Riding Mountain National Park

Manitoba second round

From Edmonton, we head further east. Today was the longest travel day of the trip. We were in the car for 12 hours to reach Riding Mountain National Park.  Luckily the kids were fantastic, colouring, some tablet time and overall just arbitrary kid silliness was enough to keep them going.  Ok perhaps a stop at DQ helped smooth things over!…

Riding Mountain National Park

We arrive at Riding Mountain National Park and find it’s a destination unto itself. The little community of Clear Lake is within the boundaries of the park and is like a resort area. There are restaurants, shops, bike/canoe/pontoon boat rentals, ice cream parlors (Lakehouse ice cream!)… bakeries, coffee shops… you name it, you can find it. The only thing they were lacking is beach space. While there was a lovely little beach.. that’s just it.. it was little. In chatting with some locals we met on the beach, the beach area has never seen the crowds like they did this year. With the Canada 150 free national parks access, attendance was up in droves and so Clear Lake has never been busier.

We spend the afternoon at the beach, lazing around in the water, playground and sand….. A perfect way to re-energize after a long travel day….

We head back to the campground for dinner and then a quick bike ride back to clear lake to catch the sunset!

Camping Life

Some people have asked what our life was like during the travels. We usually had selected a site that wasn’t too far from the bathrooms. At riding mountain we actually were next to an enclosed kitchen pavillion, but didn’t make use of it.  Our setup was fairly standard. We pretty much had everything in the camper minus the food which was all stored in the car.  Food prep was kept simple and if possible over the fire if allowed or if electricity was available our trusty induction burner helped.

Onto our next destination … Winnipeg.