While Art and Gordie were on their weekend off, we went out to Gregoire Lake Provincial Park for a few hours to hang out at the beach. There's a sign on the way in that reads "Don't Feed the Bears". I'm fairly certain it's for the daft and the city dwellers. I looked at Art, he and anyone who knows me well, is aware of my bear phobia. He'd never try to make me feel better about it though, he proceeds to tell me they see the odd bear out here on their way to work in the mornings. Great, I left my bear bell at home. Unfortunately the bear bell was not on my list of things to pack for our summer away from home. The warning would stay in the back of my mind everytime I visited the park.

This first visit proved to be the worst. The kids wouldn't get in the water, neither did any of us as the water was too cold. Then there was a group of drunken and getting drunk idiots who were loud and obnoxious. The bugs were out too. They call them deer flies, like a horse fly only bigger. I don't know why they call them deer flies, horses are bigger than deer but maybe it makes them seem more vicious as horses are domestic and not wild like deer. Regardless, they are big, vicious and relentless. On another trip out to the lake Hannah got bit. She was screaming for me to get it as she doesn't like to kill bugs, I think she may have gotten that from me. But that was before mosquitos could kill you and before flies the size of bumble bees were taking chunks out of my children. And then there was the unfortunate smell coming from the toilet. The air was quite still and we were apparently too close to the latrine. After a quick trip in and out of there, I got Gordie to stand outside of the men's while I used it. I was hoping I wouldn't have to take Hannah in there because I knew she would pee her pants before she'd use either one.

The kids and I were going to hang out there for about 1/2 hour while Art drove Gordie back to camp but the sky darkened quickly and between the bears and the warnings of not being caught outside in a lightning storm in Alberta, not to mention the hailstones during the last storm we had, I decided Gordie should spend another night with us. The only place for shelter was the toilet and that was not an option.

I've been back twice since then and we had a fantastic time. We met our good friend, Joyce, there two days in a row and had fun playing in the water and sand with the kids. It was very hot but there are some beautiful shade trees so you don't have to sit in the sweltering sun. Both times there has been a nice breeze too which seemed to keep the bugs at bay. I'm quite sure we will be spending a fair amount of time there this summer.