Having a fun date during COVID!
Love being in the outdoors and enjoying some beautiful scenery? This was a great day date idea that Kevin and I had on a beautiful winter’s day at Manning Park! All you need is strong knees, warm clothes, and a better balance than me! Jokes aside, while we are not the experts (and we always recommend a lesson for our first-timers!, we still love to get out on the nordic tracks for cross country skiing together! Normally we do classic, but for my strongest athletes who have a history of ice skating, you may want to try out skate skiing! Today, Kevin and I went out for a skate skiing tour. Kevin has always been a natural (how rude!) but as some people say, “God loves a try-er!”, so I keep at it!
When we went, we were treated to a beautiful bluebird afternoon, with the sun shining bright, making the snow sparkle! We chose to go on a longer outing that day, and headed from the lodge all the way to the warming hut at Strawberry Flats!
And let me tell you about the warming hut at Strawberry Flats at Manning Park. This is just a little piece of magic, this quaint brick and wood structure is rumoured to have been one of the sites of a former “Kokanee beer" TV commercial, complete with the Sasquatch!
The staff always lays a fire in the wood stove and leaves some wood, so the fire can be replenished all day long. And as you approach the hut on your classic or skate skis, you can smell that beautiful wood burning odor in the crisp air.
Once inside, you notice a couple of things– the rustic picnic tables that can seat around 20 people comfortably, and the wood stove on the far wall. Our late-afternoon timing on this outing ensured that we had the hut to ourselves! What a treat! It is quite popular during regular daytime hours, so to make this a date, we recommend weekdays or late afternoon.
When we arrived, my darling husband thought to surprise me with a backpack full of delicious treats and some bubbly with REAL GLASS GLASSES (certainly a decadence that we don't usually have on an outdoor outing and would completely recommend as a treat!) as well as the addition of music with a small speaker that he snuck into his pack as well. Plan ahead to have your music already downloaded, as there is no cellular service in the area.
The music filled our little hut! We opened the wood stove door to see the warm flames and danced to the music - this is one of my favourite memories together! We danced in that little hut, sipped champagne and had one of the most wonderful late afternoon dates ever!
So, don’t be afraid of the weather! Plan a little surprise once in a while and enjoy each other!