Tag Archives: Camp Hosting

Sep21

Kids Are People Too

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Do you remember the 80s TV show Kids Are People Too?

Mostly I remember the name. Other details of the program are fuzzy to me, but this is what I recalled before doing a Google search:

The show played on Saturdays after the cartoons. It was not animated. There were one or more adult hosts, one of which was goofy blond guy with a bad haircut. (I may be confusing the hosts of this program with the hosts of That’s Incredible!) The show consisted of segments featuring the achievements of children.

After a Google search, this is what I learned from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_Are_People_Too:

Kids Are People Too is an American television series that ran on Sunday mornings from 1978 to 1982 on ABC. The series was a variety/news magazine show oriented towards kids with the intention of recognizing them as people…[1]  The series included celebrity interviews, cartoons, music, and other information that appealed to kids…[2]

Every week it would have a celebrity guest who the host would interview, occasionally a psychologist would speak about the challenges of growing up, and there would be comedy or musical routines.

The series attracted guests such as Bill Cosby, Debbie Harry, Billy Dee Williams, Cheap Trick, Patti Smith and Brooke Shields.

I think about this show (or at least its title) often in my role as a camp host.

When filling out the camping permit, there’s a box where I write in the number of people staying on the site. Each site is only meant to hold six people, but I can allow seven or eight people on a site if necessary.

When folks have made reservations, my daily arrival sheet tells me how many people to expect in the party, but that number is often inaccurate. Plans change, as do the number of people who make it to the campground.

And of course, when a group without a reservation arrives, I have no idea how many people are in it. (I’m not psychic!)

Every time I fill out a camping permit, I ask, How many people on the site?

I’m surprised when the person with whom I’m speaking says, X adults and X children.

Sometimes I bust right out with kids are people too! but I usually sigh and just think it to myself.

I know what’s going on. I know people without reservations are hoping their children will qualify for some type of discount. Unfortunately for these hopeful types, no. The camping fee is $21, whether there’s one person or six (or eight) on the site. The camping fee is $21, whether there’s one child on site or seven. (Marauding bands of unsupervised children have thus far stayed out of my campground.)

I also know there’s something bigger going on than just the desire to save money. If it were only about discounts, the people with reservations (prepaid and long past any discount window) would never differentiate between adults and children.

What’s going on is our society’s view of children as other. Adults are people and children are something else, not quite people.

I call bullshit.

I don’t have kids, and I’m not someone who would say I love kids any more than I would say I love old people. Some kids I like; some kids are asshats. Some old people I like, and some old people are asshats. I could say the same of teenagers, young adults, and the middle aged. I like people individually, not as a group, so I’m not defending children because I just love kids. I’m defending kids because they deserve to be defended.

Kids are people too. They’re not in some other category.

If you don’t quiet understand what I mean, think about how weird it would sound if I said, How many people on the site? and the answer was Two adults and two senior citizens. (In my campground, senior citizens with the proper card do get a discount, so it’s actually worthwhile for a group to declare its elderly.)

If the question asked is How many adults and how many children? by all means give two numbers. But if the question is How many people? the answer requires only one number since kids are people too.

 

Sep4

The Cows Came Home

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Last season there were cows in the meadow bordering my campground–not just one or two cows, but a lot of cows. How many cows does it take to make a herd? I don’t know, but I think there was probably an entire herd in the meadow.

For most of this season, only a couple of cows spent time in the meadow, and only briefly. That was in June. Both cows were black. One was huge and had a white face. The other was smaller–maybe a teenage cow. They looked at me inquisitively as I walked by on the dirt road leading to the campground. The cows were gone the next day. I have no idea where they went.

Last season, the cows in the meadow chomped down all the grass and either ate or trampled the corn lilies. If any wildflowers began to grow, the cows ate them before they bloomed. Those cows kept the vegetation short. Last summer, the meadow looked as if it had been mowed.

Corn lilies growing in the meadow.

Corn lilies growing in the meadow.

This summer, the lack of cows in the meadow has lead to glorious grassiness. The grass has grown tall (above my knees). The corn lilies are tall too. Also, wildflowers are flourishing in the meadow. There are white flowers I think are  Queen Anne’s Lace. There are orangey-yellow flowers with brown middles–what we called brown-eyed Susies when I was a kid. There are purple flowers too, but I don’t know their name.

