Well the end of the year is coming now and I feel that I do not want to stop camping, although it gets real lonesome up there during the week all alone.
We have maybe 5 campers during the week and 2 of them will be one nighters and 2 others will be there just to sleep and the last one will be some nut-job who you would rather stay away from anyway so sitting at the camp-site reading the complete works of Sherlock Holmes has been the norm for me the last few weeks.
This week promises to be busy. We have all reservations sites full, but one, and with the forecast for good weather it may fill up.
I can see alittle trouble may come to my end of the campground where there are 4 sites reserved under the same name so I am sure there will be some sort of gathering on one site but maybe it will be ok.
I have had some where you think trouble is eminent and nothing at all happens.
Last week I had a visit from the bear on my site.
It was kind of scary because the door to the camper, being so old, can be open with just a tug, without the latch being touched.
Anyway, I had made some noodles with meat sause for supper hopeing the high carb diet would warm me up after a chily low 50 degree day with no sun, and it being the begining of my work week I had no room in the small
fridge for the left overs.
Knowing it would be down in the 30's that night I reasoned that the left over food would be just fine on the floor of the camper down by the door.
I have a lounge chair leaned up against the camper in the same area and around 5 AM. I heard some noised outside and though for sure someone was maybe stealing some wood or maybe the chair so I got up and held the flash
light to the window and saw the bear right by the door sniffing.
Now as said I know the door is touchey and even when getting out of the bed and walking across the floor will make the latch click and the door will be open,
Thank God it is just one step to the door because I was out of bed and my hand was on the latch before it openend and with that little noise the bear was walking away.
I then tried the lock on the door and even with that set I could just give a push and it would open.
I need to extend the latch so it catches better.
I do have a hasp and lock that I put on while I am away or traveling down the road that keeps the door locked and safe.
Another thing happend at camp last week that made me kind of laugh to myself. (nobody to laugh with).
Being so empty, one of our campers who was staying an extended stay asked if he could run his
generator until 8:00, an hour longer then regular running hours and management said sure if nobody's around it would not be a problem.
Well, it was one of those real noisy generators and you could hear it quite a ways off.
A young couple came in and started to set up and I did my walk around and they asked if that
generator was going to go all night and I had told them that he would be shutting it off at 8 and they kept on insiting it was "real anoying" to them and I sugested moving to another site where they could not hear it and I would change thier slip to the proper campsite and they said that would be the thing they would do.
So wouldn't you know it they came up and took the site next to me.
Well that was OK but they had th is old beat-up VW Desel bus that had no muffler it seamed. No wonder they didn't like that genoerator it reminded them of being still on the road. anyway I vowed that if they started that thing during the middle of the night, to warm up I was toing to be over there in a flash because there was another camper just to the other side of them too.
Well around 8 PM they start to play the bongo's.... not even in tempo... I had enough so I turned on my radio and after about 20 minutes they stopped and no more was heard from them until 7 am when they left.
Well, the wife and I may take a trip up to Grafton Notch in Maine to go leaf peeping today but I fear that they have all gone by or fallen off with the wind.
Hope all of your camping season was as interesting as mine and hope to see you on the road sometime in the future.
Gerry the canoebuilder