Camping with Penny

For those of you who don't know us, the Loonie family, we are serious campers.  We try and go as much as we can in the summer, which is pretty short up here in northern Alberta.  Since Mr.Loonie and I have met we have been on a few BIG camping/road trips going for at least 3 weeks.  We've done the 3 provinces around us, Alberta, Saskatchewan and B.C. and we also did a Wyoming/Idaho/Montana trip which is the three states Yellowstone National Park lies in.  These trips were full of partying, loving and a lot of driving so we could see as much as possible. Our most recent trip down the Oregon/Washington coast was a little different due to the addition of our little Pen Pen.  There was no partying on my part. Mr.Loonie may have got a little tipsy on red wine a few nights with his best buddy Stryker but we were pretty much in bed every night before 10:30 pm and up and on the road by 9 am (with a large coffee to go!) with Stryker walked and breakfast ate.

Gregoire Lake - July 2012

On all our previous trips we just used a quick pop-up tent and a small car. When I got pregnant, we decided that our 2 man tenting days with a dog were over.  We really should have bought a bigger tent back then to make things easier but nope, being the cheapskates that we are, we huddled in that little tent with Stryker and our luggage every trip!  To do our U.S. 2012 trip with Penny in a tent would have been absolutely crazy, and in the late fall of last year, we picked up a used tent trailer. The tent trailer can pack so much stuff , especially with the addition of the cargo box on top of the trailer and the car.  The box above the trailer held the stroller, hiking backpacks and extra wood - this all had to be removed before raising the trailer because of the weight.  The car's cargo box held  a laundry basket of extra clothes/shoes for all weather - we hit all extremes on our trip including rain storms, below zero temperatures, and hot dry sunny weather.  It also held the geocaching backpack, a spare box of diapers and other items needed at quick access.

So what did we need for Penny?

• Diaper and more diapers
• Changing pad and wipes
• The Bumbo for joining us at the picnic/trailer table
• MEC hiking backpack and the Baby Bjorn carrier
• Mommy's boobs - I can't imagine doing this trip bottle feeding! How would you do it??
• Clothes for all weather
• Go Pod (camping chair)
• Pea Pod (sun shade)
• Blankets including one with vinyl on one side for lying in the grass or on the beach
• Car seat entertainment - We have the "Fisher Price Music and Lights" which would usually put Penny to sleep
• Sophie and other toys 
• Baby toiletries and towel
• Baby Aspirin....just in case.
• The stroller was iffy, we could have done without it as it is always easier to carry her
• Some kind of travel bed or not.
• A travel neck pillow - perfect for nursing!

This picture is from Penny's first camping trip which also happened to be her one month birthday!  She was a trooper even with a couple bug bites on her forehead. 

The pictures below show our tent trailer set-up.  To the left by the door is the dry food bin.  Another bin of the same size full of cookware and dishes stacks on top, we found keeping this stuff in the cuprbords were just to hard to access and keep organized.

On both of the local camping trips we did this summer, Penny slept in her travel sleep bed.  See pictures below: this thing was awesome, we took it everywhere the first two months but she quickly grew out of it.  So the plan for our big trip was to make her a bed using a rubbermaid "under the bed shoe bin" with a foamy inside cut to fit to sit on the stove just like the travel bed did.  Great idea right? Well if it wasn't below zero or close to it most nights, it would have been. She just would have been too cold so the truth is, she slept with us in the bed.  Now I know you are thinking, how the heck did we get her back into her own bed when we got home? Well, all I can say is we got lucky!

My friend taught me about laundry basket packing - awesome for weekend trips for the 3 of us but for the big trip we had a lot more luggage.  Mr.Loonie and I shared a suit case and Penny had her own small duffel bag. The laundry basket was then used in the cargo box for quick access.

Below is the same view one cold night on our trip.

I'm Baaaack.....

Wow, well I'm a jerk.  I just got up and left y'all with no goodbye or explanation as to where we were heading.  It has been a busy month and a half and Miss Penny has become quite the traveller for a four month old.  Yes, she is four months already tomorrow! Well four months date wise (born June 19th) but 17.5 weeks if you are counting weeks.  

So where have we been you ask? Well for most of September we were camping our down the Washington and Oregon scenic coast highway 101,  via the Rocky Mountains in Alberta and Vernon and Osoyoos, B.C.   Our original goal was to make it to California but a job interview for Mr. Loonie and Penny's growing hatred for the car seat quickly changed our plans causing us to head back up north only 100km from the California border.  Ahh well, that's life and California will be saved for another trip.  On the way home we booked er' on the 1-5 through Portland, a city I would love to visit again and then through the historic Columbia Gorge bi-way in Washington (gorgeous in the fall!) and then crossing the Canadian border up through Idaho to Alberta.  

