On Monday morning, I packed up my camping gear, leaving enough room in my little Honda Fit for Bonnie to come along, and headed to MacGregor Point Provincial Park, near Port Elgin for a couple days of R&R.

There is a look-out a short walk from my campsite where you can see a Pitcher Plant Marl – a wetland hosting the only species of Pitcher Plant in Canada. Pitcher Plants are carnivorous. From Wikipedia: Pitcher plants are several different carnivorous plants that have modified leaves known as pitfall traps—a prey-trapping mechanism featuring a deep cavity filled with digestive liquid. The traps of what are considered to be “true” pitcher plants are formed by specialized leaves.

Aside from the opportunity to see carnivorous plants, this is a really beautiful spot, especially as the sun goes down.

A ten minute walk from camp took us to the dog beach. This is a beautiful beach, sand with a few spits of boulders which kind of divide the beach into sections. Bonnie loved the dog beach.

MacGregor Point is a beautiful park, with a beach for humans as well as a dog beach on each side of the park. There are plenty of trails in the park. The campsites are pretty big, fairly private and quite lovely. The washroom closest to the campsite was a vault toilet with a sink. It was about the cleanest campground bathroom I’ve ever seen. They do a great job of maintenance at this park.

MacGregor Point Park is about a 3 hour drive from Toronto, mostly through farm country. I drove there on the Monday of our Victoria Day weekend and the only traffic was going the other way. I had a few neighbours on Monday night but on Tuesday night there were a lot fewer campers around.

I was not sure how Bonnie would react to camping. She came to us with many fears, and I’ve been trying to expose her to lots of different environments to help her through them. She has been doing very well that way. At the campsite she seemed a bit nervous around camp, where at the dog beach she was very relaxed and obviously happy. It turned out Bonnie liked the tent. She was happy to get in there with me and she quickly claimed part of my air mattress and snuggled up beside me.

This morning, I awoke at dawn. There was a very strong wind, a wind which was particularly loud. Rain had been called for but it had not happened yet. I had planned to stay for the morning, but decided that if I hurried to break down my tent and pack up the car, I had a decent chance of accomplishing that before the rain started. There was some drizzle as we left the park. I don’t know if the storm I felt coming on actually happened but since I dislike packing away soggy equipment, I was happy to leave a bit early.