Camping-Candle Lake

Welcome back! Here is going to be another (Long) post for ya'll!

We went camping this weekend with the Low's and my sister Phoenix!! We went to Candle Lake and left on  July 5th (aka my birthday)...........

..............just a note about my birthday nothing exciting happened. I just got stuff ready for camping and kinda forgot it was my birthday myself. Never been a real big birthday celebrator. Daniel did bring me home a frosty though. :) .....................

back to camping.
For those of you that don't know Candle Lake it about.... 4 hours from Lloydminster. So you can understand why this may have happened.

Phoenix-the only one who conked out while we drove there.

Oh. And while driving to Candle we realized we left the cookies in the bed of the truck instead of putting them upfront with us. Silly us. So of course we sent her back to get them. While the truck was moving. :P

ok.. we slowed down. but didn't really stop until  she had already gotten the cookies. She's skilled!

Now our trip to Candle Lake was really uneventful until we got the Meath Park. Now it is pronounced as MEETH Park. But after stopping there to pee I pronounce it Meth Park. ( I only wish I got pictures)

Meath Park Story:

So I really Really had to pee! We passed through Prince Albert and there was no real stops along the highway so we figured we'd keep going and i'd let them know when they absolutely had to pull over so i could pee in the bush or something.  By the time we reached Meath Park (15 mins outta P.A) I was going to wet myself. So Graham being the Awesome driver he is pulled into Meath Park. Normally a town greets ya with some buildings and such and gas station but we just rolled right on in to this REALLY ghetto gas station. They we're all thinking of stopping somewhere else but I really had to go. I jumped outta the truck and walked into the "convience" store. There was really nothing normal about it. The cashier counter had a metal cage around it. I walked in and didn't see anyone in there. Then this really quiet old creepy kinda man popped outta no where. I asked really nicely if he had a bathroom. He said "in the shop"

(shop of what I thought.) I asked if I was able to use that one.
He just kinda nodded and opened a door. Luckily Phoenix and Tiffany were with me at this point and Daniel and Graham had walked in too. So I didn't feel to worried I was going to get killed and buried in a field anymore. There were too many witnesses.
I thanked him politely and walked through the door thinking it be a hallway or something. But no. It was a auto shop. He pointed to the corner on the other side of the shop and said that the bathroom was over there. So we quickly walked through. and cam upon the bathroom door. Literally built into the corner of this shop. On the door it said "Bathroom for paying customers ONLY!"
(Oh boy. I really hope Daniel is buying something.)

I walked in and couldn't find a light switch. It was on the outside of the door but didn't WORK! But there was a light connected up into the rafters (one you would use to look under the hood of a car) and it didn't work either. So I told Tiff and Nix to just wait and not come in while I left the door partially open. Then looked at the toilet. Which was GHETTO! something I would expect to find at a campsite. I mean who really puts a Porta potty in their Shop! Whatever. I had to go. So I squatted and did my thing and ran out. We got to the front and Daniel and a Pop. (PAYING CUSTOMERS NOW!!!!) And Tiff commented on a license plate he had on his metal cage around the counter. it said "I don't dial 9-1-1 I dial 347." Then we call kinda Ran to the truck and sped off.
While I was peeing:
Daniel happened to be talking to the creepy old man. And apparently once upon a time....
Someone robbed a $600 pack of cigerattes from him. and he apparently dialed .347 (aka a gun) and shot the dude. (he didn't die thanks to another customer present).
AKA METH PARK

We made it to our Campsite we reserved without further incident. Minuwaku Beach Campsite 309. It was really poorly shaped. So we moved to 313. WAY BETTER! Set up camp and went to bed. 

The boys making Breakfast!!!

Shortly after breakfast a crazy amount of horseflies and mosquitoes came out. So we built this really sweet shelter out of our sun tent and a tarp. And then we played some games while Phoenix went back to sleep.

It was pretty ingenious our skeeto net tent. And it really worked too!

Well we went to candle lake and so we grabbed our lunch stuff and headed to the beach!!!

BEAUTIFUL!

Daniel is in heaven!!! haha and playing with Zuma

Just chillaxin and I'm trying to get everyone ready to run into the water at once!

Ready set GO!

Notice the boys chickening out??? While Tiff and I Go for it?

But they eventually did join us. Daniel isn't having a seizure but it swatting those horseflies away!!! THEY WERE HORRIBLE!!!!!!

So bad that we dressed up again and left and went to P.A. 

We ate lunch on the way. 

Our lunch and Phoenix's face!!! I am the hoagie master now!!! only one tomato ran away to Graham's feet!

(Keep reading! It'll be worth it!)

So yes we drove an hour back from Candle Lake all the way to Prince Albert to buy a skeeto net. Which would also keep the horse flies away!! We filled up the truck which took forever but played some volleyball while we waited.

Best Thing Ever! I'll do a little advertising here. They are on sale at Walmart for $100 bucks!!!!