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Brown-eyed Susies

I enjoyed having the cows around last summer. They were nice to look at, and it was comforting to hear them going about their bovine business at night. Sometimes I talked to them when I was particularly lonely. However, I’m also enjoying this summer’s beautiful meadow view. (I can almost understand why Californians are so damn fond of their meadows.)

Last year the cows moved in late in June or possibly in July. This season, June came and went, then July did the same and all I’d seen of the cows were the two black ones who seemed to have only spent one night in the meadow. Then one evening during the second week in August, there was another brief bovine visit.

It was dusk. I was sitting on the floor of my van with the side doors open. I was making a hat and listening to a podcast when a noise outside my campsite caught my attention. There was one set of campers in the campground, with a site way on the other side, but the kids had been running around the whole place all evening. I figured it was them I was hearing. But when I looked up, I didn’t see any children.

I saw creatures–big creatures–ambling in my direction. At first I thought the creatures were horses (and I imagined they were being ridden by cowboys), but pretty quickly, I realized I was seeing cows!

There were four of them. Three were all black, but one had the all white face I’d seen earlier in the summer. They were on the road, heading in my direction. They were moving at a steady pace, not running, but moving briskly. I said something like Hello ladies, and they froze. I hadn’t yelled, just spoken in a normal tone of voice. That apparently was enough to stop them in their tracks.

I wanted a photo of them, but I knew it was too dark for the camera on my phone to produce a visible image. I also knew that moving around to find my real camera probably would make these shy, half-wild mountain cows nervous enough to leave. No way would they stick around for another photo once the flash went off. So I sat tight.

The cows regarded me calmly, but with suspicion. I watched them, curious to see what they would do next. Long minutes passed while we looked at each other.

One of the campers must have been in the nearby restroom because a door slammed, and the noise was loud in the quiet of the evening. Three of the cows bolted. Their hooves thundered in the dirt as they ran toward the meadow. It was a very small stampede!

The fourth cow didn’t seem bothered by the noise. It didn’t run at all, but instead followed slowly behind the others.

I don’t know where the cows went, but I didn’t hear them in the meadow later in the night.

The next day when I came back from the parking lot, I saw four cows near the front of the meadow. Where these the cows of the night before? Had they broken off from a larger group to form their own herd?

The cows were gone again the next day. I haven’t seen them since.

Cows in the meadow, summer 2015.

Cows in the meadow, summer 2015.

 

I took all of the photos in this post.

 

Aug27

How to Use a Pit Toilet

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This photo shows a pit toilet. Today I am going to tell you how to use one.

I shouldn’t have to explain to grown people how to use a pit toilet, but so many folks seem baffled when confronted with a toilet that doesn’t flush. Really, people, the process is the same, whether the toilet flushes or not. In the name of public service, today I will lay down instructions for pit toilet use.

#1 Knock before you enter. When did knocking on a closed door fall out of favor? People seem to either reach out and try to open a closed door or simply stand in front of a closed door waiting for someone to exit. (Sometimes no one is behind the door.) Has peeking under a stall to check for occupancy taken the place of knocking? Since pit toilets are totally enclosed, peeking won’t work. If you want to know if someone’s in there, you’re going to have to knock.

#2 Lock the door behind you. If you don’t, one of those people who opens doors without knocking is probably going to walk in on you.

#3 If you fail to lock the door behind you and someone opens the door while you’re taking care of business, try not to fly off the toilet in mid urine stream. Shrieking is permissible, but remember, it’s your own dang fault. You should have locked the door.

#4 Sit on the toilet. That’s right, sit. Sit all the way down,with both cheeks on the seat. It’s no dirtier than a city toilet. If you need to protect yourself from germs, bring disinfectant in with you and spray down the seat before you sit.

#5 If you must make a seat cover from toilet paper before you sit, deposit said seat cover into the toilet before you leave. You may not want your butt to touch the surface of the toilet seat, but the person who uses the toilet after you does not want to touch toilet paper your butt’s been on.

#6 By sitting (not perching, not hovering), your excretory openings should be pointing down, so your waste materials will fall (thanks, gravity!) and not end up splashed all over the inside walls (known as risers in the pit toilet business) of the toilet. The person who cleans the toilet will be grateful for your help in keeping the risers as clean as possible.

