It has been like nine days since we came back from an incredible weekend up in Blue Mountain.
During these nine days I’ve managed to get horribly sick and also wake up daily wondering why there’s no smell of bacon nor delicious porridge awaiting me. It’s pretty shit to be quite honest. How did I have such an awesome weekend that was filled with food, liquor, more food, naps and dancing but now I’m such a shell of a human being again? Why are we still not up at Blue Mountain? *takes long deep breath*
This all started all the way back in December 2018. Because I have absolutely nothing to do during my overnight shifts, I was perusing AirBnB and imagining where and what I could do for some long weekends for 2019. Due to my MASSIVE European trip coming up in August I knew I wanted to still get away, but I didn’t need to take a flight to go do all that. It was a good time to think about maybe a peaceful cottage weekend, the real Ontarian-type of long weekend you know?
Me: Yes, I want to go to a cottage for long weekend – Oh look, I love this cottage – This cottage fits lots of people – Let me go ask people!!!
By the following afternoon I had messaged nine of my favourite women to go to this cottage with me for Victoria Day Long Weekend 2019. Within a matter of hours, like seven of the nine women had already even sent me their full payments. HOURS. As someone who is staunchly against big group trips, this sure was working out pretty fucking awesome.
We were all booked up and 2018 wasn’t even done yet. Perfect.
Now let’s talk about the specs of the cottage. Look at this beauty (click here). The location was perfect, the host was super nice and there was no way you could beat this price, especially for a long weekend. For ten of us it would be $172.00 per person (so $1720.00 total, hard math) for THREE NIGHTS. I’m not even sure if we could get hotel rooms for that much for one night during a long weekend, nonetheless a whole ass cottage for three nights.
Five bedrooms. Massive living room(s). Big kitchen. Dining area. I counted nine beds. Two bathrooms (that was really entertaining with ten women). A sauna. Fire pit in the backyard. Beautiful balcony. A BBQ. Lot’s of firewood.
Here are some pictures of the cottage for your enjoyment:
The five months or so finally passes by and it was time for us to go. Now these are the people I had on the trip with me:
Jummy – my best friend, calm levelheaded human being
Sherry – my other best friend, a perennial hoodman
Lorren – my other best friend, imagine like a holistic hoodman
Shurly – this is foodbae
Kyra – nice human being
Deja – imagine every video vixen ever
Alicia – my fellow Saggi
Nikkie – a reformed hoodman, turned mom
Camille – a reformed party animal, turned mom
How could anything go badly with this lineup right? Nothing did. Literally, not a fucking thing.
I’m not sure if there could have been a more amicable group of human beings for a trip. From deciding on who is bringing what, to communication, cleanup and just overall cohesion? It was really amazing.
Poor Sherry had attempted to make a Wunderlist so we could all fill in what each person would bring on the trip and it ended up failing miserably because apparently ALL of us go to grocery stores and purchase too much stuff anyways. You hear stories about people NOT contributing to trips (via liquor, food, supplies etc) – yeaaaaaah we were the polar opposite of that. To put it in perspective, myself, Lorren and Jummy barely fit in a car with ALL the food supplies and liquor we were bringing on the damn trip, and that was just 3/10 people.
The first image below was MY portion of what I packed for the trip. The second is our fridge upon arrival. And the fourth one, well, you can figure that out. PARTY TIME.
The rest of the weekend is kind of a blur. I’d give you a full play-by-play but then I’d have to give away too many secrets you know?
Friday we arrived. We unpacked. Drank and ate. Went to sleep.
Saturday we woke up, there was bacon and delicious porridge to be had. We relaxed. Myself and Shurly took a walk to go exploring the nearby highway and waterfront while avoiding being hit by cyclists. Decided to have a BBQ that consisted of every animal known to man being consumed. More drinking. Went up to Blue Mountain Resort to watch some fireworks. Froze sitting outside. Came back to watch an Adam Sandler movie.
Sunday we woke up, yes, more bacon and porridge. Lazy day eating, napping and drinking. There was a lot of dancing and some games played like: ‘these cards will get you drunk’ and ‘truth or dare.’ At some point I believe we did try to get a bonfire going in the backyard but the rain had other plans.
Monday we woke up, OH LOOK, more bacon and porridge deliciousness. Then we all left to drive back to Toronto for a boat ride at 1pm.
At one point in time we were eating cevapi (shout out to my mom), burgers, oxtail (shout out to Deja’s dad) and joloff rice (shout out to Jummy). We literally brought the United Nations out to cottage country via food. Major shout out to Sherry’s porridge in the morning as well, it has been nine days and you still haven’t sent the recipe to the group chat. Rude.
I’m very grateful for the weekend that we had because it was a very easy experience. That’s what group trips SHOULD be you know? Easy. Traveling to Blue Mountain with these nine women was seamless and it has set a high standard for how group trip planning will go in the future, and how I expect to be treated by people when it comes to food and liquor consumption 🙂
Let’s do this again for 2020, hopefully.
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Mirna