Lately, I’ve been falling behind on our adventure write-ups. I am midway through our Family Day Weekend at Allegany trip report, and I haven’t even started writing about our hike at Terra Cotta Conservation Area from two weeks ago. But it’s a good problem to have. Better to have too many nature adventures than not enough. Although it never feels like too many. I don’t think having too much nature time is even possible.

Because our younger son was performing at the Youth Dance Festival on Saturday, we had to cancel or rather scale down our weekend microadventure. Instead of going on an all-day hike somewhere close to the city, we spent two hours in the nearby West Deane Park along the Mimico Creek.

It was a glorious, spring-like day. With +15 temperatures, it was a drastic difference from the previous weekend weather.

Any traces of snow were gone (not that there was much snow in Toronto), replaced by thick, slippery mud. We had quite a few near falls as we followed our younger son off the paved trail in his search for geocaches. By the way, we found four, not bad for such a short period of time. We also found someone’s hidden stash of pot, a different kind of treasure hunt.

On our way to the park, we had a discussion with our older son about city parks and whether it was real nature. According to him, it wasn’t wild or dangerous enough so it didn’t fit the definition of “nature.” But we both agreed that places like this are necessary and we could do with more of them. And then we found this information panel describing wildlife in the park and explaining the importance of nature corridors, like West Deane Park. We, humans, take up a lot of space squeezing out other forms of life, leaving them with nothing but corridors to move around. What we forget is that we need those nature spaces as much as they do because we are all wildlife.

On Sunday, we spent the day at the Outdoor Adventure Show. I felt I landed in paradise when I walked into the huge hall filled with tents, canoes and backpacks. You know how some people get excited about shoes or clothes or electronic devices. Well, for me it’s camping gear. I was practically salivating at shiny new canoes but we can’t afford one right now, plus don’t have space to store it.

We did get a food barrel and a hydro pack plus a map of Killarney from Jeff’sMaps. So we are all set for our summer canoe trip.

Our son had a great time climbing and paddling.

So all in all a great weekend. Now off to deal with the aftermath of our Saturday walk – scraping mud off our hiking shoes.