#7 Men, don’t spray urine everywhere. I don’t understand why men get urine on the floor and on the outside front of toilets. (I know this is not only a problem when pit toilets are involved.) My best advice to men: Pay attention to your aim.

#8 Toilet paper goes into the toilet, not on the floor.

#9 Trash (feminine hygiene leftovers, beer cans, whatever) goes in a trash can. Do not leave trash on the floor. Do not throw trash into the toilet.

#10 If you get some bodily discharge (blood, urine, feces, mucus, whatever) on the toilet or the floor, WIPE IT UP completely. No one else wants to touch it.

#11 Close the toilet’s lid after you stand up. Closing the lid keeps the stink in and bugs out. If you can’t bear to touch the lid with your hand, use your foot. Whatever way you’ve got to do it, CLOSE THE LID before you leave.

#12 If you are in a place with a pit toilet, there may not be running water. If hand washing is important to you (and it should be!) carry hand sanitizer or a jug of water and soap so you can scrub up after your visit to the pit toilet.

There are many situations in life when do unto others… applies. Pit toilet use is definitely one of those situations. Do your best to leave the restroom in a condition that wouldn’t make you gag if you walked in.

Aug23

How Do They Work?

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It was dusk when the car pulled into the campground. It stopped near the information board, and I walked over to find out if the folks inside were looking for a camping spot. Three young women got out of the car. They seemed to be in their mid 20s.

I asked if they were looking for a campsite. They said they were.

I told them the price to camp ($20) and gave them the rundown on the campground’s lack of amenities: no water, no electricity, no hooks-ups of any kind. (I find it better to tell people right up front what we don’t offer so there’s no disappointment after the fee has been paid.)

After I said, No water, one of the women asked if the campground had restrooms. I told her there were pit toilets.

She asked, How do they work?

I was flabbergasted. I guess she’d never before encountered pit toilets, but don’t the phrases no water and pit toilet paint a pretty clear picture? Apparently not.

I hemmed and hawed and sputtered, unsure of how to answer in a polite and nongross manner. The question caught me completely by surprise. I realize now I should have said, There’s a hole with a plastic toilet over it. Waste material goes into the hole. When the hole gets full, the waste products are pumped out.

This is a pit toilet. It works thanks to gravity.

This is a pit toilet. It works thanks to gravity.

The next day when I saw my co-worker, I told him the story of the young woman who wanted to know how the pit toilet worked.  He provided me with a succinct, elegant answer: Gravity.

 

 

Jul23

Fire Ban

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We’ve reached the point in the season where campfires are banned. Of course, that means I was putting out a campfire the day after the ban went into effect. Even without a ban, I’d have been putting out this fire because it was left unattended. Seems like a bad idea to me, to leave a fire unattended, in a drought, while fire danger is high, but I guess it seemed reasonable to the folks from Maryland who’d started the campfire.

I was patrolling the campground for the hosts on their day off. I was driving slowly through the facility, looking for campers who needed to be checked-in. I saw the reservation tag on site #9, indicating the campers had arrived the day before, the first of the camp hosts’ two days off. The campers must have come in after I’d gone through around two o’clock. I saw a vehicle parked on the site and two tents pitched near the picnic table, but no campers. I figured everyone was still asleep, even though it was 10:30 and the sun had been up for hours.

I was about to drive off, when I noticed smoke rising from the fire ring on site #9. I couldn’t blame the people for not knowing about the fire ban, since they hadn’t officially been checked in, but I was annoyed they’d left their fire smoldering when no one was outside with it. Then I saw flames rising from the fire ring. This wasn’t the remains of a fire smouldering; this was a bonafide fire.

I parked my van and hopped out. As I approached the campsite, I called out Good morning! and Hello! I received no response.

I’m going to put out this campfire now, I called out. Still no response. That’s when I realized the campers had not simply left the campfire unattended by going into their tents. These people had left their fire unattended by totally leaving their campsite.

I had about a gallon and a half of wash water in the van, so I poured that on the fire. The wood sputtered and sizzled. The water boiled. Great clouds of dirty smoke billowed from the fire ring. But a gallon and a half of water isn’t enough to make sure a fire that’s been burning strong is dead out.

I drove my van to the camp hosts’ site, looking for a five gallon bucket I could fill with water. One of the hosts was waiting for me, pajama clad and wild haired, eyes still looking sleepy. I told her what was going on. She told me that she thought the campers–a father and his two daughters from Maryland–had gone to walk the trail. Wow! They’d left not just their campsite, but the entire campground with not just hot ashes in the fire ring, but full-on flames. How did that seem like a good idea?

