Obligatory Homecoming Post

Oh, Saskatchewan, the land where the dominant lifeform is the hay-bail; also the land where I spent the last few days, lappin', lovin', and livin' it up. My family, along with another full family and part of yet another family spent the long weekend at Greig Lake, SK, one of the many lakes in Meadow Lake Provincial Park.

My account in categorized, unordered lists. . .

Things that I did not like about our excursion:

The roads. Good gracious, I am glad Alberta has money to put into our roads. Though perhaps trivial in the grand scheme of things, it's somewhat unnerving driving on a unevenly paved stretch of highway that has no discernable centre line or shoulders for a couple of hours. Not only is it an unpredictable and uncomfortable ride, you start to feel plain ol' embarassed for Saskatchewan.

The arthropod community. Maybe it's because I live in the city and in a different province, for that matter, but Saskatchewan has got some pretty weird bugs, weird and unusually large. Perhaps we were situated by some hotbed of radiation, which has genetically mutated the insects to grow to extraordinary sizes. Or maybe some vacationing witches and wizards are demonstrating to their children the proper use of the Engorgement charm (because the children could not be practicing it themselves - that would be in violation of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery).

The rain. It rained on Friday afternoon, all through the night, and into Saturday afternoon. Not extreme rain accompanied by high winds or anything, just rain. Unstoppable, unignorable rain.

The inexplicably cold nights. I don't know if it was because were right on the lake or because we were so far north, but DANG did it ever get cold at night, cold to the point where I was driven to wear short and pants, two sweaters with hoods, and socks to bed. Mind you, we were sleeping in a tent with only a wafery piece of synthetic fabric between us and the elements. But still - a day that reached a very summery thirty-odd degrees should not be followed by a night where I could see my breath and was awaken simply by how freakin' cold my face felt.

The facilities. I have done a fair bit of camping in my day, and have accordingly encountered a wide range of camping-washrooms. On the whole, these facilities were actually quite good. There were "flush" outhouses, and free and clean showers. I think it was their proximity (or lack thereof) to our site that bummed me out. The closest outhouse was a good three hundred metres from our site. Normally not too bad, but in the middle of the night when The Urge is calling and it's pouring rain outside, three hundred metres might as well be three hundred kilometres.

Things that I did like about our excursion:

The night sky. Being out of the city affords me the chance to stargaze, albeit with the naked eye. It's still fun though, and one of my most favourite things to do ever is to watch the sky for satellites. Over the weekend I not only found countless satellites, but saw a handful of shooting stars, and on Sunday night was privy to a wonderful display of the Northern Lights. Oddly, though, I never saw the moon. I'm pretty sure we're not close to a new moon, so I really don't know why I didn't see it.

The lake. I was a little skeptical about going to a prairie lake. In my experience, they've got nothing on the mountain lakes of British Columbia. But this one was alright. It was sizeable, not too busy considering it was the long weekend, and had good spots for the various watersports in which we partook. The watersports in themselves were another little bundle of fun. Between the fourteen of us that were camping we had two boats, two wakeboards, three sets of waterskis, two kneeboards, two slalom skis, and two towable innertubes. Perhaps the most fun was the tubing. If you have never been tubing, it'd be hard to explain the sort of exhilaration it gives you. I can liken it to that of a roller coaster, but it's not exactly the same. With tubing you're holding on for dear life, being dragged and bounced around at the mercy of the boat's driver. You're horrified of what might happen, but laugh when it's over; you're anticipating your puppet-master's next move, but still anxious in the unpredictability. You're flying and sinking and travelling at what feels like a million miles per hour. You're laughing and breathing heavy, knocking into others and hurting from holding on so tightly. Sometimes you're bitin' it, hitting a huge wave and flipping over, face-planting onto the hard, watery surface.

The food. When you're preparing to go camping, you generally stock up on unperishables. Among unperishables are some delicious bits of junk. Crackers and chips and granola bars and marshmallows and sugary cereals and pop and juice. Then there's the roastable foods, stuff you can cook over open flame: hot dogs, hamburgers, canned beans, etc. Then there is just plain old good camping food. Each meal we ate was prepared for fourteen people - that's a lot of food. Each meal we ate was absolutely delicious. I couldn't help but indulge a little.

The company. I'll admit that I felt a little out of place at the beginning, and still did at the end but to a lesser extent. I felt like an outsider. Among the nine children were a pair of hockey teammates, a pair of basketball teammates, and a triplet of soccer teammates, none of which included myself (nor one of my sisters). I am twenty years old, my sister is eighteen years old, and the next oldest were the hockey teammates at sixteen years. It wasn't impossible for us to relate to them, but it certainly wasn't easy. All the young 'uns would go off into their groups or would mingle without my sister and I. That left us with the parents, to whom it was just as difficult to relate. They just talked and shared stories and recipes and whatnot. So, my sister and I would sit and listen. Sometimes we went off to read. But in the end, I was still there with my family, another great family, and another great part of a family. We shared many a'laugh, either out on the lake, at dinner, or around the fire (there was an ongoing joke about the two hockey players sharing a tent with Brokeback Mountain references and whatnot. It was only furthered by the boys themselves: one night around the fire one asks the other, "So, do you wanna go have a shower?" without any intention of it sounding the way it did. The other replied with a disgusted "No," and everyone busted a gut).

I'm sorry that I don't have more pictures. Honestly and regrettably, I didn't take that many, and those that I did take include people, and I don't think I should be posting picture of people without their permission. But I can give you an idea of what it looked like. The lake - big, watery, greenish. Around the lake - lots of trees. On the highway - lots of flat land, cows, and bails of hay. It was wet and dark when it rained, and dry, hot, and bright when it didn't. But, I suspect that The Fam may be taking off to British Columbia in the coming days, and I promise to take more photos then.

Thank you Nicole, Karen, Future MD, and Erin for your sweet comments.