It’s true that one factor in the timing of our visit over here was the Evolve festival that Al has been raving about. The Festival is officially Friday/Saturday/Sunday but Al and his mates want to head to Antigonish today as there is a crowd of core festival goers who camp and party the night before in the car park. This morning we need to get ready for the trip and our main preparation is buying/creating costumes for the fancy dress night on Saturday.
First of all we hit Dollarama to get an idea of what props we can get as we have nothing to get us started as all the clothes we bought with us were rather "normal"! Here we manage to buy a good few options that we can turn into costumes; red balloons and green vine to be a tomato plant (the non-purple option of a bunch of grapes), a pirate set and sword, and a golf club! Next stop is Frenchies which is like a large rummage/charity store. Here we hit the jackpot and Scotty finds a tux jacket (with zip-off tails!?!) and a pair of stripy trousers and horrific tank top that turn him into a golfer. We head home, after stopping for food supplies for the weekend, satisfied with our purchases.
Back at the house we start packing the huge amount of gear into the back of Jan's Jeep and Al's friend Neal's truck. It's lucky that Neal is here as there is a tonne of stuff to get in - and we thought we'd taken a lot to Lassen!! Along with packing a chair each we've got practically a cooler each and now a stove with spare camping gas and a grill/barbecue, with spare camping gas. There are also a multitude of tarps that will go both under and over tents and be strapped up to create shelter from sun (we're hopeful!) and rain (we're realistic!).
Somehow everything fits and we even manage to strap a trolley onto the roof rack which will help with lugging all the gear from the parking area to the campsite which is up a large hill. It's late afternoon and we haven't had lunch so stop and grab a large sandwich before doing the bulk of the drive. When we get to the site things are in full swing with a number of tents already up. We get our largest tent up quickly with the understanding that the first people to go to bed get the best space and everyone else has to pile in!
Drinks start flowing freely and we meet more of Al's friends and the Evolve crowd. Everyone is so friendly and other festival goers come up to our tarp shelter (for it is raining quite heavily now) to see what's going on and to chat.
Scott disappears at one point for longer than any normal trip to a portaloo should take and I find him chatting to a guy in a viking helmet! It turns out that this is Steve Le Viking, and he's drinking mead!! He's a homebrewer and has turned his talents to brewing mead which he makes with maple syrup as a sweetener instead of more 'normal' sugars. He gives us a sip and it goes down dangerously smoothly and sweetly. He's bought his whole batch with him and is selling it over the weekend. This stuff is too good to keep to ourselves and so we buy a 2lt bottle of it and take it back to our camp. It soon replaces the Jagermeister that we have been passing round and everyone is enjoying it. Maybe a little too late we all comprehend what 20% proof really entails, especially when tasting this sweet and being so easy to drink. Another large bottle is bought to replace the first, but everyone is pretty far gone at this point.
Scotty and I duck out and head to bed around the same time as Jan does. By morning the 4-man tent contains not only us three, but also Al, Neal and his girlfriend Laura - it's been cosy!
First of all we hit Dollarama to get an idea of what props we can get as we have nothing to get us started as all the clothes we bought with us were rather "normal"! Here we manage to buy a good few options that we can turn into costumes; red balloons and green vine to be a tomato plant (the non-purple option of a bunch of grapes), a pirate set and sword, and a golf club! Next stop is Frenchies which is like a large rummage/charity store. Here we hit the jackpot and Scotty finds a tux jacket (with zip-off tails!?!) and a pair of stripy trousers and horrific tank top that turn him into a golfer. We head home, after stopping for food supplies for the weekend, satisfied with our purchases.
Back at the house we start packing the huge amount of gear into the back of Jan's Jeep and Al's friend Neal's truck. It's lucky that Neal is here as there is a tonne of stuff to get in - and we thought we'd taken a lot to Lassen!! Along with packing a chair each we've got practically a cooler each and now a stove with spare camping gas and a grill/barbecue, with spare camping gas. There are also a multitude of tarps that will go both under and over tents and be strapped up to create shelter from sun (we're hopeful!) and rain (we're realistic!).
Somehow everything fits and we even manage to strap a trolley onto the roof rack which will help with lugging all the gear from the parking area to the campsite which is up a large hill. It's late afternoon and we haven't had lunch so stop and grab a large sandwich before doing the bulk of the drive. When we get to the site things are in full swing with a number of tents already up. We get our largest tent up quickly with the understanding that the first people to go to bed get the best space and everyone else has to pile in!
Drinks start flowing freely and we meet more of Al's friends and the Evolve crowd. Everyone is so friendly and other festival goers come up to our tarp shelter (for it is raining quite heavily now) to see what's going on and to chat.
Scott disappears at one point for longer than any normal trip to a portaloo should take and I find him chatting to a guy in a viking helmet! It turns out that this is Steve Le Viking, and he's drinking mead!! He's a homebrewer and has turned his talents to brewing mead which he makes with maple syrup as a sweetener instead of more 'normal' sugars. He gives us a sip and it goes down dangerously smoothly and sweetly. He's bought his whole batch with him and is selling it over the weekend. This stuff is too good to keep to ourselves and so we buy a 2lt bottle of it and take it back to our camp. It soon replaces the Jagermeister that we have been passing round and everyone is enjoying it. Maybe a little too late we all comprehend what 20% proof really entails, especially when tasting this sweet and being so easy to drink. Another large bottle is bought to replace the first, but everyone is pretty far gone at this point.
Scotty and I duck out and head to bed around the same time as Jan does. By morning the 4-man tent contains not only us three, but also Al, Neal and his girlfriend Laura - it's been cosy!
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