Thursday, July 5, 2012

Canoeing, long john underwear and fluffy white freaks.

Move mountains/try to not kill anyone in the ER.
Right now I'm deciding whether I will write this blog post or take a nap. Considering I'm already in bed under the covers, I anticipate that the nap might win. But in the meantime, I'll get started anyways.

I'm home for the afternoon after morning clinic with a new preceptor that I just started working with this week. We work overnight in the ER tonight and so I have a few hours between to catch some z's and relax before going in. 

I figured maybe I'd take this time to update about our wicked amazing most awesome camping trip in Jasper this past weekend. So much has happened since my last blog post and I want to talk about all of it, but that would make this blog post considerably too long and so I'll try to just touch on the best parts :)

The Mr/Camper Extraordinaire
This post I will talk mostly about the camping trip, and in the next few I'll talk about all the other stuff like the crazy girls Rodeo night I had and my recent medical adventures in Small Town.

I knew we were going to have a good trip when The Mr. texted me the following:
Ugh I am so seepy

"I just drugged the sh*t outta Whimsey and she doesn't even know it." 

Best first words of camping trip ever.

The drugs he's referring to are the sedatives that our vet prescribed for Miss. Thing (who's most recent nicknames include Miss. Mims, Mimseltin and Delicate Princess Flower due to her penchant for being a sensitive and delicate Princess). 
Let's just say Miss. Mims has a certain amount of anxiety (WHO ME IM NOT ANXIOUS WHAT DO YOU MEAN) for being in the car. For any length of time. In fact, she pants and freaks out so much that the whole car smells of her stinky dog breath and The Mr. is miserable before we've often even left the driveway. 

Hazards of the Daddy job.
(Note the face haha)
So we thought we'd call in some pharmacological reinforcements and were given the equivalent of doggy benzodiazepines. WIN.

Suffice to say that she needed more than one dose, but was definitely sedated for the majority of the trip. She managed to sleep and only stink up the car with her breath for a short while in the beginning. In fact, we were struggling more with The Little Stink's toots. He's such a tooty little walrus.

During our time living in Alberta, we have sadly yet to see a Grizzly bear (the zoo doesn't count) and decided that this would be the trip. It was going to happen. 
In the battle with the weedwacker,
I'm pretty sure the weed wacker won.


I won't leave you hanging to think that at the end of this blog post I'm going to say this happened and we saw the elusive Grizzly. In fact, this isn't like one of those good stories where at the end the wish comes true. We still haven't seen a damn Grizzly but we did see a considerable amount of mountain goats and mountain sheep, and lots and lots of caribou.

Fluffy white freak. You're even
missing a horn. Lame.
Those mountain goats/sheeps/fluffy white freaks sure are pests. For one, they're everywhere. They just roam around the road like they own the place, leave disgusting fluff around from their weedwacked hair-dos and are far too familiar with people. 

We had a picnic lunch at Miette Hot Springs one day and we had to use our big black Destructo to ward off the pesky beasts who were so bold as to come right up to your very cooler and stick their ugly heads inside. One family was fit to be tied when the freaks were not even going away despite their frantic yelling and waving of their arms trying to make them flee the scene of the crime. It didn't take much for Destructo to get them on their merry way though. Just one of the many benefits of having a big dog I guess. :)
Look at them just climbing on people's stuff. How rude.
So we love camping a whole lot, and a big part of why we love it is the food of course. We love coming up with new ideas of meals to make o'er the fire and we do not believe in cans of beans for meals. Alas, the majority of this post will detail the delicious meals we made this trip.
Ahhh, home sweet campsite.
A tarping job that even Mom C and Aunt Bev would be proud of!
 The first morning we had planned to have these ingenious "campurritos" from the Ninth and Bird Blog. They are make-ahead breakfast wraps that you can cook over the fire. The Mr. made them the day before we left and we anticipated that we would have them the first morning as we were finishing the set up of our temporary wilderness home (read: campsite). 
We filled them with Spolumbo's sausage (an Alberta classic), scrambled eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and cheese. Yummo.

Campurritos a la campfire
Note to self and others wanting to try these: Wrap them at least 2-3 times in tin foil and only cook for maybe 10 minutes over the fire. We were upset that ours were seriously smoky tasting and some of the wrap had burned because we only wrapped them once. 

Oh and let's not forget, the coffee of course. The Mr. had purchased a camping-style drip coffee maker made by GSI that we used to make coffee on the trip. Awesome idea and super easy to clean.

That day we decided to do a bit of a hike at Maligne Lake, which just happens to be the lake that is featured on some Windows PCs as desktop wallpaper (and it's one on The Mr.'s computer). What a beautiful spot!