I hauled about four gallons of water to site #9 and dumped it all into the fire ring. (When putting out an illicit fire, it’s good to leave everything too wet to support another fire any time soon.) The wood sputtered and sizzled more, and the new water boiled. I used a big stick to stir the soupy mess. Once I felt confident the fire wasn’t going to spring back to life or release ember or hot ash, I walked away.

I wasn’t done with my job, however. I wanted to leave a courtesy notice so the campers would know why their fire ring contained soggy logs and mud.

I grabbed a red pen to fill out the notice.

I checked the box next to Due to fire danger, please do not leave fires unattended. You must put all fires out completely. In the margin, I wrote Never leave fires unattended.

Then I checked the box next to Other and wrote in Complete ban on wood and charcoal fires. Fires NOT permitted.

Finally, near the bottom of the notice, I wrote You need fire permit to use stove with on/off switch.

I hoped all of that information would clue them in to what was going on.

As I told the other camp host sarcastically, This is where the fun begins…If you thought collecting extra vehicle fees was fun….

Now the check-in process will take longer, as we must verbalize all the new rules: No wood or charcoal fires. Stoves must have an on/off switch. Permits are required to use stoves. Smoking is only allowed inside vehicles with the doors closed and windows up.

And since some people are going to start fires anyway, camp hosts have to be alert for the sight and (mostly) smell of illicit fires. We will have to douse those fires and listen to the whining of campers: I didn’t know. We were cold. We were going to put it out after we cooked dinner. What are we supposed to do at night without a campfire to sit next to?

I’ll not share my reactions with campers, but in the privacy of my mind, I’ll be thinking: There are signs announcing the ban all over the forest. Put on your jackets and hats. You should have brought your propane stove. Get in your tent and have some sex.

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I took this photo.

To read stories of campers and last year’s ban on campfires, go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/07/27/fire-restrictions/, here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/11/15/what-do-people-do/, here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/11/13/but-were-cold/, and here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/09/18/where-theres-smoke/.

 

 

 

 

 

Jul13

Cock rings. Cock rings. Cock rings.

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It was Wednesday, and I was sick as a dog.

It was day #4 of my head cold, and I’d managed to patrol the campground for the camp hosts on their day off and work my four hours in the parking lot. I’d barely spoken above a whisper, but I’d conveyed the information and collected the money.

When I got back to my campground, I took a shower and hoped I wouldn’t have to put my uniform on again that day. I just wanted to relax in my pink house dress, then take to my bed right after dinner.

I was sitting outside my van, giving my feet a good scrubbing when a big grey pickup truck pulled into the campground. The driver took it around the whole place, checking out every site. I didn’t approach the truck because I wasn’t in uniform. Heck, I didn’t even have on shoes. I figured it was probably one of the vehicles driven by someone who was just looking around.

The truck left the campground, and I silently cheered. I barely had the energy to make myself dinner, much less go through the check-in procedure.

Unfortunately, my bubble of solitude was burst when the pickup returned to the campground. I grabbed a clean uniform shirt (and the same old dirty pants) and dressed behind the curtain that pulls in front of my bed.

When I finished dressing, the truck was parked on site #6 and two men were at the information board, probably trying to find the self-pay envelopes the new boss doesn’t want put out if the camp host is on duty to collect payment. I walked over and called out, Are y’all looking for a place to camp? They said they were and asked if I were the camp host. I said I was.

We all walked over to site #6 (where an older-than-I-am woman was waiting) to fill out the paperwork. The guy with the big beard and the intense look in his eye started talking to me. He was hiking the PCT (the Pacific Crest Trail, I knew thanks to Cheryl Strayed and her book Wild). He’d started at the Mexican border. He’d already dropped 35 pounds. He weighed (an amount I don’t remember) when he started. He’d hiked into (some place apparently nearby) the day before, and these were his friends (or maybe family members–he was unclear on that detail), and they were nice, and they’d picked him up, and he was going to take a couple of days off the trail.

This guy was talking like either

a) he’d only minutes before ingested a stimulant (and we’re talking something like a mega cup of coffee or a bit bump of meth)

b) he was a bit socially awkward and had never learned not to regale total strangers with every aspect of his current life within the first three minutes of meeting

c) he was so totally and incredibly excited about his current endeavor that he couldn’t help talk about it with everyone he met

d) he hadn’t spoken to another human being in several days

Then the conversation (which was more of a monologue) got really weird.

He started telling me about some hot spring he’d visited during his hiking of the PCT. It was a nudist place, he told me.

The nudist part didn’t surprise or offend me. I’ve been to free, natural, public hot springs. The good ones are clothing optional.

Then the guy with the big beard and the intense look in his eye said, There was a pervert out there. He was at least sixty years old. He was wearing a cock ring.

The cock ring part did surprise me.

First of all, the thought of someone wearing a cock ring at a natural hot spring strikes me as ludicrous. I think of hot springs as places to relax, and cock rings seem to be used for the opposite of relaxation.

Secondly, I was shocked to hear this guy I’d barely met talk to the middle-age, camp-host lady that I am about a naked older man wearing a cock ring. It seems like a risky topic to broach with a stranger. I wasn’t offended, but I could have been. How did he know I wouldn’t be offended? (Maybe he didn’t care if he offended me. Maybe I give off a vibe that says discuss cock rings with me.)

Then the man with the beard said the naked older man wearing the cock ring was hard. That’s what the man with the beard said: He was hard. And the naked older man wearing the cock ring at the hot spring had been posing. The man with the beard imitated the posing of the naked older man wearing the cock ring.

I wanted to scream TMI! TMI! but I was rendered speechless. All I could do was laugh uncomfortably. Why was the man with the beard telling me this story?

Before I could get us back on track and get the permits (camping and fire) filled out and signed, he told me about the teenagers (boys, ages approximately 13 and 17) who’d walked into the cock ring spectacle at the hot spring and their Christian dad who’d walked up behind them, taken one look at the topless ladies and the posing older naked man and announced that all of these deviants were going to Hell.

It was actually a good story, albeit perhaps not one to share with the camp host three minutes after making her acquaintance. It’s probably a better story to tell one’s buddies after a couple of hours around the campfire.

I guess it’s also a pretty good story to share on one’s blog.

The title of this piece comes from the skit “Cock Ring Warehouse” on the hilarious HBO comedy program Mr. Show, season 3, episode 2. See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb-Kh1oJSGE.

 

Jun29

Horse People (Continued)

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From inside the livestock trailer, I heard a man’s voice say Good morning, so I said Good morning in return.

The man’s voice called the dog. The dog ran to the gate of the trailer, then away from it. The man continued calling the dog in a low, calm voice. At the time, I thought the dog was just being playful, was enjoying being off leash, didn’t want to give up its freedom. But now I remember the dog cowering just outside the trailer’s open gate, ears flattened against its head. Like the girl, the dog was silent.

When the man had the dog, I walked around to the open gate of the trailer. The man was tying the dog to a rope attached to the trailer.

I’d barely identified myself as the camp host when the man said to me, Well, you sure don’t waste any time.

I guess he meant I hadn’t wasted any time in coming over to collect the camping fee. I thought it was a strange thing for him to say. People who stay in a campground typically know there is a fee to camp, and most people are happy to pay up and get the task out of the way.

In that instant when the man spoke to me, my whole plan changed. Maybe the look on the girl’s face had finally registered as fear. Maybe I’m particularly sensitive to dangerous men. But what came out of my mouth was, I’ll make you a deal. If you clean up after the horses, I won’t charge you the camping fee. I know y’all got in late last night.

I didn’t fear for my own personal safety. The man didn’t do or say anything I could point to as a threat. But I had a suspicion that if the man got pissed off, I wouldn’t be the one he’d take it out on.

I think he thanked me. Then he asked, If we want to stay another night, should we talk to you?

The last thing I wanted in my campground was this bad vibe man, his cowering dog, his silent girl, and his six shitting horses.

Well, I said, I’ve got people checking in on this site tomorrow, and this really isn’t a horse camp.

No, he agreed. This really isn’t a horse camp. I guess there’s no water either?

No, I sadly shook my head, no water.

We’ll just have some breakfast, he said. Then we’ll get out of your hair.

I continued about my business cleaning fire rings. I kept a watch on the family out of the corner of my eye.

A woman and two younger children emerged from the pile of blankets and sleeping bags on the ground. I couldn’t determine the gender of the youngest child, but the middle kid was a blond girl, probably seven or eight years old.

