Where we roam

Hello, When I started this blog, I had an idea of how I wanted to present my content and how often I wanted to post. I started this blog at a time in my life when a lot of things were occuring. Good things, but many things. Then, things started to slow down. So did my posting. I have big gaps of time where I didn't post anything at all. And I felt guilty. Instead of getting back to it, I ended up not posting.  I wanted this blog to be more about the adventures we go on, details about camping trips, conservation areas, hikes, etc. I didn't want it to be too personal, even if it was a way to keep track of our outings. I am at a point where I've noticed, though, that I keep encouraging others to follow their dreams and thoughts. It could be for simple everyday things, or big and challenging tasks. I don't even follow that in my own life. I should listen to my own advice. There are things I want to accomplish. I need to figure out exactly what those things are and sit d...

Hello, I've been getting back into looking up trails and such since spring will eventually show even more signs of arriving in our area and I want to be ready for outdoor adventures! The birds are chirping in the morning, some greenery is started to pop out of the ground, there is light up till the children's bedtime... all exciting things.  In doing so, I figured I could write a short post regarding our extended family camping trip we took last August at Silent Lake Provincial Park . Same gang as the previous year at Bon Echo, minus my father who was ill and unable to join us. He's fine, by the way.  We did our usual Wednesday to Saturday schedule, which helps avoid crowds. We stuck to the month of August and it was thankfully warmer than the previous year.  I seem to have misplaced our map, but I do believe our sites and yurt were in the Pincer Bay campground. We had two tent sites next to each other, but with a good distance between the two (had to go on the r...

Hello, It has been almost a full year since I last posted. I sadly ended up doing what I was hoping not to do with this blog. Which was to not consistently post. There are no excuses. I've always been this way when it comes to blogs I have created in the past.  Since I don't really have a following, I do not feel like I am letting anyone down. Except myself. I was hoping this would also be a good way to keep track of the outings we do, the wonderful sights we see and just overall memories of outdoor adventures for myself and my family.  Now, don't go thinking that we have been sitting around not getting out there. We've still been busy! I must admit we did not get out as much in 2018 as I would have liked, but such is life. We will turn that around this year. I just bought new trail runners and I'm pretty excited to break them in.  We already have our big extended family camping trip booked for Charleston Provincial Park. If you have been there, please let u...

Hello fellow outdoorists! I hope you are all doing well and are able to get outside. We were up in Sudbury a few months ago. We did not end up on a trail but we did use our snowshoes on an unbeaten path that goes behind the house where we stay and other yards. We did not go for long as the children tired quickly in the deep snow, but it was still nice to get out. The weather was fantastic.  As you can see from the post name, today I will be doing a second instalment of Off the trail and introduce you (or remind you of) T he First 40 Miles . Today, I will be writing about a podcast I discovered a few months back. The hosts are Heather Legler and Josh Legler. They designed their logo themselves using one of Josh's photos and Heather overlaying her own graphics.  Right now, they have 182 episodes... I am not halfway done... haha I started from their first episode and I'm working my way to newer ones. I also only recently discovered that they have bloopers at the end of...

Hello, It has been a rather long time since I've posted. I have another post in the draft folder that I meant to tidy and publish a few months back, and sadly it has sat there forgotten.  I personally find it tough to post about hiking, camping, etc., when the weather outside is frightful, but I need to get over it. Life doesn't stop just because it's not the more pristine weather outside! I need to come up with posts that are related to these topics and that can be shared with my readers in those downtimes. I still have a love and passion for all these things even in less than desirable conditions, so my blog should continue to be updated! All that to say, the weather is getting nicer. I'm very excited about this. It feels like it took a really long time for us to get there this year, with a late snow storm in April and then ridiculous winds and such in this early May. We had a huge pine tree blocking one entrance of our townhouse complex driveway! We took adva...