Ahhh peace

Bambi
Moose Lake

The Little Stink loves hiking.
That evening's dinner was steaks, naturally. Cooked over the fire to the perfect medium rare and paired with baked potatoes with green onions and cheese. A Caesar salad makes the meal just right.

Yummo. 

One day on the trip we biked into the town of Jasper, with faithful Destructo running along side and only twice causing a near death dog-meets-bike collision for me. 

After those two, I handed him off to The Mr. who has both more control of his bike and more control over Destructo. Miss. Thing ran most of the way alongside but about 4km in we decided it was probably far enough for her. 
I love camping.
And I am so handsome.
We walked around the town which was busy with tourists (being that it was the Canada Day long weekend) and quickly and often became our own tourist attraction. 

It always happens something like this:
We're quite the sight.
People walk by and see Miss. Thing and Destructo and coo and ahh about them and how cute they are (naturals). Then they continue walking and within seconds you hear whispering, giggles and "there's another one in the backpack!". The Little Stink is something like a celebrity in his backpack. Because honestly, when's the last time you've seen a 6lb (ok, 7.5lb but he's pleasantly plump) Yorkie with his tongue sticking out chilling in a backpack with one of his little sloth arms hanging out?

Ya. Seriously.
We had lunch in town and only got rained on once on our way back. Naturally, we saw our share of bous that we had to try to avoid Destructo seeing (since scaring away the fluffy freaks at the luncheon, he has a fetish for chasing large hooved animals- plan backfire).
Bou
That evening was delish chicken and pineapple shish kabobs. I had marinated the chicken prior to leaving for the trip in pineapple juice, BBQ sauce, worchestershire, onions and garlic and zipped 'em up in a plastic freezer bag. I had also cut up red peppers, onions, mushrooms and pineapple.
With this we made Jasmine rice and reduced down the remaining marinade to have as a sauce over the rice. O.M.G. So good!

Writing this blog is making me hungry.

That night was a little cool and so naturally Miss. Thing wanted to wear her best long john underwear, and The Little Stink would have felt left out without his. Destructo doesn't have any yet but we noticed him eyeing them. Next online purchase.
What do you mean these aren't flattering?

Desert that night was over a good game of Scrabble, with The Mr. taking the win with words like "minion" and adding a "D" to my 70+ point "require". 
I haven't come up with a name for these little gems but essentially you take 2 Chocolate Fudge Two Bite Brownies and put 2-3 Junior Mints in between them and kind of mush 'em together so they form a ball around the mints. Then you wrap them a few times in tin foil and of course, warm them over the fire.
5-10 mins and you have some delicious little warm fudgey and minty brownie balls. Mmmmm.  

I want some right now.
The highlight of the trip was definitely the canoeing we did on the last day on Pyramid Lake. But it was Canada Day and so on this day of our glorious country turning 145 years old (I think, don't shoot me if that's wrong), there was a pancake breakfast in the town of Jasper. Probably the most efficient pancake breakfast I've ever been to (ok, the only one I've ever been to, but it did move awfully quick and was delish!).

How cute is he.
Flippin' flap jacks!


Happy Birthday Canada! You're looking good for your age!

In preparation for this canoeing adventure, we were sure to purchase the boys each a fitting life jacket similar to Miss. Thing's one that Grandma gave to her. We had never canoed with our dogs before and so were excited to see how they would behave on the water.

Looks cloudy, but the weather actually was pretty good.
Until we got to the other side of the lake.


Despite a few raised eyebrows and "have you done this before?"s from the boat rental staff, we managed to get underway with no one getting wet. The weather was perfect, the sun was shining and the lake was calm and beautiful (if not a little brown because of the heavy rains). Miss. Thing was our mermaid at the helm (you know, like on pirate ships in movies) and The Little Stink hung out in his carrier, as usual. Destructo sat in the back with his Daddy (he's such a sucky Daddy's boy now). Here are some pictures of the adventure:
Miss. Thing at the edge of the world!
I'll just stay in here where it's dry and warm, kay?
Awe
Creepy little alien in the back
And alas, dinner on the last night was a delicious buffet style meal with assorted cheeses, meats, spreads, crackers, grapes, etc etc. One of my favourite kinds of meals. We concluded the night with our classic Chocolate Chip Cookie Smores over the new BioLite. Of course!
Fit for Kings (and Queens)


All in all, a wonderful camping trip. I'm sure The Mr. is going to read this post and tell me there is a host of things I left out, and I'll make assorted addendums. In the meantime, I'm going to take this opportunity in this silly storm we're having where the clouds have parted and it seems the sun is shining to run out and get myself a sub before starting my shift in a half hour.

Oh, a sunny hail storm. I get it. ;)

Until next time. Wish me luck I don't kill anyone!

A latte love,

C

1 comment:

  1. Where can I learn more about rockwell differentials and how to use them? They seem pretty complex!

    ReplyDelete