Silver Birches, Ipperwash (June 30, 2007)

Silver Birches Family Campground is a privately owned campground near Ipperwash Ontario. It is beautifully set in a Carolinian forest that extends up towards Ipperwash Beach. We could tell on arrival that there was something different about this campground, which I think can best be described as a comfortable "homey" feeling. The air under the forest canopy was gentle and warm, which was particularly nice at night. And the other campers were very nice and friendly.

We booked over the phone without having seen the sites, and there were a couple of surprises once we showed up. Our site was located at a four-way intersection in the middle of the campground, which at first was a concern, but did not turn out to be as noisy or busy as we first expected. Parking the trailer was a bigger issue, as I had to back the Airstream in between two trees that left about a foot clearance on either side. A lot of real slow maneuvering, and setting cues to help with distance estimation, and I managed to get it properly situated. A couple of minutes to get the power, water and sewer hooked up and we were in business.

One issue with camping in forests, as we learned earlier this year, is that it is not uncommon for the campfire smoke from all the fires to collect closer to ground level, which can make for a very smoky environment later in the evening. Fortunately for us, there were some strong winds over the weekend that blew a lot of the smoke away.

We took a short drive on the first day and went to the cottages that the rest of the family were renting for the weekend, right on Ipperwash beach. Andrea and Richard rented a one bedroom cottage



The kids immediately jumped out of the truck and ran for the beach with their cousins. It was partly cloudy, with strong winds and low 30s C temperature, perfect for the beach. We all set up some umbrellas and chairs and played with the kids in the surf.



The kids had a great time building sand castles on the perfect sand of Ipperwash beach. The water was a little cold for me, but the kids thought it was the best beach ever. Amy went out with the boys and they all frolicked in the surf for a while. It was perfect weather too, partly cloudy with moderate winds and waves.

Erin, Scott, Jacob and Melissa drove up from London and joined us on the beach for dinner and a rather large fire. The wind was quite strong, and the kids busied themselves with the sand castles as the adults watched the sunset.



The next day we took a drive up to Grand Bend and had lunch along with a tour of the beach. It was very busy, but we managed to find parking in the lot near Ken and Helen's cottage. We had lunch at Coco's, and walked the strip and the beach. It got quite windy, so we returned back to our site.



After we returned, we were joined by Ken and Francine, who also had a nice visit with Fred and Dale at the cottage. We then went over to our campsite, where we hosted a steak BBQ for everyone, and played charades. The kids call the game "Guess What I Am", which I suppose is the whole point.



The kids had a chance to play at the campground play area, which is quite large and in good shape. Pipi Ken gave Patrick a ride on the swings.

This was one of our favourite trips this year, and also one of the nicest campgrounds we stayed at.

Bronte Creek (April 19, 2007)

Bronte Creek Provincial Park is run by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, and is located in Oakville. Visit the friends of Bronte Creek website here We were on Prarie Campground site 134.

Finally, our first trip in the new trailer. It was cold, darned cold!

We have had the trailer home for quite a while, and had worked on it a few times in order to figure out what we could fix, and what would need to be repaired at the shop. Now it was time to take it out on the road and figure out how this thing works! So, I packed the boys up for an overnight trip, and left everyone else at home. This basically means that I hitched 'er up, gathered some warm clothing, and tossed some food into a cooler. At this point, we are not really sure if the fridge is working properly, as it has not been hot enough outside to notice a difference.



Here is a shot of what the campground looked like on first arrival. Take a look at the beautiful photo at the top of this article for an interesting comparison. It was end of day, in the dreary days of April. I towed the Airstream very slowly down Hwy 5 to Bronte, watching how fast I was accelerating and braking, trying to be as gentle as possible. I pulled up to the front gate of the Provincial Park, only to see that the gate is up, and they are now following the honour system, ie. they are trusting us to pay and park properly. I am guessing because the one park staff had something else to do around 6pm.

So, I drove around and around the various circular driveways until we found our site. Which didn't matter much, as none of the trees had leaves, so there wasn't much to obscure us from the other sites any ways! I let the boys out, and they went foraging.




As you can see, they seem to enjoy bringing back firewood. And it keeps them busy!

Anyways, backed the Airstream up between 2 trees that left about 2 feet of clearance on either side, into a relatively flat location, put on the blocks, dropped the jacks, and ran inside to figure out how to heat the place up a bit. I found it a lot easier to do once I had the power connected and the lights on. The kids seemed to enjoy that more as well.




Anyways, the wind picked up, it got really cold, we tried for about 5 minutes to start a fire, and then we all settled into some pajamas and food cooked on the stove in the kitchen. Which was a lot of fun.




After supper, we all agreed to have a dance party. So, we turned on our new recently outfitted radio, and danced the rest of the evening away. I was a little crowded, but there were no major injuries.

The facilities at Bronte Creek were first rate - extremely modern and well-kept washrooms and showers, as well as excellent laundry.

The next morning the kids went over and explored the kids playground.



Quite a lot of fun!

We finally packed up in the early morning and towed everything back home. We all learned a lot about the trailer and trailer camping, and had a new list of things to do. And the kids really enjoyed it.

You meet the nicest people with an Airstream...

Believe it or not, some of these girls are camping in an Airstream at the annual Burning Man event in the US Southwest. No, not all Airstream campers look like this. At least we are not all retired couples.

This picture comes from "williamhenshall", who is a forum member at the Airstream Trailer Knowledge Sharing Forums.