What's the WORST Experience You ever had at a RV/Camp site?

[Chainwright]

Care to share any of your Worst Experience at an RV park/Camp site, do to Loud music, Loud neighbors, Intoxication, Burglary, Accidents (auto/RV/TT/5er) or whatever?

[azrving]

4x4van wrote:
We do a large group gathering at Glamis every year for Thanksgiving, and last year a group were camped next to us who were, shall we say, a bit more rowdy than we are? We can get pretty loud and obnoxious ourselves, but always respect quiet time and others around us. We usually load up on Saturday night and pull out first thing in the morning, in order to beat the traffic on Sunday, and this time was no different.

Around 11pm, the group next door started to shoot off fireworks to go along with their super loud "questionable" lyric "music". Fine, I'm not a prude and there's nothing out there to catch fire but sand...Wait, and RVs... The amount of alcohol was having an effect, and their aim started getting worse. After a couple large bottle rockets fell over and fired towards our camp, we were getting ready to intervene when one fell over and fired off directly into the side of one of our rigs.

Immediately, we had every male (and many females) in our group in their faces to quiet down, shut down, get control of their "fun", etc. They apologized, and we returned to our rigs to try to get a bit of sleep before morning, but they decided to push things, and started to actually "aim" the fireworks towards us, running inside their DPs each time and hiding/refusing to come out. We called the Sheriff, but it took 30-45 minutes for them to show, and the group refused to come out of their DP,s pretending to be asleep even with the Sheriff's spotlight, flashing lights, loudspeaker, and banging on the doors.

By this time, it was 2am, and since we were in fact already "loaded", we pulled out, cruised about 1 mile down the road, and parked to finish getting a few Zs before heading home at the crack of dawn.

Those people could have been in need of some sort of medical help if they weren't able to come to the door. Sheriff should have started busting windows out to rescue them. 😉

[4x4van]

We do a large group gathering at Glamis every year for Thanksgiving, and last year a group were camped next to us who were, shall we say, a bit more rowdy than we are? We can get pretty loud and obnoxious ourselves, but always respect quiet time and others around us. We usually load up on Saturday night and pull out first thing in the morning, in order to beat the traffic on Sunday, and this time was no different.

Around 11pm, the group next door started to shoot off fireworks to go along with their super loud "questionable" lyric "music". Fine, I'm not a prude and there's nothing out there to catch fire but sand...Wait, and RVs... The amount of alcohol was having an effect, and their aim started getting worse. After a couple large bottle rockets fell over and fired towards our camp, we were getting ready to intervene when one fell over and fired off directly into the side of one of our rigs.

Immediately, we had every male (and many females) in our group in their faces to quiet down, shut down, get control of their "fun", etc. They apologized, and we returned to our rigs to try to get a bit of sleep before morning, but they decided to push things, and started to actually "aim" the fireworks towards us, running inside their DPs each time and hiding/refusing to come out. We called the Sheriff, but it took 30-45 minutes for them to show, and the group refused to come out of their DP,s pretending to be asleep even with the Sheriff's spotlight, flashing lights, loudspeaker, and banging on the doors.

By this time, it was 2am, and since we were in fact already "loaded", we pulled out, cruised about 1 mile down the road, and parked to finish getting a few Zs before heading home at the crack of dawn.

[seagrace]

Years ago I borrowed my MIL's Roadtrek van to drag my quad out to a NF campground with access to a nice riding area. This particular NF is a PITA that requires you to purchase hang-tags to camp in designated areas, so I always have a couple in the glove box. I arrived and selected a site in the deserted CG, started a fire to get warm (it was January, after all). Then decided to hang my tag before I got too toasted to remember it. I found my tags and went to scratch off the dates, and dang, it had expired months before. The rangers in this particular district are somewhat strict, and knowing this, I decided to leave the CG and find a spot off a trail I had spotted a few miles back.

Arriving at my dispersed site, there was already a firepit, so I tossed some logs on and started to relax with a beer. After about ten minutes of burning, the fire started popping loudly. Not wood popping loud, but explosion loud, echoing off the nearby cliffs. Turns out some moron must have dumped ammunition in the firepit. Geez! I stood with my quad/trailer between me and the fire, but it was just too cold. I gave up, and crawled into the Roadtrek to get some sleep. It was a very cold night and I pretty much shivered all night long.

