Smores and Sundresses - A Camping Blog
The Adventures of a Camping Goddess
This summer, we were lucky enough to camp with various friends before embarking on our annual trip to Algonquin, and I have to admit, I learned a lot.
We’ve stayed with friends and family before, but camping with them is entirely different. I didn’t expect to learn anything but I’m thankful I did. Camping with friends has taught us new ways of doing things, using new tools and doing basic things a slightly different way.
No regrets here. Read on to see what secrets we learned:
We were fortunate to camp with close friends for the 150th Canada Day long weekend, and we went to Long Point Provincial Park, which I’ll refer to as LPPP going forward, to save time.
LPPP is located on the northwest shore of Lake Erie, near Port Rowan. My husband also camped at Backus Heritage Conservation Area, in the same area. I referred to LPPP as a peninsula, but it’s more accurately a spit, a narrow stretch of land jutting out into a body of water.Continue Reading
Do you like to entertain?
We LOVE having friends over for some wine, dinner and a hearty, hilarious game of Cards Against Humanity.
Though sometimes, you don’t feel like making a big dinner, and that’s when grazing on a variety of foods sounds like a better idea. And there’s no right or wrong time of the year for this, either, because you can easily adapt your food variety with seasonal items.
Chatting online has come a long way from chat rooms hosted by Excite, AOL, and instant messaging. Remember the mug avatars? In the Twitter world and blogosphere, maybe you’ve heard the term “Twitter Chat”. Maybe you’ve stumbled across one by accident and wondered what it was all about.
These chats are fast-moving, live chats via Twitter. There is a hashtag for each chat and it’s what connects all the participants in the chat, because the hashtag is in every tweet. For example, The SITSGirls hosts a Twitter chat every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. EST, and their hashtag is #sitsblogging – the theme is all things blogging.
The point of a Twitter chat is to gather a group of like-minded people to spend an hour chatting. They relate and share tips, tricks, aand advice. Sometimes they include contests (these are referred to as a Twitter party). It’s a fantastic way to grow your followers and connect with people.
If you’re sponsoring a Twitter chat, it can help your following grow as well. It can a terrific way to engage with potential clients and customers and get “social” on social media. Think of it as a type of “Meet and Greet” party.
Twitter parties are usually an hour long, and many towns and cities have their own Twitter Hour.
I am lucky that my family and I live not too far away from Ontario’s “wine country”, as I lovingly call it. We live on the Niagara escarpment (known to Hamiltonians as “the mountain”). It was an area formed roughly 450 million years ago, when this area was a shallow, warm sea. Rivers that flowed into this sea carried a lot of sand and clay, which formed sediment layers. These layers care still evident today in various areas of our city.
The geological area is referred to as the Michigan Basin. But it is widely known as the Golden Horseshoe, as it forms a horseshoe shape. Extending from Rochester, New York, up north to Tobermory and the Bruce Peninsula. It scoops under Lake Huron, coming up again on Manitoulin Island. From there, it travels down again in Lake Michigan and into the state of Wisconsin.
The breezes from the Great Lakes blow over the vineyards and bounce off of the escarpment and back again. This gives ample airflow and circulation. Because the lakes are warmer in the winter than they are in the summer, it provides an extended growing season. It keeps the grapes warm well into fall and winter.
I’m not sure if wine tours are still as popular as they once were. When our cousin came to visit with her fiance last weekend, wwe knew we wanted to celebrate my birthday at a winery. I was pushing for Jackson Triggs because it’s my favourite wine. I’m a fan of white, and my husband is a fan of red. I’ve never had a bad bottle of Jackson Triggs.
If you’ve never been on a wine tour, my husband and I both highly recommend them. We never used to appreciate wine when we were younger. One year, my sister-in-law gave us a gift certificate to choose from 5 area wineries, with a bonus free bottle of wine. We didn’t actually go until Valentine’s Day, and we thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience.