Frog said, Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.

Another year has rolled by and it is July again. Time for camping! Time for the annual gathering of the Chicks In The Stix. New location this year though. Since Samuel De Champlain is shut down and we were too late to get into Driftwood, we had to make alternate arrangements. This year we were staying at Marten River Provincial Park. 

There are quite a few of us in this group so we booked two sites; number 59 and 60 in the Chicot section of the park. 

Site sixty is pretty big and spacious. However, the fire pit is in a terrible place. It is directly in front of the trail to the bathroom (which is up on top of a hill). You don't exactly want to be tripping over a fire pit when you wake up in the middle of the night and have to climb a hill in the dark to go pee. 

Like previous trips to Marten River, I chose the site because it was directly across the road from the beach. On a map it looks great.  However, unlike the other site I have chosen in years past, you can't actually see the beach from this site.  There is a wall of trees and you have to go down a short path to get there. Not the worst thing, just unexpected. 

The beach itself was large, clean, and pretty nice. 

Most of our time would be spent on site 59. Half of the girls had their sleeping tents here and this is where we would cook our meals and sit around the fire. 

The first night I made "Walking Tacos".  You brown some ground beef (or ground turkey if you prefer) and add a pouch of taco seasoning. Then you take a snack sized bag of Doritos and crush it up. You open the bag of chips and add some of the cooked taco meat to the bag. Then add whatever taco toppings you want (grated cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, etc) to the bag. Top it off with some sour cream and you are ready to eat.  Just grab a spoon and eat from the bag. Since it is in a bag you can walk around and carry it with you as you eat (hence the name "walking tacos").  Tastes so good!  And it is quick and easy.

One of our new favourite traditions now is to make a Candy Salad. Everyone brings a bag or two of their favourite candy and we dump it into a large Rubbermaid container and shake it all up. 

Then everyone grabs a ladle and scoops some of the candy into a bowl.  The container is pretty heavy with all that candy in it!  

This year we added a new tradition. It is similar to Candy Salad except it involves booze. It is called a Fuckit Bucket.  We were sent the following instructions:

Fuckit Bucket
**Ingredients:**
*(Feel free to customize — it’s chaos in a bucket!)*
* 2 cups vodka (any flavor you love)
* 1 cup coconut rum
* 1 cup peach schnapps
* 1 cup blue curaçao
* 1 can (12 oz) lemon-lime soda
* 1 can (12 oz) pineapple juice
* 1 cup fruit punch or orange juice
* Swedish Fish, gummy worms, or sour candies
* Orange and lime slices
* Maraschino cherries
* Ice (a lot!)
* Mini straws and crazy straws
* 1 clean plastic bucket (1-gallon beach pail works great!)
**Instructions:**
1. **Fill the Bucket:**
Load your bucket halfway with ice and toss in some candy and fruit slices.
2. **Pour It All In:**
Add all the liquors, juices, and soda. Stir gently to combine.
3. **Top It Off:**
Add more candy, fruit, and a handful of cherries. Stick in a bunch of fun straws.
4. **Go Wild:**
Serve immediately and *don’t ask questions*. It's meant to be sipped with friends and zero regrets.. 

Needless to say, we had a fun night sitting around the campfire with a whole lot of sugar and booze coursing through our veins. 

The next day we spent the morning relaxing and trying to identify the various birds that we saw around the camp. This Veery didn't mind having it's photo taken. 

Some of us played board games, and some of us went on a hike.  The hiking trails consist of three loops all attached to one another.  The largest loop is the best one. 

I have been on this trail before but sometimes notice things that you didn't notice before. The big burls on some of the pine trees are something that I never paid attention to before. But one of the other girls noticed them and pointed them out. 

There are some pretty big old growth trees on this trail. Not as big as some of the ones I have seen in British Columbia or some of the other parks. But still pretty big none the less.

It was a bit of an over cast day and not much sunshine, but it was good to just get out and enjoy nature with some friends. 

The best part of the trail is the farthest point where it opens up onto some marsh land. On the map it is labeled as a "look out", although it is not really what most would consider to be the traditional lookout with the high up spot over looking the landscape below. 

We sat on a rock and just soaked up the serenity and beauty of the place.  It was not long after, that three  of girls came to the spot we were at. We could hear one of them say. "This is it? This is the lookout? It's just ugly sewer water. "  Then they quickly kept going down the trail. 