*****Side Note****
While we were getting ready to go to the beach I was grabbing the skeeto spray and screen of the sun. As I was coming back up from bending under the table I twisted to come up and smacked my eyeball hard on the water spigot. It seriously hurt.

Kinda swelled up a little.

Some serious bruising. it still really hurts!

*******************End of side note******************************

Tiff is kinda a crazy head and tried to suck up a Reese's Pieces up a straw. and it worked it was melted so much.

We made it back to Candle Lake with our skeeto net and set it up and camp. SO EASY TO SET UP!!!!! and Amazingly wonderful at keeping out the buggies!!!! We made dinner in the crock pot. I mean the Dutch Oven. We made a potato stew dish thing. DELICIOUS!

FOOD!

Isn't it just beautiful!!!!!!!!!!

We figured it had cooled off enough so we would try the beach again.

SO BEAUTIFUL!

Really Clear Water!!!

Getting Ready to get in!

Ever Seen a nurse and an engineer make out??? :P

What's a trip without a jump picture?? Pretty Sweet!!!!!!!!
(Graham, Tiff, Me, Dan) Nix took the picture

Kinda looks like they are holding hands eh??
Oh ya... and we left cause of the bugs again. YUCK!

But a beautiful Sunset!!!

**** The Bugs*****
It was horrible! I have a bazillion bites over me! We had a great trip and apparently the bugs are only this bad the last bit of June and the first part of July. We now know the next time we gotta go camping to avoid the bugs!

This one tried to fly into my mouth after i took the picture. GROSS!

The Horsefly

Yes this is the horsefly again. HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The skeetos at night that snuck into our skeeto net. But at least they  left us alone!!!

*******************End of Bugs***********************

(Your Halfway!!! or just over!! Keep going you can do it!)

So we came back from the beach and made some peach cobbler in the crock pot I mean dutch oven. :P

Jealous yet?

Some hair braiding too!

Tiff brought some sweet powder stuff that turned the fire green and blue and purple. Kinda reminded me of the Sleeping beauty and the colors of  Malicifcant when she uses her powers and such.

This is my favorite picture of the fire!!!

SO COOL!

Well.. that was all just in our first day! Crazy hey??? But the night isn't over yet cause we played some games in our skeeto net!!! What better to play then a board/trivia game of THE BIG BANG THEORY!!!! Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock too!!!

Racking his head for an answer!

Just being a nerd! :P

Okay. Then the Day was over and we all went to bed.

We started Saturday with Breakfast of French Toast! delicious! and then went exploring where we found a place of the lake not far from where we camped where there were NO BUGS! except when Zuma was around. They attacked him!!! tehe. Thanks Zuma for taking the hit!

So clear!

we played with a slingshot too for a while. AWESOME!

And we jumped in the river!!!! Clothes and All! Last one fully submerged owed the other an ice cream cake! Still waiting on it Tiff!!!

Zuma. What a trooper!

Of course we played till we were hungry!!! Made some taco salad and then just chilled in the skeeto net reading our books while the boys slept and nix took a nap in the tent!

You can tell they Really wanted to wake up. 

So we woke them up! It took quite a while! but we got them up and checked out the sand dunes but ended up back at the beach again! Where we played and played for the longest time ever! Mostly cause we kept Zuma dry and on the beach! So the flies left us alone!!! It was awesome!!!! Loved it!!!

We of course we're hungry once again so we made chicken hurry! Ya, we eat in style when we camp have ya noticed? Wait till ya see what we had for dessert!
After we decided to play some badminton!

The best part ever of this was Zuma. He was just chilling in the water off to the side. We realized he had been gone for a while so Tiff called him and he came trottin out of the water with a bottle of budweiser in his mouth. open end in!!! SO FUNNY! we missed getting the picture but got some others.

Dessert Saturday was LEMON MERINGUE PIE That's right. Who wants to come camping with us now???

Ok. I promise we are almost done here with our sweet camping expedition!

We had a tangy time with this stuff! drank so much of it!

Well we packed up and headed out Sunday Morning. We moved pretty quickly too considering we ran out of bug spray and we had to take down our skeeto net! So we moved quickly and headed out. We were all pretty darn exhausted so it didn't take long for us all to crash at one point or another!

He's cute!!!

We had to get some aqua along the way and find a place to eat lunch. I don't know about anyone else but I was FAMISHED!

So we found a ghost town (Hafford) and bought us some Water. Then went on our way to "The Crooked Bush"

Hafford

The backroad we took to get to the Crooked Bush.

look how thrilled we all are to find out we can't have a fire here. how are we supposed to cook our smokies??

Walking through the crooked bushes

Doing the limbo!

It was kinda cool!!!

But we were Starving. So we found a backroad.....

And then we finally made it home and got to shower and clean everything!!! :P

AWESOME!!!

Congratulations if you made it to the end. If you just looked at the pictures you probably missed out on some awesome stories!

Who wants to come camping with us now???
We eat well and have lots of fun!!!!