Two things struck me as strange.

First, after breakfast was cooked (on a high standing stove), the people did not sit down to enjoy their meal. Although there were three picnic tables in the area they were occupying, they stood in a loose circle while they consumed their food. I couldn’t tell what they were eating or if they used plates, but standing during breakfast is not normal camper behavior.

Second, for most of the morning, the man’s voice was the only one I heard. He didn’t raise it high enough for me to understand his words, but I could hear it drifting through the campground. I didn’t hear the women’s voice once, and at least an hour passed before I could hear the kids. Whether the woman and children were whispering or silent, I don’t know.

The man did another weird thing while I was cleaning the fire ring on site #1. He let a horse wander off from the rest of its herd. He didn’t let it go far, but I wondered why he was allowing it to move around freely. Was he challenging me, hoping I’d say something so he could argue with me or have a reason to be be mad?

Typically I would have commented on the beauty of the horse (a muscular, brown creature), but my instinct was not to chit chat with these people.

When I finished cleaning fire rings, I went back to my campsite to get ready for the rest of my day. I started hearing the children’s voices echo through the campground. The kids were not screaming at the tops of their lungs, but I could hear their happy and excited voices.

I was beginning to think I was imaging things and there wasn’t anything weird about these people when I heard the man raise his voice. I was pretty sure he was reprimanding one or more of the children, and I clearly heard him say…yelling out loud! He was reprimanding the children for their happy, exuberant voices! (And really, if a kid can’t yell in a campground at 9:30 in the morning, where can a kid yell?)

Then I heard the twack twack twack sound of something (a switch picked up from the ground? a horse-related tool?) slice through the air and hit something. When I looked up, the man was walking away, but the middle child was standing frozen, with her arms held stiffly at her sides. I didn’t hear any children’s voices after that.

Once again, I was rendered mute by a grown man hitting a little kid, but this time I’d only heard the abuse. What could I do? I know how abusers work.  Anything I said or did, the woman or the kids would pay for later. I didn’t even have an excuse to talk to the girl and offer her some small kindness.

Sometimes I feel so useless.

The day after the horse people left, I walked through the area they’d occupied and could still smell horse feces. I started poking around with the toe of my boot and found the man’s idea of cleaning up after his horses was to bury the feces. Asswipe! I ended up having to clean up the horse feces myself, and it was a more difficult task now that it was covered in duff. I will admit I had fantasies of breaking that man’s kneecaps.

Jun28

Horse People

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When I went to bed, the campground was empty.

I woke up at 12:30am, and I really had to pee. I was so groggy as I pulled out my pee bucket and found the toilet paper, but I seemed to be hearing noises in the campground. The noises weren’t right outside the van, but were somewhere within the campground. Once back in bed, I tried to figure out what I was hearing.

I did not hear the sound of a vehicle’s engine, which kind of freaked me out. If there were people in the campground, wouldn’t they have driven in? Could I have slept through a vehicle pulling into the campground? Probably. As groggy as I was when I woke up, I’d probably been sleeping really hard. If the vehicle were on the other side of the campground, I definitely could have slept through its motor running.

But what were the other noises I was hearing? There was a metallic sound, somewhat like the metal lids on the metal trashcans being jostled, but not very loud. I wondered if a bear were getting into the metal trashcans, but I think a bear messing with trashcans would make a lot of noise. I don’t think bears are carefully quiet when helping themselves to midnight garbage snacks.

I could also hear the sounds of some kind of animal(s). I couldn’t decide what kind of animal it might be.

Are the cows back? I wondered. When I’d closed up the van around eight o’clock, there had been no cows in the meadow. I don’t think cows are the type of animal to go exploring in the middle of the night. Besides, I’ve been around cows at night (me in a house or my van, the cows in a pasture or a meadow); I know what kinds of noises cows make. The noises I heard did not sound like cows.

I was back to thinking maybe I heard a bear. I’ve never heard a bear, so maybe the noises I was hearing were bear noises. Maybe it was a very quiet bear, carefully lifting the lids on the trashcans and replacing them gently.

What didn’t make sense about bears eating from the trash cans is that the campground had not been very busy in the last few days. Any bears exploring those trashcans would not find much to eat.

