Spring like Weekend!
Well, I busted my butt on Friday after school, even though I was soooooooo exhausted I could hardly move. Got my things packed in time to go with Mark, Isabelle, Heather, Andrea and one of their friends, on Friday night. We left around 6:30 pm, and wound up at Short Lake and the tent at 8:45 or so. There were a few minor obstacles on the trail, but clearly many people had the same idea as us, so the "road" was well packed down from lots of traffic before we left town.
The weather was unseasonably nice, it was sunny the whole weekend and warm enough to warrant taking off the parka in lieu of fleece. I had been having lots of trouble getting to sleep all week, hence the utter exhaustion on Friday night before we left, but I certainly had a brilliant sleep on Friday night, enough so that I slept in until 10:15 which is usually unheard of when camping since it gets light so early, but was possible for me since I had slept with my head inside my sleeping bag since it had been rather chilly during the night. With my head in the sleeping bag, it was still pitch black until I popped my head out after 10. Everyone else had been up, ate breakfast and gone fishing before I was stirring about! BUT that was exactly what I was hoping for this weekend. I felt very well rested and caught up from the week!
I spent a while in the morning helping Mark set his nets. I like helping with those activities since it's a great muscle workout. I had the job of pulling the nets under the ice. It's a pretty cool process, maybe I'll post another time to help explain it. But needless to say, I decided to use only shoulder and arm muscles to haul the nets, and I am still feeling it tonight. Then in the afternoon, I worked my legs snowshoeing through the fresh soft snow that coated my trail from two weeks ago. I was out with Isabelle to get more fresh green boughs to help level and re-insulate the floor of the tent. The greenery we had down has slowly bee packed down so much that ice and snow are showing through the gaps where the needles have been smushed and scuffed off. I love the feeling of hiking about, and I still feel those muscles are tight tonight too.
Funny how such an active weekend in a sense can be so rejuvenating. Maybe it was the toasty warm bath I soaked in upon arriving home, or the yummy fresh Arctic Charr I ate for supper but I feel great!
On the ride home today I made a revelation- I WISH that someone could invent a way for our eyes to take pictures. Not just mental pictures since I have taken many of them, but ones that could be downloaded and printed or put on a blog, since it happens often that the most incredibly beautiful things that are witnessed, are sudden, and do not give you enough time to dig out the camera. If we had a built in camera in our heads, and a USB port hidden behind our ears or something... If any of my scientifically minded readers could possibly invent this I would volunteer to be a guinea pig for SURE!
Here is a list of pictures I WOULD have taken the weekend, had I had a built in "Eye" camera:
1- The lunar eclipse last night, where the moon was a STUNNING red and hanging low on the horizon above the mountain across from our tents at Short Lake.
2- The Whiskeyjack (bird) that landed around 2 feet away from me, when Isabelle was dumping out frying pan residue on the snow. These birds are carnivorous and scavenge constantly from fish and animals guts left from meals. This brazen birdy actually landed as she was still scraping the pan out, that was one HUNGRY bird!
3- The conifereous trees dusted with snow along the trail home. The sun was lighting the up and making the background mountain with it's frozen blue ice waterfall an unbelievably perfect Christmas card cover.
4- The look on Heather Rose's face when the hunter and his wife met us on the lake last night and told us they saw caribou and a polar bear which was coming our way...
(Ok, I threw the last one in, since it freaked the crap out of me too! I had slept alone in another tent the first night, then stayed with the others in a VERY crowded tent the second night, just so I would feel safer if the big white bear would actually show up. Lucky for us, we saw no signs of him anywhere on our lake! PHEW!)
One week until Geography Week at school and I have SOOOO much to do with my class, off for a busy week I think!!!
The weather was unseasonably nice, it was sunny the whole weekend and warm enough to warrant taking off the parka in lieu of fleece. I had been having lots of trouble getting to sleep all week, hence the utter exhaustion on Friday night before we left, but I certainly had a brilliant sleep on Friday night, enough so that I slept in until 10:15 which is usually unheard of when camping since it gets light so early, but was possible for me since I had slept with my head inside my sleeping bag since it had been rather chilly during the night. With my head in the sleeping bag, it was still pitch black until I popped my head out after 10. Everyone else had been up, ate breakfast and gone fishing before I was stirring about! BUT that was exactly what I was hoping for this weekend. I felt very well rested and caught up from the week!
