Forum Discussion
Merrykalia
Feb 01, 2020Explorer II
Our family camp host for a couple months each year at a local state park. We have the months of May and August, so the weather is usually pretty good for both of these. Several years ago, it was the last weekend before school started and the place was packed. One of our campgrounds is site specific and the other requires reservations to guarantee a spot, but not any specific site. On Friday evening, a large family had 5 different sites booked into the non-specific campground. They did not arrive until about 7 pm, and most everyone else was already set up. They started out becoming upset because they couldn't be together. (This was NOT their first time camping here, so they knew the rules). On Friday night, with arriving later in the evening, they were still making dinner when it got dark (9ish). 10 pm is quiet time. As host, I did swing by and just remind them and others of this fact. They had large spotlights set up around their tents and were traipsing through others sites. On Saturday morning, there were a couple of complaints made to me, the office and to the rangers. I spoke to the woman that had the reservations in her name and tried to explain that much of the complaints were not written rules, but just campground etiquette about not cutting through others sites, etc. At 12:30 on Saturday night, I had a knock at my door and a couple apologized, but said there was a group doing karaoke in the campground.....with speakers and microphones. I started to head to that campground (we have two), then thought better of it. I called the ranger, who was actually waiting on me to call with a problem. (He said he had not taken his uniform off yet). After hanging up, DH and I walked over to the top of the hill where we could see down into the campground and there were 3 women sitting under the spotlights under their picnic tent singing away and not really on key. We could also hear something else that sounded like it was coming from the other campground. The ranger arrived and went down to talk to the women and told them if there were other complaints, they would be required to pack up and leave immediately. He walked on down toward the other campground to investigate the other noises and they were coming from the playground where the teen sons of the women doing karaoke....playing on the playground equipment with big sticks, using them as drums. It was a very "happening" evening and we have had no other occurrences of karaoke AFTER quiet hours. Before quiet hours, there is always some type of music in the park. Some good, some not so good; but we do live in a major bluegrass region of the south.
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