Welcome to A Crock of Schmidt. Here you will find campground reviews from all my camping adventures over the years. I also share cool attractions and destinations we’ve been to, great hikes we’ve done, and some insights on our hobbies. Once in awhile, I toss in some ramblings on whatever nonsense moves me at the moment. Thanks for coming by and I hope you find something that helps and/or entertains. If you do, kindly tell a friend about this place.
9 Strange Foods I Ate As A Kid
November 28, 2016
Considering the love affair we had with wood paneling and the preponderance of green, yellow, and brown kitchen appliances, it should come as no surprise that food was different back in the Seventies and Eighties. Everyone was still blissfully unaware of the damage processed foods were potentially doing to our bodies. People could still smoke
Dillberry Lake Provincial Park – review
November 21, 2016
Our visit to Dillberry Lake Provincial Park did not originate as a planned weekend camping trip. Realizing that our return home from Prince Albert National Park was a ten plus hour drive, we decided to break up the trip into two shorter five hour stints. Once that was decided, we further chose to include an
Beaver Glen Campground – Waskesiu Lake – Prince Albert National Park – review
November 7, 2016
They may not have heard of Grasslands National Park and they may have reflexively cringed at the utterance of Pike Lake Provincial Park but there’s not a Saskatchewanian who doesn’t know Waskesiu and they unabashedly love the place. Now that I too have visited this mythical vacationland in Prince Alberta National Park I fully understand,
Pike Lake Provincial Park – review
October 24, 2016
It’s never a good sign when your friends from the area respond to the revelation of where you’re camping with scrunched up faces and incredulous declarations that, “Nobody goes to Pike Lake!” That’s not a particularly ringing endorsement even if it was uttered at least partly in jest. This reaction weighed on my mind as
Frenchman Valley Campground – Grasslands National Park – review
October 10, 2016
It is odd, though so very true, that we are often ignorant of that which is nearest us. I grew up in a small tourist town in which the downtown is filled with small shops selling knickknacks and wares to busloads of tourists. A great many people from all over Ontario and even Canada have
Cypress Hills Provincial Park – review
September 26, 2016
Calgarians may look east to vent their political frustrations and mainstream media angst, but when it comes to recreation they inevitably gaze westward. Be it Alberta’s own Kananaskis Country and Rocky Mountain parks or further afield in the summer playgrounds of British Columbia like the Okanagan, Shuswap, and Invermere, it’s hard to blame them for
Crude Awakening
September 19, 2016
“It builds character.” These words of encouragement, long-favoured by well-intentioned relatives and friends, cycled endlessly in my mind as I sat behind my faux-wood desk in my soon-to-be-former cubicle on the west side of the fourteenth floor of Gulf Canada Square in suddenly not-so-opportunity-filled Calgary. I was numb. A few minutes prior, my phone had
Carsons Camp – review
September 12, 2016
The majority of my camping experiences since I moved West have revolved around Provincial or National Parks with only a smattering of private campgrounds tossed in for flavour. In many ways, this is reflective of Western Canada, with far more open space and far fewer people than my native Ontario. By no means have I
The Best Breakfast Cereals of All Time
August 30, 2016
A grotesque injustice has befallen the breakfast cereal industry and it’s been perpetrated by the very makers of this beloved morning staple all in a wholly ill-advised and utterly stupid attempt to cater to the nouveau health-conscious. I recently purchased a package of Alpha-bits, something I hadn’t done in quite some time. Alpha-bits is an
Miquelon Lake Provincial Park – review
August 15, 2016
Another summer weekend means another trip northward towards the provincial capital. This time we were camping southeast of the big city at Miquelon Lake Provincial Park. With four brand new, extra ply trailer tires adorning our trailer, we anxiously set out in hopes of finally making it to a campground without blowing any tires. I’m