Spontaneous Camping!

I think I might have just discovered the best way ever to spend a Wednesday night.

See, I've been having a really quiet week at work. Extremely quiet. It's like there's nobody here, and nothing is really going on at all. I don't even know if anyone notices if I show up or not. Bridget is also having a somewhat quiet week, searching for some last minute pre-trip employment (which she is due to find at any time now...) So, to spice things up a bit, and since it was so nice out, we decided to sign out the Vrtucar and go for a night of camping in Gatineau park.

Since we were going in what is now the off-season (which begins after Labour day weekend) and due to it being the middle of the week, I was pretty sure we'd have no problem getting a campsite. It turns out that there were only four sites (including ours) in use last night. We got the same one we had last time, right on the far end of Taylor lake, and the closest people to us were five or six campsites away. It was really amazing.

Just to keep things interesting, when we were signing in at the main gate, the guy told us that there was a bear sighting yesterday. We shouldn't be worried, though, because we're on the other side of the lake. And he says this as if bears don't possess the locomotive skills to walk around a small lake. Bridget has an interesting relationship with bears, in that she finds them both fascinating, and at the same time, terrifying. Anyway, no bears were to be seen, but we certainly thought about it occasionally when we'd hear some rustling in the forest. What we did see, though, was this really cool stick insect who came to hang out with us for a while.

We pretty much just hung out by the fire for the night with some wine and then went to sleep. This is the view we had when we opened our tent the next morning. Wow!


We then decided to go for coffee and croissants at the Wakefield bakery. I've heard so much (from a variety of people) about how amazing this place is, so I had some pretty high expectations. Unfortunately, I don't think they were actually doing a lot of fresh baking, since the croissants really didn't hold a candle to the ones at the French Baker near my house. But that's likely because it's a weekday, and the town was more or less deserted while we were there. Things are probably quite different on the weekend. Either way, it was nice just to meander around by the Gatineau River and have a quiet morning.

And now, I'm back at my desk at work, refreshed from a night of clean air, solitude, and the smell of campfire in the great outdoors. Best Wednesday Evening Ever!