Hello dear outdoor enthusiasts! I hope you are doing well. We have been dealing with colds and flus. And bad weather. We live in Southern Ontario and the weather has been rather up and down. We've had bouts of minus 30 degrees Celsius and then of almost plus 10! Weather, make up your mind. This makes it harder for us to go out and enjoy the outdoors. We do go for walks around the neighbourhood if the weather is stable enough and we are nicely bundled up. We even managed to go walk by the water at LaSalle Marina Park in Burlington and see all the swans that overwinter  there.  Other than walking/hiking, we have been able to break in our new snowshoes! My parents were beyond generous and gave us all snowshoes for Christmas. They live by a lake so we were able to try them out around their place, walking on the frozen lake and then through a park. It was great!  We don't get too many opportunities to go snowshoeing around our place though, mostly with this season's s...

Hello, It's been a while since I posted. We've had a pretty busy time lately and that's not me trying to make excuses, but some things have gotten away from me. So, on that note, I'm taking the time to write a short entry on an outing Ron, Zoé and I did almost a month ago. Ron had an appointment in Keswick on a Saturday and instead of missing out on family time, we decided to all drive up and hike somewhere nearby.  We came across the Holland Landing Conservation Area online and decided to give it a try.  We parked at Anchor Park and tried to find entry to one of the trails that apparently leads into the conservation area itself. We took a wrong turn and ended up near a road (Walnut Avenue) and since we had pulled the map up on Ron's phone, we figure it should be easy enough to go up a certain part and we would end up back on a trail. Well, we kind of did. For a while. It was nice and full of hills, so we put Zoé on my back and trekked on, hoping the trai...

Hello, I hope you are doing well. I've waiting too long to write out these posts so I feel like I'm missing a few pieces, but oh well. It is what it is. The last post ended with a very cold night and morning. But we survived and had plenty of food and layers to keep us warm.  We then got ready to go for another hike! We headed out for the High Pines Trail, a 1.7 km trail going through forest and wetlands. They classify it as moderate on their site. Again, we let Zoé walk for the first part, but after a while she kept falling and then we fell far behind the rest of the group. So, up on my back she went and we were able to observe all the lovely trees and rocks that were around us. We saw lots of acorns and plants. The trail itself wasn't too bad with some semi-hard climbs here and there.  After that, we had lunch and then even though it was chilly in the shade, we decided to go see the beach area, bringing our swim gear just in case it was warmer in the bright s...

Hello, This next trip will be broken down into two posts so that I can include more details and not make each post too long.  We went on a three night camping trip with my family at Bon Echo Provincial Park . In total we were 15 people (6 kids ranging from 2 to 7 years old and 9 adults) and we shared three sites (two for tents and one was a yurt ). We ended up putting up two tents on one site and moving the picnic table over to the middle site where we had one tent and two big shelters to cover the picnic tables.  We only built a fire at the middle camp ground and we kept the double burner stove there for cooking and cleaning dishes. We did have a BBQ at the yurt, so we made good use of it for bacon, sausages, burgers and grilled veggies.  We all arrived around 4:45 pm on the Wednesday and even though they weren't calling for it, it was lightly raining! So we all quickly set up our tents and shelters before the ground was too wet, and luckily the light rain did not...

Hello, My name is Rachel and I welcome you to my blog. It's 2017 and I'm a busy (who isn't) mother of two wonderful, crazy, active, etc. children. There's my (step)son, Brock, who loves to ask "why" and talk non-stop, typical 4-year old stuff. And there's my daughter, Zoé, who is super curious and daring, also typical 2-year old stuff. I also work full-time and once we pass September I will finally be married to my wonderful fiancé, Ron.  Although this blog will be about myself and my family, it will be mainly centered around our outings and our explorations of our wonderful Earth. By this I mean that we are a family that likes to go out and see what the wonderful conservation areas (and other natural areas) have to offer us (water, sun, plants, wildlife, etc.). Ron and I both strongly feel the need to show to our children how wonderful this planet can be and that we must do our best to conserve it and to get along with it. We want them to learn abou...