We were surprised by the negative attitude from them.  All around us were beautiful white water lilies, dragonflies, birds and a rolling marsh landscape.  They hadn't even barely stopped to look. They were immediately dismissive of the place. It was sad and I felt sorry that they couldn't see the beauty here. 

When you sit and really look, there is so much to see. Like the frog, hiding in the reeds. 

When we got back to camp we found the girls trying to identify another bird. This time it was a woodpecker. This one had been hanging out around our site quite a bit. They were trying to figure out if it was a Downy Woodpecker or a Hairy Woodpecker. The are both extremely similar in looks. I think when all was said and done, they concluded that it was a Downy Woodpecker. 

We never did get much sunshine all day. But that didn't stop some of the girls from going swimming in the evening just the same. 

But the rain clods were coming in so they didn't go swimming for long. 

We only had one dining tent to keep about 12 of us out of the rain. We came up with the idea of bringing it closer to the fire and draping an extra tarp over one of the cars and stringing it to the dining tent. This worked out quite well and we were able to have everyone sheltered from the rain. 

At about 9 pm the rain stopped and some of us went up to the bathroom while we had a chance before it started raining again.  While we were up there, one of the girls was telling us how she saw on TikTok how to make your shadow into a frog by pulling your shirt up over your head. Intrigued by this, we decided to give it a try.  It wasn't the best rendition of a frog, but it certainly had some resemblance to one.  All of a sudden she yelled  "I'm a F*cking Frog!"  The rest of us just burst out laughing at that. 

When we got back to the campsite we found out that while we were gone, the rangers had come by to say there were complaints that they had been laughing too loud.  We found this a bit odd considering we couldn't hear them laughing from the bathroom and we were probably noisier up there than they had been down here.  But we realize that sound can carry so we tried to be quieter after that. 

The next day, one of the other girls tried the frog thing in the sunlight and it looked so much better. It was definitely more frog like. 

We are always trying new things on our girls weekend camping trips. This time someone decided to try cooking Pilsbury cinnamon rolls over the fire for breakfast. I don't think they cooked all the way through. Probably won't try that one again next year. Unless of course we can find a way to improve upon it. 

After breakfast we started to pack up. Some of us had a long drive home. On site 60, we had pulled a car over from the additional parking area to load our stuff up so that we didn't have to carry it what would have been a pretty long distance. While we were packing up, one of the rangers came by and stopped at our site. He got out of his truck with sun glasses on looking like a cop from an 80's movie. He says to us "you are only allowed to have one vehicle per site". We explained that we were just packing up.  Then he says "this car is not registered to be in this park". The girl that owned it had to go to her front dash and take the registration paper from the front window and show it to him before he was satisfied. Why he couldn't go to the front dash and look for it himself, I don't know.  He was clearly trying to be harassing and difficult. 

Next he went over to site 59 where they were cooking the cinnamon buns over the fire. He says to them " You better make sure that fire is completely out when you are done".  We were baffled by this. It was only 8 in the morning and we had until 2pm before we had to leave. That left hours for the fire to be put out.  We have never been given such a hard time by staff at a park before. There was no reason for it. For some reason he seemed to have taken a disliking to us and was targeting us. Or maybe he acts this way with all the campers.  Regardless, we were less than impressed. 

But we didn't let it deter us from enjoying a few more hours around the fire, before we were finally ready to say our good byes to each other.  It will deter us from coming back here again next year though. 

By early afternoon everyone was all packed up and ready to head home. It will be another whole year before we all get together to do this again.  Most of the girls left, but a couple of us didn't want it to end just yet so we decided to go see the logging museum located in the park at the Day Use area. 

The last time I had visited this logging museum the buildings were closed. Today they were open and you could go inside to really see things. One of the buildings had a staff member there to answer questions and tell you the history of things. 

There were paths that led from the various out-buildings and down to the lake.  The lake was calm and clear and had different purple flowers growing in and around it. There were some Lesser Purple Fringed Orchids.

And there were plenty of Pickerelweed.

But I didn't recognize this plant that was mostly green with just a few red leaves in one spot.

We saw a pretty carpet moth on the wall of one of the buildings. 

Another wonderful weekend with the girls had come and gone. It went by too quick and it feels like forever before we will get together again next year. As Frog said in the Frog and Toad story books "Friends are the family we choose for ourselves".  This little family is looking forward to our next adventures together.