Maybe I had dozed off. Maybe I was dreaming. But suddenly I was wide awake and I swore I’d heard a footstep. But whose footstep? Man or beast? Bear or cow?

I waited to hear a lid lifted from a trash can or one can crash into another. Nothing.

Nighttime in a remote, empty campground can be very disconcerting. It’s so quiet. It’s so dark. I never know who or what is out there.

One of my personal rules of being a camp host is that I’m in the van with the doors locked by nightfall, and I don’t get out of the fan at night to greet strangers. If someone I already talked to and checked-in while the sun was out knocks at at night, I ‘d get out of the van and help them if necessary. But I’m not going to deal with strangers in the dark, especially if my brain is addled with sleep.

I lay in the dark, still and quiet, straining to hear any and every little noise. Then I saw the beam of a flashlight once, twice.

I was pretty sure even a Ninja quiet bear would not have a flashlight, which meant I was dealing with humans. I didn’t know if I preferred humans to bears. What were those people doing out there at nearly one in the morning? Who were they? Did they just want to camp, or were they plotting evil schemes? And what were the weird noises?

Everything must have settled down, and I must have dozed off because the next time I turned on my tiny flashlight with the red beam, it was 2am and all was quiet.

I was awake with the first light of dawn. I dressed and prepared to face whatever havoc had been wreaked on the campground in the night.

The trashcans on my side of the campground had not been tampered with. So far, so good.

I saw a big pickup truck hauling a long livestock trailer on the other side of the campground. I saw bedding spread out on site #6 (but no tent). I saw a dog, and it saw me. I couldn’t tell if it was tethered in any way, but it didn’t run over to meet me, so I left well enough alone. I didn’t see any people moving around, but at the back of site #6, I saw six horses milling about.

Oh! Horses! That was the animal noise I’d heard in the night. I don’t have much horse experience, so I wasn’t surprised I hadn’t identified the sounds I’d heard as coming from horses.

I also figured the metallic sounds must have come from the trailer–the gate opening, the horses unloading.

I did my paperwork so I could turn it into my supervisor later in the day. I swept the restrooms. I cleaned fire rings. I plotted how I would demand payment from the horse people, no mater if they protested that they’d not spent the whole night. They’d woke me (and scared me, no less), and they were going to pay.

Between 6 and 6:30, I looked over to site #6 and saw some people moving around. When I finished with the fire ring I was cleaning, I grabbed my clipboard and walked over, fully intending to write a permit and collect payment.

I noticed a person walking among the horses. The person had long hair; I thought it was a small woman. I also noticed the dog I’d seen earlier was not leashed and was frolicking around the horses. I think I said, Good morning, followed by, The dog does need to be leashed in the National Forest.

The female person did not turn to look at me.

I said, Miss? Miss?

The female person turned to look at me. I saw she was not a small woman, but a young girl, maybe 11, maybe 12. She looked at me in utter confusion.

The dog, I pointed. A leash, I said.

She didn’t utter a word. She seemed to be frozen. She just looked at me with blank eyes of confusion. I think there was something besides confusion on her face, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

To Be Continued

Jun9

Just Picking Up Trash?

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It was my day off, but I was hanging around my campsite, tending to chores such as airing out my bedding, taking an inventory of my pantry, and organizing my food supply. I’d taken a shower in my new privacy tent, using my pump-to-pressurize pesticide(less) sprayer. I was wearing my pink house dress, sitting at my picnic table, writing and feeling good.

Only one site in the campground was rented, but those folks had driven off to do something hours before. I knew they were coming back because they’d told me so before they left.

I heard a vehicle pull in on the other side of the campground. I heard a human voice say some words I didn’t understand. I heard footsteps move in the general direction of the rented campsite. I assumed I was hearing the people who were staying on the rented campsite, and I wondered vaguely why they hadn’t driven directly to their spot. I figured they’d just needed to grab something fast and it was quicker to park on the other side of the campground and cut across the empty sites on foot to get to their site.

When I looked up, I could barely make out past the trees and the restroom building the vehicle IMG_3003parked across the way. It was a big white pickup truck. I remembered the campers who’d left for the day had a small silver pickup with a camper shell on the back. As I was contemplating the vehicle that seemed to not belong in the campground, I heard things being moved around on the rented site. Day off or not, I decided I needed to investigate.

I walked over to where I could see the campsite. There was a woman on it. She was not the woman staying on the campsite. This woman had long white hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing unfashionably long shorts that were too tight around her middle.