Up at dawn the next morning, temps in the mid twenties, and went to unload the quad. I figured a nice ride would get me out of the funk from the previous nights fun times. Hopped on the quad, turned the key, not even a click. The cold had killed the battery. At this point, I figured I better just throw in the towel. Loaded up and headed back to town.

I still believe a bad day camping is better than the best day at the office.

[Jarlaxle]

Chainwright wrote:

hokeypokey wrote:
Got 2 fingers pinched in an aluminum door frame as we were setting up a pop up years ago. Pain didn't let up until 10 pm. I was pretty rung out from it, so I thought I'd take a shower at the shower house then go to bed. The sidewalk wasn't well lighted and I fell straight forward when I caught my foot on a substantial raise in the sidewalk. Got the wind knocked out of me and scraped both knees and palm of one hand. Next day I had a nice beach towel stolen from right under my nose at the pool. Camping trip from Hell.

Daaaang, sounds like some "stuff" straight outt'of a Movie.

...starring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curley Howard?

[Jarlaxle]

Nothing that I have seen can top my friend & his wife's experience: two idiots about 100' away got drunk.

After a case of Corona each, they decided that 1am was a good time to start YODELING.

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

I don't recall a "worst" - but certainly remember the "most different". I had booked a private campground for our extended family, so we could all go kayaking. The campground had been recommended by a friend who had camped there a few times with her church group, and they always had a wonderful time.

Welllll, between my friend's last trip and our arrival, the camp had been sold to a new group, supporting the Medical Marijuana users - its new nickname was "Cannabis Camp". The good? Everyone was super-friendly 🙂 and we had live music all day long and late into the night - since we don't mind the Grateful Dead, Tom Petty, etc we were OK with that. The not-so-good: zero maintenance had been done since the change in ownership. Our picnic-table-pavilion had a wasp nest larger than a football in the rafters. And the kayak trip, which was supposed to be a 2-hour beginner-level trip, turned into a 5 hour obstacle course, starting with the drop-off point which entailed about a 200' slog through thigh-deep muck. Oh yeah - and after that trip, you were treated to an ice-cold shower, because nobody had hooked up the new water heater.

Funniest moment: when my 5 yr old granddaughter asked her mom "Why is everyone wearing shirts with leaves on them?" and my daughter didn't miss a beat: "They're Canadian, honey" (my apologies to our Canadian members, some day we'll tell her the truth - that your maple leaves are red)

[SpeakEasy]

Hard to pick the worst, but here's one that COULD have easily become the worst.

At a CG in Colorado years ago. Guy was running a generator that could have been heard in Nebraska. This was around dinnertime. It ran for hours. Then, when quiet hours came along (8:00PM) he kept running it. I am not exaggerating about hearing it in the next state. I decided I had had enough, so I walked on down to his site and reminded him about quiet hours. He asked me if I was a ranger. I said, "No, but I can go get a ranger if that is what it will take to get you turn this thing off." This was where things could have gotten ugly. His wife said to him, "Just turn it off." I guess in their relationship it was "She who must be obeyed," because he did as she asked and I went on my way.

Today when I think about it I can't believe how stupid I was.

-Speak

[Scottiemom]

Years ago in a COE park in Mississippi, DH went to the showerhouse to take a shower. In this particular showerhouse a rowdy group of teens were vandalizing the place. It was late/dark out and they were flushing whole rolls of toilet paper down the toilets clogging them up. They were smacking wet toilet paper against the wall as well just causing mayhem and damage.

They finished and took off for their campsite. DH followed enough to know where they went. The next morning he visited the ranger station and asked about the damage. Told them he knew what campsite the kids went to. The ranger rounded them up and made their parents and them pay for the damages and banned them all from the park I think for like 10 years or something.

🙂

[hoosiermark]

Remember when I got my first class A. 3 kids are about 6-8-10. Went to a family reunion, so proud of my rv. Other close family members are going to be sleeping in tents,not my family! Well of course it started raining hard around midnight. In an hour we had 12 people in a 24 foot unit, most kids. I got the drivers seat, so every time I dozed off and moved a little bit I hit the horn button. Oh what memories!

[nineoaks2004]

I visited a Fl State park where the volunteers ran the CG. If you were not in their cliche you were basically not welcome and they let you know and feel it. , One even cursed our little dog who was on a 6' leash quote" I do not like d** dogs and they should not be all We did not see the ranger the whole time we were there
even tho we asked to see him. Needless to say we will not return

[Veebyes]

This one is still active. Hopefully the judge will see how nonsensical it is & dismiss the whole thing along with a repremand to the ranger concerned.

