Gorgeous Day to be a Camp Host!!

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You're building character. going to be better than ever after this!

I love hearing your reports.
 
Next year you will have lots of choice of which campground to take so you can move your way up to one that works better for you.
Bob
 
akrvbob said:
Next year you will have lots of choice of which campground to take so you can move your way up to one that works better for you.
Bob

That's a good point, Bob, thank you for helping me keep some perspective. To regain some sanity today, I drove up the old Forest Service road leading out of the campground, and found a spectacular spot. Sat on the hood of the car leaning back against the windshield and just soaked in my surroundings for a while. There was a fantastic breeze blowing through the trees, and I had no place else to be. When the "I'm suffocating!!" anxiety finally ebbed I returned to the campground, read a book, and took a nap. I'm going to do that more often for my mental health.
 
Nana,
You mention drinking in a few posts, so it has my curiosity up -- evidently there is no prohibition against alcohol consumption in the campgrounds? On some federal lands like wildlife refuges there are, so I was just wondering. (I don't drink so I had never thought to look this up...LOL)
 
WriterMs said:
Nana,
You mention drinking in a few posts, so it has my curiosity up -- evidently there is no prohibition against alcohol consumption in the campgrounds? On some federal lands like wildlife refuges there are, so I was just wondering. (I don't drink so I had never thought to look this up...LOL)

Nope, no prohibition here! The only thing they can't do is chop down living trees, and have fire outside of the set fire rings. And they're supposed to be quiet between 10pm and 6am, which usually works. :rolleyes:
 
MY campgrounds were pretty remote so I didn't have many weekday campers so it wasn't much of a problem for me. But I still left the campground on all my days off and boondocked somewhere else. Like you, it was easy to find a gorgeous place where I was all alone and could just totally unwind.

It's good for your sanity!
Bob
 
akrvbob said:
MY campgrounds were pretty remote so I didn't have many weekday campers so it wasn't much of a problem for me. But I still left the campground on all my days off and boondocked somewhere else. Like you, it was easy to find a gorgeous place where I was all alone and could just totally unwind.

It's good for your sanity!
Bob

When I buy, and am living in, your van, I'll be boondocking every chance I get! :D
 
Had to drive to the bigger town today for groceries, and man was it hot!! Probably in the mid 90s. When I was driving back "home" I could see the clouds blanketing my mountain, and was so happy! I arrived to 65 degree weather, and right about the time I had everything transferred from car to motor home, a gigantic, lovely, amazing thunderstorm hit, with a torrential downpour of rain. Seems to be clearing up now, but the temperature is only 61 degrees, which is perfect blanket snuggling weather.
 
"Just another day in paradise , livin' the dream , it makes up for the small stuff,,,,,(don't sweat the small stuff)". :cool:

Are you buying Bob's van? That could make your tranny problems small stuff too!
 
rvpopeye said:
"Just another day in paradise , livin' the dream , it makes up for the small stuff,,,,,(don't sweat the small stuff)". :cool:

Are you buying Bob's van? That could make your tranny problems small stuff too!

I would love to buy Bob's van when he's ready to move out of it, but he probably has a long line of people interested in it. If the opportunity presents itself, and a deal struck that would make both of us happy, it'd be grand!
 
We had a little lightning-strike fire start nearby, last night. This morning, helicopters and Forest Service trucks were all over the place, and were still trying to get TO the fire. The commander asked if I had room for firefighters to spend the night here tonight, and I assured him that if they let me know what they needed, I'd make sure they got it. Here's the update from inciweb, but the information seems a little off. http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4280/

At 12:30pm today I was told they had JUST reached the fire location, and the helicopter was still making trips to the river for water. Now it's 3pm, and it's STILL picking up and dumping water. We were absolutely drenched last in last night's rain, so that should help slow things down, too. I'm glad it's still green and wet up here!

I'm feeling motivated to study those firefighting books that Stewie loaned me!!
 
Today was another great day up here. A bit warm and humid, weatherwise, but I have a great group of people this weekend. Started morning rounds with the discovery that 6 old men had set up camp in the middle of the night, in a spot marked as reserved for someone else, so I had to make them move. I hated to do it because they had such a beautiful setup, and were smoking cigars and playing backgammon at 9am. They grumbled a little, and asked if I couldn't move the "reserved" people to another site, but eventually acquiesced and were pretty good sports about it.

Another "regular" showed up early this morning and paid for one of the group sites. I saw his tag on that post at least 4 times during the day, but at some point, it was removed, so another group moved in, then came to pay me for that site and another. I told them the group site belonged to someone else, and they said there was no tag on it, so I drove over and sure enough it was gone, but I explained that the guy had driven all the way up here before work just to pay for this site, and I was going to hold it for him. So they also had to move their entire camp to another site. And, they were also really good sports about it. In fact when they went to town, they brought me back a mini bottle of Patron. I'm saving it...

