CCS: Jasper

Well, that was when we entered Alberta, so it was nice, in an "oh-my-gosh-it's-pouring-rain-and-I'm-freezing" kinda way. Of course the tent trailer's battery was down, so we had to eat out of the campground, which sucked A) because we had just got there, and B) because you needed a pass to get in, and we had lost ours. We waited forty five minutes for our dinner, but it was really good, I have to say. Then we went for ice cream. Now I know what you're thinking: "You got ice cream while it was freezing in Alberta? Do you WANT frost bite?" Hey, I was wearing two jackets and I needed something that tasted good. Then Dad signed us up for Whitewater Rafting. Then we went back, hoping to find the pass and lo and behold, Mom was sitting on it. So we were able to get back in just enough time to go to bed. Nope. No fire on the first day of Jasper. Nope. I put a sleeping bag inside my sleeping bag and I wore a fleece to bed and that is the end of day 1 (which was really a half a day).

The next morning we got up pretty early, for my standards, which are like ten o' clock to eleven o' clock ish. We had a delicious breakfast, then went into town again to wait another half hour for the rafting thing. Then we had to dress up in a wet suit and a fleece and a jacket and basically get heat stroke in Alberta, which is hard to do. But when we actually got started.... that was fun. The rapids were big enough, and made the raft rock and I almost thought I was going to fall in, but I didn't. This isn't a thrill post, unfortunately. The rapids..... have you ever seen rapids? It was like the river was at war with itself. Ripples from both sides came and met in the middle, and they battled so hard it made a dip in the water that the raft would fall into. Then every once in a while, there would be one side of the river bubbling peacefully, and the other side it would be raging in an epic fight. It made me wonder what kind of circumstances would need to pop up for the river to act like this. I guess that's the seldom used left brain working. Stephen wasn't doing very well with it at first, but then the guide let him do the guiding. He was happy after that. He was ordering people when to row and when not to row, but it wasn't just "Row forward!" Nope. It was "Only Megan and Dad row forward!" and things like that. Then he started telling jokes....... that he made up himself. They didn't always make sense. Then when it ended, we got back to the camp site.

That was when me and Stephen started playing spy.

Stephen had recently developed an obsession with the Captain Underpants novels. So he would walk around the loop of the road with a walkie talkie, then he would say urgently into it things like: "Oh my gosh, Megan! Come quick! It's Professor Poopypants!" So I would rush on my scooter to where he was and help him. Then when he ran out of Captain Underpants villains, he started saying things like "Oh my gosh, Megan! Come quick! It's a black mamba!" That was pretty funny.

We had supper and a fire that night. Still no cookies though. That made me sad again. Then we went to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up late and my parents were already starting to pack up. I drank my coffee (which was actually half coffee and half cream that only came up to the half point of my mug). That was when they realized that Stephen had been at the bathroom for half an hour. We waited another five minutes, and he STILL didn't come back. So mom gave me a walkie talkie and I scooted all around the surrounding area of the bathrooms to try and find him.

I determined where he wasn't.

While I was still out looking, mom went to our camping neighbours, because we had noticed that they had walkie talkies too. So we all switched to the same channel. They went out looking in the other direction while their mom went in their car and my mom went to the front desk. I came back empty handed and dad went out looking too, but he didn't have a walkie talkie. Mom told the other girls where they could possibly look, and dad came back with news that someone on the next loop over had seen him.

After about an hour, the other girls found him.

Their mom tracked them down and gave Stephen a ride home while some guys from the front desk put his scooter in their pick up truck. Mom thanked them and we prepared to leave, having been delayed by that little incident.

Stephen's story was that he ha went to the bathroom, but on the way back, he had taken a "short cut". I couldn't believe he'd done that. He ended up over a bridge and on the other side of the camp grounds, for gosh sakes!

But that was his story, and after hammering it into big head that he should never take a short cut by himself, we packed up and left.

That trip was a lot more epic than it needed to be.

Cross Country Camping?: Monck

Okay, we went to six locations, so I'm gonna do six posts, 'kay? I'm gonna call them CCS: (location here). So as you can see, our first location was Monck, British Columbia. I called it MUNG - k - k. Everyone else called it just plain Monck. We got set up and everything. We took a walk on the beach to check things out. Then we roasted hot dogs and sausages on the camp fire. I wanted Mom to get some cookies, because last year we found out that if in a s'more you substitute a graham cracker with a cookie, it tastes like a million bucks. But Mom didn't get it, so I was unhappy. We had regular old s'mores then. End of day 1 (which was actually a half a day). The next day Mom had to go to Wal Mart in the town to get a bathing suit. No one else had to. She didn't actually get a bathing suit. Picky mom. That whole day Stephen scooted (on his scooter, I mean) to the bathroom. The fifteenth time he said "I'm going to the bathroom!" Mom just had to say (and I'm quoting here) "Good Lord, Stephen! Do you have a bladder problem or something?" Me and Mom were pretty boring, sitting around on our lawn chairs reading and doing cross words. I scooted with Dad (well, actually he was rollerblading; I was scooting) around the campsite. It was a scary place to rollerblade because you were either exhausting yourself rollerblading uphill (it was pretty bad on a scooter too) or about to die on the downhill (not quite so bad on a scooter, but still pretty scary). I stopped after our first round, but Dad kept going. For some reason. We went to the beach. The water is freaky cold at Monck, and it gets so deep that if you're five feet from shore you can't touch the bottom anymore. You think I'm kidding? I swear it's true. So Dad threw me in there and I got frost bite. Okay, it's not that cold. But it was pretty darn cold, I tell you! I read my book and was generally boring. Oh well. We had chicken for dinner and s'mores for dessert. I saw this read creepy bug by Dad and in the darkness of the evening I couldn't see exactly what it looked like, but it looked like a huge beetle of something. I was like "Uh.... Dad? There's a.... something by your leg." He looked down and was like "What is THAT?" He got it on the end of his stick and threw it in the fire. I have decided to name the bug Creepo. So yeah. End of day 2. The next morning we got ready to leave, packing up the tent trailer and all that. Then we left. Off to Jasper. The end.

Cross Country Camping?

We're going camping like, today, so I'm just warning you guys that I probably won't be able to blog unless Mom brings her lap top, which she might. We're going everywhere for two whole weeks - well, around B.C and I think maybe a bit down past the border in America, then we're going to everywhere in Alberta - it's like cross country camping, except not really. It's only like two provinces. But whatever. The point is that you probably don't wanna bother checking my blog every single day (you know, 'cause I'm so famous and everyone cares about all my weirdo rants and so on) until, like, August. Just to let you know. Anyway, my parents are gonna start yelling at me soon for being on the computer just as we're about to go (they always say "We're about to go! Get off the computer!" Then we wait like another hour with nothing to do) but I'm going to keep blogging anyways. I brought eight books camping. 'Cause it's two weeks! I brought the whole Percy Jackson series, (I LOVE those books, and I'm just gonna reread the series, possibly over and over and over.....) Inkspell (currently reading for the second time) Inkdeath (the sequel to Inkspell - hey, I'm gonna finish Inkspell over two weeks!) and this Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures (which is an encyclopedia, so that's just a fun read for when I'm bored and feel like reading about some ancient myths). I also brought all my most recent stories I'm working on - Randy, which I told you about, the ancient greece one, and this other one I've told you nothing about and I will in another post. I also might bring my marbles. Play with Grandma. Anyway..... talk to you later (probably A LOT later....)

Megan