Camping

There is a campground at the end of the street on which my cabin sits.  I am obsessed with the affairs of the people who camp there.  I used to be one of them.  Until I bought this permanent structure in which to sit and watch the stream as it gurgles by.  We use to drive down Woodland Valley Rd on our way to pitching our pup tent and wonder about the people who were lucky enough to own one of the houses lining the road.  Now I am the one sitting there wondering about the addled drivers with three bicycles and five lawn chairs perched precariously on their roof tops as they cruise up and down my street in search of free firewood for their bonfires.  I mention our pup tent because even though we mostly car camped I still acted as if we would soon be embarking on a ten mile hike from the parking area to our actual campsite.  Our tent was invariably a bungalow pitched among palatial estates.  The three room tents which most of the other campers enjoyed were probably bigger than the homes they left behind.  One time I actually saw an air conditioner protruding from the mosquito netting.  As a general rule of thumb, if an appliance can be powered by propane, Coleman will produce a camping version of said gadget.

Our campsite was always a very spartan affair.  Two man tent, one burner stove, mini lantern, and if I was feeling particularly charitable about how much room we had in the trunk I would allow Tammy to pack one luxury item, usually a folding camp chair.  If she insisted on such extravagances I would have preferred the space saving economy of those sit on the ground Crazy Creek chairs but in the interest of marital harmony I capitulated on the seating arrangements.  Normally I just use an in situ log as a decent ersatz Barcalounger.  I could never understand why campers need so many different places to sit.  The sites do come preequipped with a picnic table.   Even if they do decide to sit at the picnic table it must be enveloped by a dining canopy as if the mosquitoes don't have just as much right to be there as the barking dog, and as if nature is nothing but an unexpected interloper.  Most campers have such elaborate kitchens set up I am unclear as to why they don't just stay home and  have a barbeque in their own backyards.  At least that way they wouldn't have to lug a portable sink, two twenty pound propane tanks and a Viking grill into the woods.

I also wonder why they drive three hours to get away from the noise and lights of the city only to blast their radios and light up the night sky with two burner Coleman lanterns and strings of decorative owl lights   I have seen more stars in a Walmart parking lot at night than in some of the campgrounds I have slept in. It has always been my goal when car camping to at least have the guise of roughing it.  Because let's face it, car camping can only be called roughing it in the same sense that golf can be called a sport.  It is more like a hobby.  Like building detailed models of nineteenth century clipper ships or participating in Civil War reenactments.  But perhaps the most egregious insult to the bucolic ambiance of the state campground is the transistor radio slash CD player.  I am not talking about the weather band.  That broadcast may very well be of  interest to the entire campground community.  But I cannot envision any circumstances in which Salsa music and/or the Yankees game would be of any interest to my fellow campers.

One time I actually asked the guy in the campsite next to mine if he wouldn't mind lowering his radio.  He was listening to a Yankees game and oddly enough the announcers shrill voice was preventing my campfire from fully calming me with its hypnotic flickering .  He said no problem, but his actions implied otherwise.  There obviously was a problem.  He did indeed lower the radio but as I sat there by my fire he proceeded to break down his camp in an increasingly agitated fashion.  He finally finished packing up and as he was driving away he paused in front of my campsite.  "Are you happy now?" he yelled at me before he drove off.  "I have been here two nights and no one had a problem until you showed up.  Enjoy your weekend."  I could only sheepishly reply that I had merely asked him to lower his radio, and it was not my intention to evict him from the premises.  I am not making this story up.  It actually happened in the campground at the end of my street.  That night was probably the most restless I have ever had sleeping in a tent.  I woke up at the sound of every rustling leaf as I fully expected this psychopath to return with a three foot long machete and hack me to death while shredding my tent to pieces in the process.  And I don't like for my equipment to wear out prematurely.