In addition to the mama black bear and her two cubs, there is apparently an 800lb male brown bear that frequents our campground. Last weekend, it arrived between 3:30 and 4:00am, and searched around all the tents (one older gentleman got scared and left) but tonight, it decided to show up for dinner at 7:30pm. It was seen at two campsites within 50' of the campfire, and only reluctantly ambled off after staring at the people for a while. I hear it's gorgeous, but as yet, haven't seen any of the bears here. Unfortunately, this new behavior may be considered "aggressive" so I'm required to report it to Fish and Game. Sadly, they'll probably decide to put him down, and I'd rather have them shut down the campground, than do that. In the meantime, I'm just letting all the campers know to keep their kids from wandering off on their own.

We had another thunderstorm this evening, with hail the size of ice cubes. It made quite a racket and I thought sure something was going to break, but I didn't find any damage after it had passed. The best part was temperatures dropped from high 80s to low 60s in about 15 minutes. I'm digging this unpredictable weather up here!
 
Nana, who are you kidding, every day I'm sure you wish you had gone to college and gotten a corporate job and were in cubicle somewhere fighting your way up the corporate ladder getting stabbed in the back. That's the really good life!

NOT!!!!!
Bob
 
"NOT!!!" is exactly right, Bob! I am so happy that I will NEVER have to live that life again. Nearly every day is an adventure, and I feel like I'm really living for the first time in my life. I'm going to work hard when I work (Amazon is going to be a rigorous 12 weeks, but I'm looking forward to the challenge), and enjoy every minute I'm not working.

PS: Thank you, again, for opening the door to this fabulous life for me.
 
Another great day up here in the mountains! My 6 grumpy (wonderful) old men had me over for fresh brewed Armenian coffee, and it was fantastic! The weather was muggy again, but we had a brief thunderstorm this afternoon, and although it didn't rain this time, the clouds and the breeze, did lower the temperatures to a comfortable 76 degrees. The LADYBUGS are crazy up here, as i may have mentioned before. Kept getting pelted in the face as I drove through clouds of them in the golf cart. I'm so happy I always wear safety glasses when I drive!

Around 7pm a child started screaming at the top of her lungs, two campsites up from me, and it went on for quite some time. I could feel my jaw clenching, and my blood pressure rising, and then I figured the other campers (as well as the child's parents) were probably feeling the same way, so I walked over and said, "Is someone dying over here?" The mom said, "You'd think so, wouldn't you!" The brother said, "I'm about to die if she doesn't shut up!" I laughed and told them that my sister used to do the same thing when she was a kid, and asked if they wanted me to talk to her (she was inside the tent). They said, "Yes!!!! Tell her we'll have to leave if she doesn't be quiet, because I swear I will pack this all up right now and go home!" So I walked over, and knelt down by the screen window, and this beautiful blond 6-1/2 year old with big, tear-filled blue eyes looked out at me. I said, "You sound SO upset! Is there something I can help you with?" She said something about somebody throwing away something and wasting all of it, and I couldn't really understand her because she was sobbing. So, I got her to take some deep breaths, and said that I felt like screaming sometimes too, and it usually helped if I could take some deep breaths and maybe even lie down for a minute and not think about anything for a while. I promised her that even though it seemed right now like the biggest awful thing that could happen, tomorrow it wouldn't seem like such a big deal. Then we talked about swimming, and fishing, and ladybugs, and I got her giggling a little, and I told her to come and let me know if she needed me to help her with anything, and we "high-fived" and that was that. I can hear her laughing and playing with her family now, and feel like I saved a family camping trip.

There are some other really great kids here this weekend, and I spent some time surrounded by 10 of them, answering questions as fast as I could, and finally had to resort to having them raise their hands. Two other beautiful little girls, aged 3 and 5 sang the alphabet song for me, and proved that each of them could spell their last name for the registration form.

Haven't had a mouse in two nights... knock on wood.
 
Tammi, Have I told you how proud I am of you!!

I remember when you first joined this site and how uncertain you were of this whole move to freedom!!

You GO Girl!!
 
Another day on the "good" side of the list !
Those little campers can sure be fun........you seem to have the necessary skills to help them cope.
Bet the family will be thanking you for that !
 
Almost There said:
Tammi, Have I told you how proud I am of you!!

I remember when you first joined this site and how uncertain you were of this whole move to freedom!!

You GO Girl!!


Thank you, Almost! :heart:
 
rvpopeye said:
Another day on the "good" side of the list !
Those little campers can sure be fun........you seem to have the necessary skills to help them cope.
Bet the family will be thanking you for that !

I'm just happy they're all having a good time now!
 
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