We are the Gummi Bears!

"Dashing and daring,
Courageous and caring,
Faithful and friendly,
With stories to share.
All through the forest,
They sing out in chorus,
Marching along,
As their song fills the air.

Gummi Bears!!
Bouncing here and there and everywhere.
High adventure that's beyond compare.
They are the Gummi Bears."

June has been a month of adventure and fun, with trips all over the Eastern Canada region. We've been to Quebec City (just my family), Niagara Falls, Mont Tremblant, and right now Tim & Char are in NYC. Next weekend is the F1, and we'll be going to the Tam Tams as well.

This past weekend, Tim, Char & I drove up to Mont Tremblant for a short camping trip. On Friday night, as we talked of their upcoming trip to NYC, I had this idea that we should all go camping for a night. So we made the reservation, packed up some camping supplies, picked up some food along the way, and rented a car. We left on Saturday afternoon and arrived at Mont Tremblant shortly after 6pm. It was hot and humid at the campsite, also known as Le Diable, and full of bugs.

You have to purchase wood for fires, so we bought a bag of wood thinking this would be sufficient (not really thinking that a bag with only eight or nine pieces would clearly not hold a fire through the night). We tried desperately to start a fire and keep it going, using paper, twigs and small brush, but it was a long time in coming. When we finally got it started, with the help of constant fanning, we realized how little wood we actually had. So Char and I drove back up to the supplies shop and bought another bag of wood and a firestarter block (basically highly compressed and very dense wood chips). When we got back to the campsite, Tim still had the fire going so we added the firestarter and some more wood and voila! a proper fire was born!

We set up the tent, unpacked our supplies and began cooking hot dogs over the fire. After the hot dogs, we opened up the bag of marshmallows and started on those too. It wasn't long until we were so full we couldn't do much but sit and hope the bugs didn't bite too much. Slowly, the sky dimmed and soon we were plunged into absolute darkness. I plugged in my iPod, opened the car window and set us up with some music (Savage Garden since we all knew the lyrics to all the songs). We sat on the hood of the car and looked up at the stars, which were in full view without the distracting lights of a city. The Big Dipper hung directly above us, and as it moved across the sky, we could see other constellations as well.

Fortunately, the washrooms were just a few meters away from our campsite (but still far enough to be sure), so we washed up and climbed into the tent. It was a tight fit between the inflated queen-sized mattress and my little single air mattress, but we made it work. It soon became very clear that it was too hot for the blankets we had brought along, but we made do.

Sometime after we'd gone to bed, Char noticed some flickering lights on the tent walls. I poked my head out of the door and found that not only was the fire not out, but it had re-ignited on its own! A log, which we were pretty sure had been put out, had somehow found enough energy to start burning again. So stomped around in the fire pit, poured some water on the ashes, and then went back to bed. It was such a strange situation that we didn't really know what to think...

Anyways, in the morning we woke up to discover that our tent had been besieged by mosquitoes as they all sat on the outside walls of our tent waiting for us to emerge. Once we did, we were immediately attacked by hordes of them and spent breakfast swatting at our hair. We packed quickly and hopped into the relative safety of the car to escape the buzzing masses.

A short drive North from our campsite was Les Chutes du Diable. I parked the car and we hiked 800m to the falls which were cool but also kind of gross. The water, for some reason or another, was brownish in colour and when it passed over the falls looked a lot like urine. We also stopped at the beach near the lake where we were staying so Char could take some photos.

As soon as we were done taking photos and had had enough of the great Canadian outdoors, we drove back into Montreal, unloaded the car, and returned it to Avis. The walk back to our respective homes was grueling as the temperature had soared to as high as 32C (39C with humidity)! But eventually we made it, had some long clean cold showers, and resumed our city lives.

And that is the story of our camping trip to Mont Tremblant. More to come after the F1...