"Flowerpots? That Sounds Boring."
We woke up bight and early, for a young family on vacation anyway, and began exploring. Fundy has LOTS of great interpretive programming for the whole family and swiftky sketched out our desired programs. After a quick clean up and dressing, always fun with two under 5, we headed out for our day.
Our first stop was the town of Alma, a two-minute drive down to the ocean - we needed ice and reinforcements. Alma is small but full of maritime charm. Lobster is everywhere, from the local fishing fleet to the plentiful 'lobster shacks' lining the one street through town.
Gord has become quite the retail junky, and we were lucky to get out of Alma with little more than a glow stick for him. Every store begins with "what do you think they have that I might like?" Well break him of it eventually, now we simply redirect.
After refilling the cooler and dragging G away from the shelves we headed for the first of two playgrounds at Fundy's Chignetco Campground. This one had a dispcidedly natural feel, and its uniqueness was both fun for Gord and a little unsettling. His imagination was unhampered though as we were soon blaring off on our flying saucers and crash landing on Mars. Mom and Hannah has a more subdued time on more conventional swings.
Next it was time for an afternoon interpretive program - the nature scavenger hunt. We arrived at the trail head and quickly got the gist. It was exactly what we expected - we were given a list, a rubber glove and a garbage bag. The list was broken down into three categories: things to find, document (we were instructed to bring phones/cameras ahead of time) and retrieve - that's where the glove and garbage bag came in. You earned a point for every item found/documented, and a point for every piece of garbage retrieved - clever ones these parkees.
A group of pre teens in front of us were the perfect demographic for this - exhilarated by the competition aspect and appreciative of the independence. Our team (team BDC -Berry-Davies Camping), however, has greater feedback/praise/guidance needs, and we quickly flagged. I could see this coming a mile away, and know that I get impatient with my lovely son when he starts complaining about being "soooo booooored" so I had previously elected to wear Hannah around, leaving the more patient/enthusiastic mom to get him through. After 45 minutes were up (you got one hour to complete as much as you can) we were thorouly finished. Kudos to T for lasting that long and cheering us on. We earned 38 points and left our cell # and site # "in case we won anything" and headed off.
We stopped at the gift shop en route and were surprised with a lack of classy attire. T had hopedthe to find a smart hunter green hoodie with a discreet Parks Canada beaver symbol on the chest, but all they had were bright and garish "I got Moosed at Fundy" or some other sch silliness. Great for ten year olds, not sophisticated city girls. We headed back for dinner and a camp fire.
Campfires have evolved as we've traveled. We started wanting s'mores and scary stories, but learned that he doesn't like marshmallows or graham crackers and found the true scary stories (I picked up the boys scouts book of campfire stories) too long (and they scared Theresa, legitimately) so we kept searching, finally discovering a new favourite for G around the campfire. Jiffy-pop and Dr. Roach's Monstrous Stories - tonight it was The Night of the Zombie Goldfish. They're spooky and silly and full of ghoulish pictures - we've bought the set and read 3 or 4 chapters each night while he's lit by fire light and munching on popcorn. He's in heaven and thinks he's a big kid. By 9:45 it's dark enough to light glow bracelets and head to bed, all parties satisfied. Tomorrow would be our last full day in Fundy and we had an ocean hike planned for 9:00. Sleep came quick sweet.
It looks like all are having a great adventure! Thanks for sharing ❤️
ReplyDelete