Wow.. my first vacation since February! Next year I might try taking my weeks at the same time.... then again, probably not. Some people swear they'll never take their vacation seperate again, but if you do take them seperate that gives you vacation more than once a year! I like that. This year I decided to book my week off on the basis of some friends getting some days off work to go camping. Carrie told us she had Aug 19, 20 & 21st booked off, so Amber and Kok jumped on the bandwagon to book those days off as well, then told me about it. Unfortunately it was a very bad time for me to take my vacation.. I always try not to take time off at a pay cut-off weekend, because they need me to do the time checking on the Sunday, but this is when the others booked the time, so I took my vacation week too.
Organizing the camping trip was a bit like pulling teeth. You'd think it'd be a simple thing to get everyone in a room together to talk about it, but schedules don't always permit such things, so I ended up talking to Kok and Carrie separately on it, and wasn't able to talk to Amber at all. I found a place and Kok liked it, so I showed it to Carrie and she liked it. On a visit to the Agrifair fireworks, I confirmed with Carrie that she liked the idea of going to Golden Ears, and the price ($14/night) and when she said it sounded good, I went home and made the booking. However, when I called the booking line, I discovered that there was an additional $6/night registration fee, and that we'd probably need two sites. It came to a bit more than I had anticipated (total charge to my Visa, including 3 nights, 2 sites and tax was approx. $150), but it was too late to cancel it.. plus I felt we'd be safer and have more fun going to a Provincial Park. I also misunderstood the lady on the phone about my total, so I thought it had come to a lot more. Sigh.
When I told the others about how expensive it was, of course everyone was a bit put off by it. I was too. I decided to try to cut everyone a deal, because I'd told them $14/night and it had come to so much more, but I didn't hear back from anyone about it until the very last minute. I tried to reach Carrie about it on MSN the Monday before the trip, but she wasn't there, and the next day Kok found out she was on her way out of town!
Wednesday, the night before we left, Carrie finally got in touch with Kok to tell her she wasn't going camping with us. The night before! Poor Amber still wanted to go, but Carrie was her ride and her tent/supplies. Kok and I were still going, and we didn't want to leave Amber out, so we made some adjustments, rounded up some supplies, and stuffed her in the backseat.
Drama aside, let's get on to the relaxation and vacation!!
The camping itself was great. The weather was fantastic the entire time we were there! Swimming was great fun.. except for a bit of an annoying romp through Maple Ridge in an attempt to find some kind (ANY KIND) of floating device. They had nothing. Zellers didn't have a single "noodle" or anything. Finally in our last stop in town we found a blow-up dingy-type boat and got it. That ended up being well worth the money, and a lot of fun.
At night we drank, ate, and laughed. The second night we spent a while laying on the "beach" (rocks) by the lake, admiring the full-sky of stars (Milky Way too!) and also ended up spying some UFOs! Honest! Sattelites do NOT travel in groups of three... But there was one triangle formation moving slowly across the sky, never veering away from the others. There were also other "moving stars" in various directions all over.. I'm no expert, but I don't think there's *that* many sattelites moving across the sky in one night! And we saw the planes too.. these were far different from planes.
The last morning we got up just as it started to drizzle, so we quickly packed up the tents....then were promptly dumped on by a downpour as we packed up everything else. We went to town to freshen up, then to a movie when back in Abbotsford.
Ignoring the aforementioned drama, the camping was really fun and we can't wait to go again!
