Now this is more like it. August 18
I love vacations, always have but I don’t like travelling, in fact I don’t consider the vacation to have begun until we have arrived to our destination. As we will always be traveling when we go around the world this could be quite problematic as I tend to get a little stressed and unsociable. So today I decided to reframe how I look at traveling, rather than thinking of it as a drag I have decided to look at it as part of the whole vacation and to be in the moment more and to enjoy the journey.
This new mindset allowed for a relatively easy departure from Kellowna as we set forth to Manning Park determined to break our streak of camping bad luck.
I padded our departure time, thinking we could leave by 9.30am I suggested that we head out by 10am, giving myself lots of space to breathe and relax. It worked, we left at 10.15am and I had not been a stress nut, that being said I was bursting to leave. With a final once over of our guests house (yes, we did remember to take out the dirty diapers) we were on our way.
It took about 2.5 hours of easy driving to get to the campsite. We stopped off in Penticton at Fibonacci restaurant to eat some lunch. The food was OK but it was super cute to watch Helena read the Guinness Book of records with her Mom (and when I say read I actually mean pointing at funny looking pictures and giggling).
We stopped off at the fresh fruit and veg’ stands on the way and got some locally grown produce. It is so great to know where your food comes from, rather than being all polished on the supermarket shelf like a Mr.Universe Apple competition.
On the way we also had a great conversation about what our future looks like, where we want to live, what we want to do and what type of life we want for our little one. It was a really inspiring conversation.
And then we arrived at the campsite.We were initially impressed by the service from the warden, our site was great and we were near the bathrooms (but not too close to smell them 
… “now this is more like it” we thought.
We had a fancy camping meal of Russian red garlic, minced beef and yellow peppers, salad and taco shells. We went for a walk to the lake with Helena insisting on pushing the stroller. Lightening Lake is stunning, it was still, quite and very picturesque.
On the way back up we passed lots of people who had been to the amphitheater to listen to a presentation about owls. I was very impressed with this, as when I went camping as a kid all we got was a field full of cow pat and running water.
To top off the amazing day we played ‘Pass the Pig’. It is the most amazing game where you have two rubber mini pigs and you throw them like dice. Depending on how they land you earn points. All three of us played and Helena (the two year old) won the game. It’s true, there was no favoritism or anything, she really did kick my piggy behind. In fact, she scored 180 points, Claire got 160 points and I shamefully scored nothing. I was crowned prince porker and Helena Queen Piggy and we all went to bed in the barn (the tent).
