Nature vs. Niantic

Last weekend, we took off early, met up with a few friends, and went on our first camping trip of the season. I had hoped to make a small bracelet to wear in the week before I left, focusing on a few of the things that I love about camping – the campfires and night sky – but ran out of time when I was prepping for the trip. I didn’t even take Ohm Gnome on the trip!

As it turns out, the trip wasn’t what I expected it to be. There were campfires. And I did get to enjoy the night sky. But, a surprise highlight was the little Veery Thrushes that serenaded us at random times throughout the day with their interesting song. I tried to capture it on my phone, but the other birds overwhelmed them whenever I tried. Thankfully, YouTube came to the rescue! This little fellow starts singing at about the 10 second mark.

They reminded us of the little whirly tube toys that we played with as kids (does that date me?) and provided quite a few nice moments during the trip. I particularly liked waking up to their cheerful call. Although we heard them every day, it took us a few days to spot one among the trees so I was a bit surprised that it wasn’t flashier. But, with a song like that, I guess it doesn’t need to have flashy feathers!

I did feel that it needed a spot of honour on my camping bracelet, though. The Sparrow easily stood in for the Veery. I immediately thought of the redbalifrog Music Scroll to represent the cascading song, but it’s one that I don’t own, so the Nordic Tree, Green Shade, and the unique represent it hiding among the shadows in the trees instead. And I added the little Birdie charm just because I didn’t want the other birds that we heard to feel left out! :D

The other surprise (although I’m not sure that I would call it a highlight) was our discovery of a Pokémon Go gym and pokéstops inside the park. Right beside the beach. You could sit on the beach, catch pokémon, and spin one of the pokéstops.

I like Pokémon Go. I play it every day (otherwise I’d lose my bonus streak ;)). But you only need to catch one pokémon and spin one stop a day to keep the streak going. With the gym and stops so close, it became too much of a regular part of our trip (have I mentioned that my husband is a bit addicted to Pokémon Go?). We raided every day. We caught pokémon at the beach. We could even catch pokémon sitting by our trailer.

It wasn’t actually too much of a problem until Niantic unveiled the special Ash Hat Pikachu and they started appearing at the beach stops. The first night, my husband and one of our friends rushed off to get one at 10pm. Of course, they turned out to be frequent visitors at the stop, so there were frequent ventures out to catch them so that people could eventually get enough to evolve them into an Ash Hat Raichu. And then they started trying to hatch an Ash Hat Pichu.

Of course, since it did end up becoming a part of the trip, I had to incorporate elements of it. The Trollbeads Pokéball was an obvious one, and the Ohm Beads Sanur represents Pikachu! The waves bead, Camper, and flame-like bead represent the places where we caught them the most :D

I’m not going to lie – I have several Ash Hat Pikachus and will be evolving an Ash Hat Raichu soon. But, for me, nature still trumped Niantic.

3 Comments

  1. Really enjoyed the storytelling of these two bangles ? the birdsong is lovely, and I must admit I’m laughing about the pokemon go adventure!

    Mars xx

    1. Thanks Mars!

      What’s funny about the bird is that none of the people that we were camping with ever recalled hearing that bird before, at that campground or any others. And most of us are frequent campers in Southern Ontario! It will be interesting to see if we hear it again when we go camping next month at a different campground a short distance down the shore.

      The Pokemon Go adventures were funny in hindsight. :D

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