the shared kitchen (where they re-arranged all the magnets identifying who's fridge was who's, except their own!).  They didn't get into much trouble and everyone was happy to have them about.  Josh joined me at the dragon puzzle.  Soon the family that had been working on it earlier, joined us.  It was neat to see how all these strangers just meshed and blended with each other.  Such a great atmosphere, something I was happy to have my kids experience.  Eventually, I put Emily to bed, which took even longer than usual since she and her new best friend had this little plan to ''sneak' out to each other, once the parents were asleep.  I knew this because they kept asking me if I was going to sleep or just putting Emily to bed and then going to be up for a bit, and if so, for how long?  haha.  Once she did finally conk out, I went back to the dragon puzzle.  Such a challenging puzzle, and we all really wanted to solve it.  We tried.  But by 245 AM both myself and the other mom felt we had to pack it in.  Josh and Jenna needed to as well since they were both basically demented by that point. Josh was singing and head bopping to his tunes and Jenna was repeatedly 'finding' the same puzzle piece.  Joanne and I were running out of 'finding'.  So much fun though!  Definitely an evening that Josh and I will remember for the rest of our lives.

The next day, when we all finally dragged ourselves out of bed, we packed up our stuff into the truck, put in a few more pieces into the puzzle, played half a game of Life with the little girls and then said our good byes. Then the kids and I were off to Xplore!  Parks Canada has a challenge on at all the 42 parks across the country for little explorers.  Upon completion of 6 missions (there are 3 options to each mission; easy, medium and harder), an explorer should have the secret combination numbers that will enable them to open the treasure chest at the Visitor's center, inside of which, a map can be found, to the 'treasure' or in this case the missing bones.  Having discovered the bones, a little explorer can claim her prize.  Several of the missions involved walking about town and finding these hidden numbers.  One involved a GPS challenge (walking) which was very fun.  Josh has always wanted to do this apparently, and while this was on a very small scale now he can say he has.  Before taking on the last challenge we stopped for a breakfast lunch at the Whitehouse Bakery, definitely worth the wait!  Although the smell of cinnamon buns was enough to make a non baked goods person start to crave one ;)

The final mission involved walking a 2k boardwalk trail through a marshland, Ominnik trail.  Emily had her binoculars, her handbook and was ready to find some 'wildlife'.  The marsh was beautiful, the weather was amazing and we actually ran into someone I know from the college!  She had a little girl with her, so Emily once again had a friend.  Off they ran.  Somehow in the process of meeting up with this group, the kids and I managed to miss the secret number, so we had to go back after we had completed the trail!  We got it though and were then able to claim our prize.  Emily was thrilled with both her dog tags and her wall of fame photo.

It was time to start heading home, but I had decided to take the long way home :)  During our time at the visitor's center I had noticed that there was a bison enclosure near by at Lake Audy.  Josh has a special relationship with Bison/buffalo due to his youtube video buffalo attacks.  This was a perfect 'surprise' for him.  Emily was thrilled to be a part of a secret surprise for her brother!  Her surprise had been the 'missions' of the Xplore challenge and she was nattering on about seeing the sun set.... I had hopes for this working out, but it all depended on timing.

Both kids fell asleep on the way to Lake Audy, but once were there, they were fully awake!  Almost immediately upon passing through the gates we came across a family of bison by the side of the road.  A little further on we saw the viewing post, so we pulled in there.  Two other vehicles were already there, and the people were out, but their vehicle doors were open?  Turns out there was a big ole Bison right on the path to the viewing tower and there was a black bear up in the tree over to the right!  EXCITEMENT!!!  So we parked and joined in this fun.  Josh was videoing us all as we carefully made our way to the observation tower and closed the gate behind us, as if it would make a difference.  We were able to see the Bison who had been wandering the path, up close and personal.  The bear disappeared!  There were many bison out in the field and so we watched and listened for awhile.  It was around 6 pm, so they were eating and lounging.  The Park guide fellow had said this was a good time to view them, and he was right.  Funny that.  Another couple of groups of people showed up and were very interested to hear all about the black bear and the wandering Bison.  They had big cameras and were snapping away :)

Eventually, we moved on, drove all around and then cut back through the field searching for any signs of wildlife that we could find.  This was an Adventure!  The kids were bubbling over with excitement and curiosity.  After leaving Lake Audy we drove north (definitely the long way home) to the Boreal trail.  Somewhere along the way we stopped by the side of the road since 'someone' had to pee.  Hilarious conversation about how this is done without a mess being made, we were successful and that is all that anyone needs to know!  Gorgeous marsh with golden grasses waving in the breeze as backdrop to this very unromantic wayside stop :)










Then we found the Boreal Trail, this is a 1km trail through a white and black spruce tree forest.  By this time it was dusk, so Josh was able to torment his sister with 'oh I see a moose! oh I see a bear!'  She stayed VERY close to mum :)  The walk was pretty and the conversation about all the berries and tree roots and wildflowers and such was lovely.  So much real time, no 'screen', no rushing, just us.

We headed north out of the park, and just as we were coming down the largest descent, the forest cleared away and we got a grand view of the setting sun!  Emily got her wish.  Perfection.  We left the park on the north side just before 9.  Josh, the DJ, kept singable music running for the next 3 hours and I managed to get us home in one piece.  The last hour might have been a bit challenging, but there was Steve Miller and Meatloaf to get me through!

Totally and completely awesome weekend.
A forever memory
for each of us.