I was reminded this weekend of a very important fact: not all great adventure need to be one thousand miles from your home. Not all time in the great outdoors needs to be found at the end of a plane ride, a mountain pass, or a glacial peak. Sometimes there are great times to be had right outside your doorstep, in places you've walked thousands of times before.
I returned to my parents' home this weekend to spend some time with friends and family, with no particular plan as to how we would spend that time. A bonfire at one friend's house led to making some new friends; friends that I would end up kayaking with the very next day. It's been awhile since I navigated the mighty Bear Creek, and it was a really pleasure to jump behind the wheel of a kayak and race through that raging torrent. (For those of you not familiar with the Bear Creek, it is a delightfully wide, calm stretch of water that makes for some very relaxing kayaking.) Despite being the middle of November the weather was so nice that I found myself paddling in a T-shirt, with no need of a jacket. When the weather starts to get foul and we start getting our first taste of winter warm sunny days such as that are an unbelievable treat.
Not content with having a bit of fresh air and sunshine on Saturday another group of us went for a mountain bike ride on Sunday. Petrolia actually offers up a wealth of backwoods trails for biking on. Nothing of the caliber to find in mountainous regions such as B.C. or Tennessee, but fun for a novice all the same. The ride ended up turning into an exploratory run as we started attempting to find little-accessed trails in deeper stretches of the woods. It's been a long time since I've found myself pounding through the bush on the back of a bicycle and I found the entire experience quite refreshing.
So, a normal, non-holiday weekend. Not doing anything exciting. Just going home to visit the folks. And yet, somehow I manage to spend the better part of a November weekend on the water or in the woods. Active, adventuring, and smiling the whole time. I've kayaked that creek dozens of times, and walked those trails more times than I'd care to count, yet it's all new and refreshing every time. So I'll finish today with Travel Tip #327: Never forget about those great adventure destinations that you have in your own backyard.
2 comments:
Very good point. I lived in Ottawa for 9 months not once did I visit a museum, I returned a couple years later for a week end visit, I went to the museum of civilization and had a great time. I think knowing it's right there you take it for granted.
Agreed. I've lived here on Vanc. Is. and am sad to say that I've probably not seen even half of it. Your parents has been further north on the island than I have!
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