I said, People are coming back to that campsite.

She said, Oh! (I’m sure she was surprised to see me standing there in my pink dress with my brow furrowed.) I was just picking up trash. I thought this stuff was abandoned.

I’ve been known to do some trash picking myself. In fact, I’d say trash picking is one of my favorite sports. I know what abandoned items look like. They look dirty, like dust has blown on them, like rainwater has washed mud onto them and now the mud has dried into a thin coating of dirt with bits of vegetation embedded in it. Stuff that’s been abandoned tends to be bleached by the sun, and perhaps some pieces are broken. Abandoned things probably have old cobwebs on them and there may be rodent droppings on them too. Abandoned items are strewn about, and one sees them in the same place over a period of days or weeks. The things on that campsite did not look abandoned because they weren’t. The owners hadn’t even been gone a full work day.

It’s not abandoned, I said. The people are coming back, I repeated.

I’ve just been picking up trash, she said again. I’ve been getting all kinds of stuff.

She moved back toward the truck, where the fluffy black and white dog waited silently in the open bed.

I’m the camp host here, I told her. If you come back here, I don’t want you taking my stuff.

Oh no. I won’t, she said. I’m just picking up trash, she maintained.

As she approached the truck, she called out, Is this a free campground?

No ma’am, I said. It costs $21 a night to camp here.

Oh dear! or Oh Lord! she said as she got in the truck.

Maybe she was just wanting to pick up gear that had been abandoned. I didn’t want to discourage (or think the worst of) a fellow trash picker, but I certainly don’t want anyone taking my gear when I’m gone, and I can’t have someone coming into the campground and running off with things that belong to my campers.

Hours later, after the woman was long gone, I realized what I should have said to her.

Ma’am, I’m the host in this campground. If anything is abandoned here, the maintenance men and I will handle it. Please don’t take anything out of this campground.

Now I have my speech ready if she comes back.

I took the photo in this post.

 

Feb18

I Wish I Had Handled It Differently

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I hadn’t been a camp hot very long, but that’s really no excuse…

When I returned to my campground from collecting parking fees in the lot near the trail, I saw a tent pitched on the edge of the meadow. It was not in any designated campsite, which was an absolute no-no. There was a lot of leeway as to where a camper coluld pitch a tent within a designated site, but by no stretch of the imagination was this tent within a designated site. I saw a bicycle leaning against a tree near the tent, and as I drove the van closer, I saw a man standing there.

After pulling up next to the man, I opened the small triangle-shaped window, since my driver’s side window doesn’t roll down. I know I sounded cross when I told him he couldn’t camp there, that he had to pitch his tent in a designated campsite. He said he didn’t mind paying the camping fee, that he was only trying to leave spots open for people in cars who needed a full campsite. I told him again he’d have to move his tent, then said I’d be over soon to collect the camping fee.

This is what I wish I’d done: I wish I had parked the van first, then walked over to the man and talked to him eye-to-eye rather than trying to communicate from inside the van, through a tiny window. I wish I’d kept my tone pleasant and friendly instead of sounding (even to my own ears) aggravated and short-tempered. I know I wouldn’t want someone to bark at me from within a vehicle, especially if I truly thought I were doing something to make the lives of others easier.

My goal for the summer of 2016 is to show more kindness and compassion. I want to answer questions (even the stupid, stupid ones I’ve already heard countless times) as if I were being asked a reasonable question for the first time. I want to treat other people as I want to be treated.

Treating people with kindness and compassion (in my opinion) does not mean I have to get involved in their made-up dramas. It does mean answering their questions in a pleasant tone and giving them whatever information I have to allow them to solve their problem(s). It also means not assuming visitors should know what’s going on.

So what happened with the man who’d pitched his tent on the edge of the meadow?

He moved his tent and gear to site #5. When I walked over to collect his camping fee, I found out he was from Israel and was biking through the National Forest. He said he thought it was unfair that he–one person on a bicycle–had to pay the same fee to camp as six people in a motor vehicle. While I totally saw his point, I explained it would be a logistical nightmare if I had to charge different fees depending on the number of campers and the kind of vehicle they were driving.

I don’t think I changed his mind. However, I didn’t suggest he should travel with friends who would share a campsite–and its cost–with him. I simply collected his money and moved on.