Glamping with the Giesens

We’re back from what was an awesome first weekend of the season at one of our favourite sites, Mt. Kidd in Kananaskis. While it was cooler there than in Calgary (it is the Rocky Mountains after all, and there’s lots of trees and shade), the weather was awesome and we had an amazing time. Arriving at our campsite in record time by 6:30 PM (we still had a LONG evening ahead of us), Dave backed into our site, with me navigating on the phone, the very first time. Not even one forward correction needed. We high-fived and complimented each other on not losing our touch over the winter. Then Dave built a fire. In three minutes he had a roaring blaze. Again, we felt pretty good about ourselves and I already had the words for this blog post forming in my heads. Feeling pretty good about ourselves, we ate dinner by the fire and enjoyed the flames for a few hours before the cold inspired us to go inside. That’s when things started to go sideways. :P Here's just a few of the mishaps we laughed...

S pring is here and a brand new glamping season officially starts – today! Yep, you read that right. The Giesens are going glamping in APRIL – I never would have thought it was possible to go this early. Calgary has had a very warm winter and very little snow, so over a month ago, we took a chance and booked the April 1 weekend, thinking we’d cancel it last minute if the weather ended up being bad. Our gamble paid off – temps will reach 20+ degrees this weekend! Some summers the weather doesn’t even get that nice! :P And while we have seen weather like this in April in previous years, we NEVER considered going out in the trailer. Does that mean we are getting braver? More comfortable driving a massive condo-on-wheels behind us? Loving glamping more? Perhaps it means all of it. Needless to say, we four are very excited. We’ve been talking about it non-stop for the last few days and we’re almost ready to go, even though it’s only Wednesday. The thought actually came to us when we f...

This past weekend was a complete 180 from our last. If we camped OFF the grid at Barrier Mountain Outfitters, we were definitely glamping ON the grid at Canyon RV in Radium Hot Springs, BC. From our beautiful, grassy site to Wi-Fi, to clean washrooms and free showers with hot, running water, this was definitely our kind of glamping. We five (including Kira’s BFF Jaylene), had the best time. The kids cried a little when it was over and Dave said he wished we could have stayed a whole week. I was truly relaxed as I read magazines in our hammock. The weather was perfect – sunny and hot all three days we were there. We went to the Fairmont Hot Springs in nearby Fairmont and soaked in the naturally hot water. We went shopping in Invermere. We ate dinner at our favourite place out there, the Black Forest Inn, and even got dressed up for it! Yes – dresses and makeup for the ladies and showers for all. Of course, we went geocaching and hiked up to the Sinclair Creek waterfall. We ran out of ti...

We had barely even pulled our trailer into our site at Barrier Mountain Outfitters when Dave joked that I already had a blog post. I had to laugh, because indeed I had been writing it in my head the entire time we’d been driving and trying to park the trailer. It was a weekend to remember. Our first completely off the grid and our first so filled with adventure and first-time experiences. A friend of mine from work, Terri, has a permanent site at Barrier Mountain that she wasn’t using for a few weeks. She offered it to me and no sooner had she mentioned white water rafting and horseback riding, I was on the phone with Dave making changes to our schedule. Terri told me that it takes her and her husband Axel 1.5 hrs to drive there from SW Calgary. I thought, no prob, we’ll be there in an hour. We left on Friday and three hrs later, we pulled into the campsite. Yes, three hours. Along windy, narrow, gravel roads, driving west, into the setting sun. Because of the glare and the dust th...

This weekend we went camping with friends. Heather is an old friend we met at church 18 years ago in Toronto. She moved away 16 years ago and we hadn’t seen her since. Thanks to Facebook, we reconnected a few years ago. In that 16 years apart, our lives had grown very similar – married with kids (she has three), with the last two (boys) being the very close in age to mine. We are both also avid glampers. Way back in early May, we decided to plan a glamping weekend together – in Lacombe, halfway between Calgary and Edmonton where she lives with her family. Max was really looking forward to finally glamping with boys! It seems we always go with families with girls. Or take one with us – this weekend we also took one of Kira’s best friends. The weekend was tons of fun and a success in our books. Max declared it “the best camping weekend” he’s ever had. Kira keeps saying that she really enjoyed herself. Heather’s youngest told her that he wants to go out with us again. There were no i...

No shoes in the trailer. We learned this during our first trip with the Schobers. Your trailer is such a small space - when it gets dirty, it gets dirty fast. We take our shoes off outside the trailer - they're not even allowed on the stairs. Then we bring them in and hang them up on coat hooks on a low wall. This helps keep the trailer grass, dirt and pebble free, and really helps with cleanup when we get back home and have to put the trailer away. Save your toilet/paper towel rolls and your dryer lint. Stuff the rolls with the lint and you have a great fire starter. We have a huge box of rolls and containers of lint in the outdoor storage. An added bonus is, you have a stash to access whenever your kids need them for school art projects. Purchase a separate set of everything for your trailer: kitchen stuff, likes plates, cups, mugs, utensils, cutlery and even appliances; toiletries, like hairbrushes and toothbrushes and all your soaps and shampoos; and tools. Pack older, not...