I'm pretty sure that Family Day is now my favourite holiday of the year. It's not commercialized (yet) and there's no reason to do anything but spend time with the family. This year I decided to take the Thursday and Friday before the weekend off so that we could have a five day winter camping trip in Algonquin Park.
We were all loaded up and ready to go Thursday morning and as we went to leave we discovered that our van would not start. It turns out the starter motor needed to be replaced. Eventually, we got it started but thought we should get it fixed before heading out. Fortunately, the shop would be able to fix it that day but not until 2:00 in the afternoon. This wouldn't leave us enough time to get to the park and setup before the sun went down. The kids were bummed that we would miss a day of camping. While we waited to have the van fixed we tossed around the idea of spending the night closer to the park so that we could be there early in the morning. At some point one of us suggested that we should see if there was a yurt available in the park. With a yurt we'd be able to arrive in the dark, get our sleeping bags out, spend the night then setup our tent in the morning. Sure enough there were a couple of yurts available. We booked one and headed for the park as soon as the van was ready.
We arrived around 8:30 after stopping at Just For the Halibut in Bancroft for a Valentine's Day dinner. I can't remember the last time we went out for dinner on Valentine's Day. Within two minutes of our arrival at the yurt the warden, Harvey, stopped by to make sure we had everything we needed. What great service.
We had an uneventful night in the yurt. Friday morning we setup our tent and vacated the yurt. The kids had a blast playing in the snow. We haven't had much snow at home this winter so to experience close to a metre on the ground was so much fun.
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| All Set Up! |
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| Perched in a Tree |
After lunch we decided to go snowshoeing. There had been about 15 cm of fresh snow overnight, which would make for some fun snowshoeing. We couldn't get over how deep the snow was. Even in our snowshoes, stepping off the hard packed trail resulted in us sinking into the snow up to our knees. We had found winter and couldn't be more excited.
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| Hard Work |
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| Having a Good Time |
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| Such Beauty |
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| Break Time |
After snowshoeing the kids wanted to head to the rink to do some skating. We stayed there for the rest of the afternoon. I'm always amazed at how much better they get at skating. I guess it's no surprise given how much time they spend on the ice.
Saturday we decided to head to the
Leaf Lake Ski Trail. Our goal was to ski the Jack Rabbit Loop (5 km) and have lunch at Dee's Cabin. I figured we'd all be able to make it, except for maybe our five year old. Given that the trail was one way, we really didn't have a choice. We did all eventually make it to the cabin where we had a nice lunch while we chatted with the other visitors. We had a very enjoyable ski back to the parking lot. The trail was absolutely beautiful. The trees were all covered with snow and the forest was gorgeous. The skiing was the highlight of the trip for me.
After our a great ski we headed back to the campground. I wanted to wander around the campground to check out the Winter in the Wild demonstrations but the kids were keen to play in the snow. They played in the snow while we took care of some chores.
Sunday morning our son and I went back to the ski trails and this time we skied the Leaf Lake Loop. It was a much faster ski with just the two of us. It was just as beautiful though.
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| Beautiful Day |
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| All Alone |
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| Dee's Cabin |
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| Going Down |
After our ski we had lunch then we headed for the rink, where we would spend the rest of the afternoon.
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| Having a Great Time |
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| Hold On Tight |
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| Clean Up Time |
We had planned to leave early(ish) on Monday. Once at home we would need to unpack and I had a bunch of work to do. We pack up our things in the tent. The kids headed for the rink and skated while Sarah and I took down the tent and got the vehicles loaded up. They had a great time with the rink mostly to themselves. Once Sarah and I finished packing up We headed to the rink and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine while the kids skated. We were in no rush at all! We slowly had lunch and cleaned up. Finally at about 2:30 we were ready to leave.
We had an amazing trip. It was nice to find winter. Trips like this always make me think that we should move further north so we can experience winter more regularly.
