Camping at Carson-Pegasus

The day after we got home from our trip to Raymond, we packed up the van, hitched on the trailer and headed out for a camping trip. We decided to check out the Carson-Pegasus provincial campground near Whitecourt. We just went for two nights and that was about right especially since there were SO. MANY. MOSQUITOES. And horseflies. And flying insects of all kinds. The mosquitoes had been pretty bad in Raymond but here there were swarms of them. But we made the best of if and set up our mesh tent around the picnic table and were pretty successful and keeping the bugs out of the trailer and the tent so that was good.

And the lake (MacLeod Lake) was absolutely gorgeous and we lucked out with our campsite because we were right beside the lake and we could see it through the trees. And there was a healthy population of loons on the lake and I thought their calls were beautiful. (Shae didn't think so because she had a hard time sleeping through their "conversations" at 2 o'clock in the morning).

This is our fancy mostly bug-free kitchen:

This is how the lake looked the evening we arrived: smooth as glass.

Once we had our camp set up, the boys were anxious to get in a bit of fishing before the sun went down.  They saw a lot of fish jumping and got a few nibbles but didn't catch anything.

When they got back to our campsite, I had banana boats ready for them.

The next morning, they went down to the dock near our campsite and watched other people there catching crawfish. Hudson and Connor decided to give it a try (it involves dangling meat on the hook of your fishing rod in between the rocks and then quickly dropping the crawfish into a net when it dashes out to grab the meat). They were quite successful and caught about ten. But I really didn't want to take them back to camp and boil them (much to Hudson's disappointment) so we let them go back into the lake.

It was a warm afternoon so we decided to check out the beach. It's quite small but sandy and the water is pretty clear so we were happy with it.

Back at camp, Shae got a fire going for us so we could roast marshmallows (which we had to do quickly because it started to rain).

It wasn't quite bedtime yet so we went into our "kitchen" and played cards for a bit.

The rain let up at sunset and we went down to the dock to enjoy the view (while swatting mosquitoes).

Another camper kindly offered to take our picture for us. This is the first time that we've taken a family photo and Shae has been taller than me. I still think she might have been wearing extra thick shoes and I was probably slouching or something but I have to admit, the day might finally have come when one of my children is taller than me.

Connor convinced Jess to take him back down to the dock one last time to try and catch some fish. He's got his coat drawn up like that because of the swarms of blood-thirsty mosquitoes. If you look closely at the picture, you can even see them.

We somehow ended up with only 5 spoons in our camp kitchen so Jess decided to whittle himself a spoon - it turned out quite nicely and I'm pretty sure he didn't get any splinters in his tongue.

It was nearly time to pack up but the kids wanted to try crawfish catching again. The wind had picked up which made it hard to see the crawfish between the rocks so Connor only caught one. But he had fun playing with it a bit before throwing it back.

We headed home with lots of mosquito bites, mountains of laundry and some good memories.