What an amazing weekend!! It was just a blast, start to finish. What did we get up to? Well, let me tell you!
Alex has his radio operator’s licence, and the club often volunteers for rally car races, and this weekend, there was a race! It was happening up near Noel, so we drove up Friday afternoon to get a night in, and save us driving up early Saturday morning to get there in time. We drove around for a bit, looking at the backroads map and satellite imagery to find a good place. Eventually, we decided to just head down an abandoned logging road and see if we could find a good spot. Boy, did we ever! The location wasn’t particularly scenic, we camped just off the road where we had some flat room, but the starts were some of the best I’ve ever seen. It’s also perfect (well, we’re a bit late for the peak, but close enough) timing for the Perseides meteor shower! Two things happened the moment I stepped out of the car and started going for my backpack. One, I saw a shooting star, and two, I heard something howl. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was a coyote or a wolf, but it was definitely something! It sounded close, but not too close, and since neither species is particularly prone to attacking people in tents, we carried on. We decided to forgo the fly. I had seen the weather report, and knew that the temperature was going to dip well below the dew point, but I was ok with getting a little soggy to get to watch the meteor shower, and stars in general, as I was falling asleep. This was delayed slightly by a round of lots of howling and yipping (leading us to conclude that it was a group of coyotes) but only temporarily. When we woke up, we were indeed slightly wet. Good thing it was supposed to be (and was) warm and sunny all day! Actually, make that hot and sunny. I was sweltering all day long. I actually accepted one of the bottled waters they had for volunteers, just because it was cold! Fortunately, the bugs weren’t bad at all. There were tonnes of deer flies, but for whatever reason, none of them were biting. I was a also little worried I would get a bad sunburn, especially on my legs, but I was fine. (For reference, I was biking a few days ago and got a slight burn on my thighs, which has now left a really intense tan line. I had racing stipes on my thighs from the more-opaque reflective bits of my shorts for a few hours! (Un)Fortunately, that has since faded… That, in combination with the fact that the only shorts I own are shorter than my bike shorts, I was worried either the old burn would burn again, or I’d burn the bit that hadn’t yet tanned much.) And, the upside to all of this is that everything that was wet from the night before dried out really quickly! I had a bunch of fun at the race. I didn’t get to watch any of it, since we were positioned at the end of one stage, but I did get to see the starts, and the cars. I also got free lunch, and then dinner at the community hall, which was a welcome surprise! I did pack food, but cookies and a burger and fries were much more appetizing. They even had extra cookies and sandwiches, some of which Alex and I got to take for the next day! After supper, we had to decide where to camp that night. We wanted to stay out that way, but maybe head a little closer to Halifax, to shorten the ride the next morning. We did pretty much the same thing as the night before, and ended up camping in an open area on top of a hill. It was really great!! The stars were incredible, again, though this time we did use the fly. Upon waking up bright and early, we headed back to town, feeling very successful.
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AuthorCarmen has successfully camped for 100 nights out of 365. This blog is a record of those nights outside! Archives
July 2016
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