Our Worst Camping Weekend
We are fortunate to live close by a beautiful Provincial Park and try to use it when we get a break in our busy summer schedules. The wife and I both have fairly stressful jobs and it's nice to get away, leave the cell phones off and just relax and unwind for a couple of days.
Last week, my wife found out that she could get a rare 3 day weekend and I juggled my schedule to get the same 3 days off. Thursday, I snuck out of work for a couple of hours to get a campsite and bring in the fifth wheel. I found a site, one of only few still available and set out some lawn chairs and a tablecloth on the picnic table to hold the spot until I could pick up the trailer from storage and get it set up. Fortunetly for me, a ranger came along and informed me that while in the past that was sufficient to hold the site, lately it seems that courtesy has fallen aside and you have to either have a tent or trailer set up and/or have a paid permit on the post. I was able to track down the ranger that did registrations and paid for our site. I got the trailer set up shortly afterwards and that went okay.
I finished up my work day and the wife and I loaded up our food and clothing and were all set up for a relaxing weekend by 7:00 Thursday evening.
The first thing we found was that our camping neighbours had a BIG dog that barked every time a car drove past or people walked by. It had one of those 5.5 Richter scale barks followed by its owner yelling at it to shut up.
Behind us in another campsite was a young family with a crying infant and a toddler screaming because she was not getting whatever it was that she wanted. Now I have kids (long ago grown up) and I know what it's like to have them misbehaving but never did I go off on them the way that their mother did. She was yelling at them, making threats and fueling their cries and tantrums. It went on until well after dark when we finally got some relief when they went to sleep.
At 7:00 Friday morning it started back up again. The dog barking and the kids screaming. Just ignore it, just ignore it, relax.
Sometime around noon some people set up a table and chairs in the vacant site across from us and thinking that that was enough to hold their site, went to get their trailer. Shortly sfterwards, before they returned, another camper came along, packed up their belongings and put them out on the road then claimed the site as their own. When the original people came back there was a lot of argueing and the rangers had to get involved. This went on most of the afternoon.
We still had the barking dog and the noisy family and finally we had enough. Packed it all up and headed home. So much for our nice relaxing weekend.
Last week, my wife found out that she could get a rare 3 day weekend and I juggled my schedule to get the same 3 days off. Thursday, I snuck out of work for a couple of hours to get a campsite and bring in the fifth wheel. I found a site, one of only few still available and set out some lawn chairs and a tablecloth on the picnic table to hold the spot until I could pick up the trailer from storage and get it set up. Fortunetly for me, a ranger came along and informed me that while in the past that was sufficient to hold the site, lately it seems that courtesy has fallen aside and you have to either have a tent or trailer set up and/or have a paid permit on the post. I was able to track down the ranger that did registrations and paid for our site. I got the trailer set up shortly afterwards and that went okay.
I finished up my work day and the wife and I loaded up our food and clothing and were all set up for a relaxing weekend by 7:00 Thursday evening.
The first thing we found was that our camping neighbours had a BIG dog that barked every time a car drove past or people walked by. It had one of those 5.5 Richter scale barks followed by its owner yelling at it to shut up.
Behind us in another campsite was a young family with a crying infant and a toddler screaming because she was not getting whatever it was that she wanted. Now I have kids (long ago grown up) and I know what it's like to have them misbehaving but never did I go off on them the way that their mother did. She was yelling at them, making threats and fueling their cries and tantrums. It went on until well after dark when we finally got some relief when they went to sleep.
At 7:00 Friday morning it started back up again. The dog barking and the kids screaming. Just ignore it, just ignore it, relax.
Sometime around noon some people set up a table and chairs in the vacant site across from us and thinking that that was enough to hold their site, went to get their trailer. Shortly sfterwards, before they returned, another camper came along, packed up their belongings and put them out on the road then claimed the site as their own. When the original people came back there was a lot of argueing and the rangers had to get involved. This went on most of the afternoon.
We still had the barking dog and the noisy family and finally we had enough. Packed it all up and headed home. So much for our nice relaxing weekend.
