Camping With The Kids: Radium Hot Springs Edition – Day One & Day Two

Yesterday afternoon we returned home after a long weekend camping excursion into British Columbia with the kiddos.  We camped near Radium Hot Springs at Lake Enid, which is about four hours drive from home.

We headed out after Mike got finished work on Friday night.  The SUV was packed and we were all very excited.  The drive up was lovely, we saw dozens and dozens of deer (literally!) and a small heard of elk, and THREE bears!  We also came across some big horn sheep once we reached town, which was excellent as Mike had never seen any before.

After a quick tour of the town, we made our way out to the lake. After some driving about, we selected a spot, pulled out the Toad, and started setting up.

And then, DISASTER!

I discovered, with much dismay, that the tent poles had somehow been excluded the last time I packed up the tent.  Mike started rooting around in the back of the truck.  No, we didn’t have them.

It was already late, so back into the vehicle and over to town, where I managed to secure a room in the very hotel where my siblings and I used to stay as kids.  Lincoln and Sydnie thought that was pretty cool, and happily went to bed.  Mike and I stayed up for some time, formulating a suitable plan for the following day.

In the morning we all got up, got dressed, and drove over to Home Hardware to purchase a tent that would get us through the weekend.  We found a four person tent for a reasonable price, and with a beautiful day ahead, we went back to the lake and got set up.

I made us a brunch of sausages and berry crisp, the latter of which was baked in our titanium pot over coals in the fire.  It was the first time I’d attempted to bake anything in it, and the crisp turned out beautifully!

After everything was cleaned up and our campsite was sufficiently put together, we decided to spend the afternoon at the pool. The kids were extremely pleased.

I think the adults were pretty pleased too…

I didn’t realize it until later, but I’d also unintentionally crossed something off of my list!

185. Take Mike to Radium Hot Springs

We swam and splashed until it was nearly supper time, and then Mike treated everyone to ice cream before we drive back to camp for a meal, which was comprised of turkey soup with dumplings (sadly I neglected to take a photo, but it was delicious). Then we had smores and the kids got tucked into bed for the night. They thought that their mummy bags were like cocoons, and had great fun pretending to be caterpillars.

Mike and I sat up and watched the sun go down, and had a beer while the fire burned itself out. We were nearly as tired as the kids from the busy day, and so it wasn’t too long before we found our way into our cocoons for the night as well.