July 7 to 10, 2026 - Ceylon Regional Park

Attending this campout were:

Ralph and Bev 

Fred and Pat

Roger and Marlene C

Harv and Nancy

Jim and Carolynn

Lorne and Joanne

Gus and Barb

Alan and Alanna

Rilla

Bob and Marlene T

 

We left ROC Church on Albert St south of the ring road at 10:45 and travelled to the Ma Khodal Restaurant at the junction of Hwys 6 and 13 where we stopped for lunch. It was a mistake - even though we had called ahead to say we were coming we received very poor service, and the food was nothing to write home about. We are unlikely to stop there again, at least not in a large group.

 

Here we are all set up in the campground. We were all in a row here except for Gus and Barb who registered too late to get a spot with us - they were on the other side of the ball diamond, which was to the left in this picture: 

Here are our hosts - Brian and Louise. They were extremely helpful and good to us. They let us use the very large camp building and communal fire pit for free, which were both about half way between us and Gus and Barb, which was very convenient. The building had lots of tables and chairs, a couple of cornhole games, and a pickle ball court - which you can see a bit of in one of the later pictures - Louise and her friends were playing:

It was very wet when we arrived, so we really appreciated having access to the building. We had our first happy hour there, and spend many of our afternoons there playing cards and cornhole. After it dried out we were able to have coffee and happy hour outside by our units:

Here is the hall and us playing sweep - we had a great time!

Louise opened the cantine for us at 2:30 on the second day so we could all have ice cream:

Children will play!

The second day we had a weiner roast at the communal fire pit:

And a campfire after:

On the third day we toured the United Church in Ceylon:

Our guide, Marilyn took this picture for us:

And then I took one with her in my place!

She also took us to a stone house nearby and gave us all the information about the house. It was owned by a family that made their living producing bootleg liquor. This was the last of their buildings standing, as the still blew up and destroyed the rest! She told us the story about the bank being robbed in the late 1800's, possibly by the Dalton gang as their vault was the vault the Dalton gang knew how to break into. Apparently whoever robbed the bank stationed their robbers (with very obvious guns) all over town to tell anyone coming out to investigate the noises to go back inside and mind their own business! She was very interesting and informative:

After the tour we stopped at the local cafe/bar for a coffee. Harv and Roger had dropped by here the day before and thought we would get a kick out of the place, and the gal who owns it (who he's pretty sure was high as a kite both days.) Here is the sign that greated us as we entered the hotel:

The bar was to the left, cafe to the right. Here we all are in the cafe with our drinks. The owner took this picture of us all:

And here she is! Heather, the owner, on the left with her waitress Angela. They were a total hoot - we had a great time!

Back to the campground and a round of sweep:

We had decided against going to the Ceylon Hotel for supper (see above!) and Louise had told us about her cook, Liz, who was from Mexico and prepared all her food from scratch. We asked Louise to check and see if Liz would make our supper for us, and she was very willing! Here she is in the canteen with her helper:

And here we are with our food. Harv and I had the Quesadilla, while others had hamburgers, chicken fingers, ets. All home made and very good. After we ate Louise and Liz came in with free ice cream for us all:

After supper, another campfire. A nice way to end the evening:

In the morning we sat out on the road in front of our campers for coffee (as the grass was very dewy by the motorhomes) before heading home. Harv and I stopped with Roger and Marlene C for lunch on our way home, and after lunch we got a text from Alanna asking if we were still on the road and could we stop - they had a blowout and their jack was back home in the garage!

We weren't sure we had anything in our trailer to help them, but planned on stopping just in case we could figure something out. Before we got there Lorne and Joanne had come by and stopped, and so had a random nice young fellow from BC. Lorne had the right equipment to get the trailer up so they could change the tire. They were all done and ready to get back on their way by the time we stopped:

Until next time.