I spent a while in the morning helping Mark set his nets. I like helping with those activities since it's a great muscle workout. I had the job of pulling the nets under the ice. It's a pretty cool process, maybe I'll post another time to help explain it. But needless to say, I decided to use only shoulder and arm muscles to haul the nets, and I am still feeling it tonight. Then in the afternoon, I worked my legs snowshoeing through the fresh soft snow that coated my trail from two weeks ago. I was out with Isabelle to get more fresh green boughs to help level and re-insulate the floor of the tent. The greenery we had down has slowly bee packed down so much that ice and snow are showing through the gaps where the needles have been smushed and scuffed off. I love the feeling of hiking about, and I still feel those muscles are tight tonight too.
Funny how such an active weekend in a sense can be so rejuvenating. Maybe it was the toasty warm bath I soaked in upon arriving home, or the yummy fresh Arctic Charr I ate for supper but I feel great!
On the ride home today I made a revelation- I WISH that someone could invent a way for our eyes to take pictures. Not just mental pictures since I have taken many of them, but ones that could be downloaded and printed or put on a blog, since it happens often that the most incredibly beautiful things that are witnessed, are sudden, and do not give you enough time to dig out the camera. If we had a built in camera in our heads, and a USB port hidden behind our ears or something... If any of my scientifically minded readers could possibly invent this I would volunteer to be a guinea pig for SURE!
Here is a list of pictures I WOULD have taken the weekend, had I had a built in "Eye" camera:
1- The lunar eclipse last night, where the moon was a STUNNING red and hanging low on the horizon above the mountain across from our tents at Short Lake.
2- The Whiskeyjack (bird) that landed around 2 feet away from me, when Isabelle was dumping out frying pan residue on the snow. These birds are carnivorous and scavenge constantly from fish and animals guts left from meals. This brazen birdy actually landed as she was still scraping the pan out, that was one HUNGRY bird!
3- The conifereous trees dusted with snow along the trail home. The sun was lighting the up and making the background mountain with it's frozen blue ice waterfall an unbelievably perfect Christmas card cover.
4- The look on Heather Rose's face when the hunter and his wife met us on the lake last night and told us they saw caribou and a polar bear which was coming our way...
(Ok, I threw the last one in, since it freaked the crap out of me too! I had slept alone in another tent the first night, then stayed with the others in a VERY crowded tent the second night, just so I would feel safer if the big white bear would actually show up. Lucky for us, we saw no signs of him anywhere on our lake! PHEW!)
One week until Geography Week at school and I have SOOOO much to do with my class, off for a busy week I think!!!
posted by Gillian at
9:48:00 PM
5 Comments:
The only thing my weekend had in common with yours,, the sleeping in!! You must have been exhausted to sleep in whilst camping-- nice of your cohorts to let you rest!!
Beautiful mind pictures-- thanks for sharing--The lunar eclipse sounds specatacular--- as opposed to the polar bear-- not the things your mama wants to be hearing!! Do you get a March Break??
No March break but an Easter one the week after Easter Sunday... Works out well since my brother is getting married Apr 14th, so I'll be home...
It's funny thinking about what you said... While we (Mark, Isabelle and I)were relaxing after lunch on Saturday in the tent, we were talking about how relaxing and napping during camping feels ok since you have to work so hard cutting wood, catching fish for food, etc. whereas if you were to lay around for a few hours while at home, it would seem like a real waste of time.
By going camping you can justify and feel good about resting, instead of always having the looming pile of "To Do" things in your face...
What a wonderful weekend you had. I cleaned,and played on the computer.I didn't sleep in,but I would of loved too...
Merci pour les arrêts sur image du week-end! Cela m'a permis de vous imaginer partager les petits plaisirs du camping dans cet endroit unique;)
Mes informateurs m'ont fait savoir que tu pourras garnir tes crackers de moules fraîches dès cette fin de semaine...
À bientôt!
Maïté
Gillian,
Send me your email address and I will send you the link for my photos...
Take care,
Maïté
maitedh@gmail.com
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