We have a Drain Master dump system installed. For those not familiar with Drain Master, it is a system where the discharge hose is permanently connected & retracts into a storage tube under the trailer. The discharge end does NOT have a bayonet fitting for extensions.

This system makes for very quick visits to the CG dump however being unable to use extensions makes it very limited to use in CG FHU sites which do not always have the dump near the center of the site.

Such was the case at Colorado's Cheyenne Mtn SP. Dump at the back & totally unreachable to us.

Eleven years of travelling & some 1600 nights on the road with unknown dumps, this has never been a big problem. The CG either has a dump, in which case we go use that on departure, or we stop at an unoccupied pull through & dump there getting close to the site dump.

Cheyenne Mtn SP does NOT have a CG dump so we were in the process of a quick dumping at a nearby pull through, when along comes young Ranger Jane who takes issue with us being in the pull through site for a few minutes dumping 4 days worth from 3 people.

We get a citation for being in a site other than the one assigned to us.

Say what!!!!

This was not our first visit to Cheyenne Mtn SP. Last time we dumped the same way without issue from anyone. This time, upon realising that the dump was unusable to us on the day of arrival, we happened to see a park host, who saw no problem with doing what we have done many times before.

Huge problem for this ranger who was not interested in why we were doing what we were doing. We have never come across such a rude officious person in all of our days on the road. Not like there was anyone waiting for the site. In fact it was a mid week day, the temps were in the high 30s, it had been raining all morning & the wind was howling. There was NOBODY else on that loop. People had left early because of the weather & I doubt if anyone was coming in.

We had delayed our departure due to safety concerns of wind on the highway so we were a half hour late getting out of our site after getting an updated weather forecast. No matter to this ranger.

Safe to assume that we will not be returning to Cheyenne Mtn SP anytime soon.

We are supposed to appear in a Colorado Springs court in a few days for arraingment. Well, that is not happening. We are over 3000 miles from Colorado. We HAVE mailed an Application for Dismissal which explains everything in much greater detail. They can chew on that.

End of rant.

All over a few minutes to dump holding tanks.

[DiskDoctr]

ppine wrote:
The worst recent experience was a canoe trip on Lake Shasta. We paddled for a day up one of the arms of the lake to a remote boat in campsite. After a couple of days a giant houseboat showed up with students from the Univ of Oregon. There must have been more than 20 of them. I had a talk with a couple of guys about noise and partying. They said "they would be respectful."
At 3 am they were going strong with a loud sound system playing the worst hip-hop with lyrics about various sex acts. I could not confront them, and we couldn't leave because it was dark and country was steep. When we got back to the boat ramp my truck had been broken into. No more trips to Lake Shasta.

Did the houseboat sink fast or slow? 😛

[allen8106]

Got bit on the hamstring by a border collie type dog running loose for no reason I can figure out. Was walking down to the waters edge minding my own business, saw him come up behind me out of the corner of my eye and before I could react he bit me.

There were kids running around there screaming and hollering while at play long before I arrived. We were surprised he didn't bite one of them.

Owner got a $135 fine for allowing his dog to run free in a state park and I got 10 stitches in the ER.

[ppine]

The worst recent experience was a canoe trip on Lake Shasta. We paddled for a day up one of the arms of the lake to a remote boat in campsite. After a couple of days a giant houseboat showed up with students from the Univ of Oregon. There must have been more than 20 of them. I had a talk with a couple of guys about noise and partying. They said "they would be respectful."
At 3 am they were going strong with a loud sound system playing the worst hip-hop with lyrics about various sex acts. I could not confront them, and we couldn't leave because it was dark and country was steep. When we got back to the boat ramp my truck had been broken into. No more trips to Lake Shasta.

[mikim]

Camping at San Onofre State Beach campground...we spent the day at the beach. Got back to our Lazy Daze Class C and started dinner. Our 9 year old son and one of is friends are at the table and say "dad, why is there a guy with a gun on our camp table".. I look out the back window and there is a Border Agent standing on our table with a 12-gauge shotgun scanning the brush between us and the beach....over a hundred illegal aliens cutting through the campground. I do not know how many border agents where in that campground but at least 12 people entered the culvert near us under I-5 with Border agents after them. Have never been back.