Boiling Lakes of Lava and World Domination

Camping this weekend with the family, I discovered a few things.

I discovered that it is possible to camp with a three-month-old, without tons of baby gear.

I discovered that the camping hygiene standards (rinse with cold water and dry with hand sanitizer) were vastly lower than my comfort levels.

I discovered all that kids really needed to have a good time was a tree stump, a couple of sticks and their imagination.

Alouette Lake is situated in the middle of Golden Ears Park. Once you pass the two-dimensional Billy Goat at the Trail head, cell phones cease to work, and you enter a virtual tech-blackout-zone. It is sheer bliss. As you meander around the campsites, you see whole families talking to each other, and Moms and Dads actively engaging in their childrens' play, with little to no distraction.

And the playground is where I discovered the boiling lakes of lava and world domination.

There were a group of children playing. Not in front of their computers, gameboys or hand-held devices, but actually playing. One was in an Iron Man costume, one in Spiderman, and two others were using sticks as swords. They were climbing all over the jungle-gym unravelling elaborate plots to take over the planet, (insert boiling lakes of lava here), and taking over the world.(insert world domination here) It felt good to watch, and remarking to one parent, know that they were still capable of pulling plot lines out of their grey matter rather than their hard drives.

I think I am going to make this an annual thing.