Our Set-up.  Drove over 6000km round trip.

The trip was amazing, I don't know how many times we said, "We should move here!".  Everywhere was just so different from our neck of the woods, emphasis on the word "woods"! In Washington we hit the Pacific Ocean at a spot known as Deception's Pass, a strait separating Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island where the sun was shining both days, the hikes were amazing and the large trees and ferns took over the landscape just off the rocky beaches.  Mr. Loonie and Stryker had their first swim here, Stryker was a little more than surprised at the taste of the salt water! The funny thing was that he never seemed to remember that the water was salty our entire time at the ocean.  We were on the ocean most of the trip camping at beach side campgrounds when available, nothing beats the sounds of waves crashing while lying in bed.  

Deception's Pass - Penny's 1st view of the Pacific Ocean!

We saw mountains, sea lions, a whale, Oregon's largest Spruce tree, the world's longest beach , natural arches and caves in the ocean, a shit load of army bunkers, waterfalls, the world's largest frying pan, sand dunes, ocean sunsets, violent waves and blowholes, amazing bridges and botanical gardens but the best thing was watching Penny change from an infant to our little girl.  The changes we saw in her was awesome.  She was able to hold her steady by the end of our trip and sit in the bumbo comfortably without her head hanging and she is now forward facing in the carrier, a position she prefers so she can see the world! Penny just became more aware during that month, more smiley and talkative and much more comfrtable with both Mr.Loonie and I.

Holding her head up like a champ.

Devil's Churn

Columbia Gorge Waterfall

Long Beach, WA

Ecola State Park, OR (My favorite spot of the trip)

Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, OR

One of the many ocean sunsets.

Outward in the carrier!

Beach Day!

And hiking.....I love to hike but yeesh no wonder I could fit into my pre-preggo jeans when we got back.  (Let's be honest though....fit with a muffin top). But everyone knows the only way to the best spots is to hike to them.  We did our fair share of geocaching too which lead us to the most amazing locations that only locals would know including ocean lookouts and secluded beaches.  

All in all, it was a great trip.  And for those who thought we were crazy for going with a 3 month old, I agree.  Haha No, it wasn't that bad at all.  It just took some planning and all the right equipment.  I will be posting a camping post to show you how we did it and what we would do differently next time.  

Now, if only Pen Pen could remember it all!! Thankfully, we have the 4000 pictures to show her when she is old enough to care! I also did a nightly journal entry to document our daily acitivities and journey with the coolest little polaroid pics taken with a camera Mr. Loonie got me for my 30th birthday.  Oh yah, remember a few posts back I wrote that I wasn't afraid of turning 30?! Well I guess that was a shit story since I ended up running from my own party.  The gist of it is.....Penny wouldn't take the bottle in time for the party and since I couldn't drink I decided to not go out at all.  So yah, I turned 30 but I still act like a child.

May Long Weekend Camping

This post topic is a little late but when starting to write a post about my front flower beds, I realized our May long weekends in northern Alberta are a little crazy.

It doesn't matter if it has been above 20°C and sunny for the first three weeks in May, you can bet your life savings that it is going to snow, hail, rain like a motha and/or get pretty close to freezing on the May long weekend.  And, every year we make the same foolish decision to kick of the camping year with this particular weekend.  This year was no exception, we headed out to Mariana Lakes to camp, which is also known as "Mariana Triangle" weather wise.  Ironically, it did all of the above weather mishaps - snow, hail, rain and according to the thermometer we brought with us, the minimum temperature reached that weekend was 0.6°C.  

The past few years we (Mr. Loonie, Stryker and I) along with our group of friends have been camping at the Mariana site furthest south on Hwy 63 when it is available.  I don't know how long it has been there but there is an amazing teepee approximately 20 feet tall with a fire pit right in the center of it.  To keep the wind and cold out and the heat in we wrap tarps around the outside, which is especially essential for May Long weekends.

Here are some past pictures we've taken of the South/old teepee site.  This site also has a little dock perfect for fishing or just relaxing! 

Unfortunately, we missed out on this spot this year and had to settle for the north site (they are only 2 minutes apart on the highway).  There is more than one camping spot on this site but the nicest is right on the water, the downside is the wind off the lake.  The only solution was to erect our very own teepee!!

So, the guys went to work! Conveniently four guys with ASRD (Alberta Sustainable Resource Development) and their helicopter were parked while on a fire watch and decided to help out!

Drag the deadfall out. Cut the lengths to size, tie together at the top and all at once....LIFT!!!

Wrap the tarps around for ultimate protection!

Photo Credit to our friends Colin, Juniper and Melissa.

P.S. Team 3Strykes and team timestoppersua stashed a cache at the new teepee site - Stop in for a search on your next travel south!