Adventures in Volunteering: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

The S.O. and I spent the month of September functioning as campground hosts at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. This was our second time at the Hurricane River Campground, which made the whole experience much smoother than the previous year. We knew exactly what we were getting into. The biggest mystery was what type of attagirl swag we'd get at the end of the month. Turned out to be coffee cups,  a whistle that can double as a key ring, and stickers. Last year we got baseball caps, lapel pins, and stickers. We'd have gotten the caps again this year except we already had some. (The baseball caps actually appear on the first day as a VIP; it's part of the uniform that helps identify the camp hosts to the public.)

Among other certainties, we knew that the one phrase we were going to be uttering a lot was, "Hey, you fucking moron, don't you know what 'No Parking' means?" Well, okay, we didn't phrase it quite the way we were thinking it. What actually came out of the mouth was "Excuse me, ma'am, but this is a fire lane. You can't park here. The sign right next to your car does say 'No Parking.' Seriously. You can not park here. Yes, you have to move to the parking lot. Really. The parking lot. Yes, it does mean you'll have a longer walk to the light house. Yes, it'll turn a mile-and-a-half walk into a mile and six-tenths one way." And so it went. . . the downside to the host's camp site being right next to the Au Sable Lighthouse Trail/North Country Trail, which at that point is a gated access road to the light station. People would pull up by that gate on a regular basis and then get annoyed when they were told to move.

That whole business with people being reluctant to walk an extra 500 feet never failed to amuse me. You're planning a round-trip walk of at least three miles, not to mention the wandering around the light station grounds and maybe climbing a fairly tall tower, but you can't handle having another 2/10ths of a mile tacked on to it? Unreal. The totally predictable part, of course, is that it was generally someone who looked remarkably fit who was reluctant to do any extra walking. The ancient old ladies dragging oxygen bottles and pushing walkers never complained. They just headed up the road with a determined look and came back a few hours later still with a spring in their step, sort of. Or as much of a spring in their step as anyone who looked like a relative of the Crypt Keeper could manage.

Au Sable Lighthouse Trail. People loved to park right in front of the gate (which has a no parking sign on it) or right next to the No Parking sign on a post to the left in the photo. 

I wasn't the only one who noticed that the geezers weren't fazed while the young dudes who looked like gym rats would be collapsing from exhaustion. One of the interpretive rangers who worked at the light station told me he regularly had ostensibly fit young people asking about a shuttle service back to the parking lot while the senior citizens just smiled and kept on truckin'. More proof looks can be deceiving -- just because someone looks healthy doesn't mean they are and vice versa.

Ever wonder just exactly what a brick shithouse would look like? Wonder no more. The Au Sable Light Station has two, one of which is in this photo. It's the small structure on the left. The other two small buildings are paint and oil lockers. 

Anyway. Pictured Rocks. Hurricane River. Wrote about both before but that's not going to stop me from nattering on a third time. Hurricane River is a small campground with a total of a mere 22 sites (including the host's). It is a true campground, completely basic, no amenities other than fairly new vault toilets and a source for potable water. There is a well with a solar-powered pump so people can fill containers. The sites in general are nicely laid out and are great for tent camping. For RV campers, though, probably not so much. The parking pads tend to be narrow even when they're long enough so anyone with slides could have issues. Most of the sites have the added issue of not being particularly level. I know with the Guppy the S.O. had to put a fair amount of blocking under the right rear wheels.

It's not obvious from this photo, but this is a great site in the lower loop for tent camping. It opens up a lot past the parking pad -- lots of space for a tent, a sun/rain canopy over the picnic table, nice fire ring, and lots of trees to screen you from the other camp sites. For an RV, though? Marginal for anything bigger than a Class B. The narrow pad has a distinct slope. 

We did not see many RVs this year, definitely fewer than last year.  Most campers used tents. For those who had an RV of any sort, the micro teardrop trailers seemed to be the most popular piece of equipment with pop-ups and Class Bs a close second, particularly on the lower loop. The upper loop is better suited for larger travel trailers and motorhomes, and we did see a fair number of both up there. The most astounding was probably a 40-foot Class A. They did manage to pick the one site in the loop that is  the easiest to back into, but that was probably sheer dumb luck and not planning. We heard from some locals that they had encountered that same Class A when its GPS sent it down an ATV trail instead of the county highway. They came into the campground to see if the people had managed to find Hurricane River after they'd told the driver how to get back to a real road.

Found at one of the camp sites. It had a cute little saying on the back. I threw it in the trash. Painted rocks, cute or not, are litter and in the same class as discarded water bottles and other debris. They violate the Leave No Trace ethic. 

We also saw a huge 5th wheel in the upper loop. They weren't as lucky as the Class A. We could tell from the tracks in the dirt that it had taken the driver multiple tries to get the trailer where it needed to go -- it was a very tight turn with a couple of rather large trees on either side of the parking pad. Never did see the owners when we were making our regular patrols through the loops. If I had, I'd have been tempted to ask them just how much K-Y they'd had to use to get the trailer on to the site.

Beelzebub napping in the Guppy. I wasn't sure how he'd take to being stuck in a space that small, but it turned out mice had moved in sometime in late August. He found ways to amuse himself. The mice did not have as a good a time. 

There had been changes at the park. Dogs are now allowed on the lighthouse trail. Last year they weren't so we were in the uncomfortable position of telling people if/when we spotted someone with a dog that they had to take the beast back to their car. I have some thoughts about the folks who want their dogs to accompany them everywhere they go -- I don't think it's such a hot idea to be walking a dog anyplace that's both crowded and has a lot of other dogs around because no matter how behaved your beast is you never know if some other idiot has Cujo on an inadequate leash. (Small digression: we were at Tahquamenon Falls on Labor Day and witnessed a couple walking a large dog that snapped and growled at every other dog it saw and almost bit a kid. That dog definitely should not have been in a state park on a super busy day.) But if the Park Service has decided dogs are now allowed on trails where they weren't before, I'm going to be quietly relieved that's one less thing I'm required to nag people about.

The S.O. working hard at camp hosting.

Another huge change is the park went to all campsites being available by reservation only. It is a real-time system. If you come to the campground and think a site might be available, you can get on the Internet, go to Recreation.gov, check on the site, and pay for it immediately. I talked with campers who had reserved their site while stopped at the Grand Sable Visitor Center 20 minutes before arriving at the campground.

I think it's a great system. No questions about whether or not a site is available, no having to get to the campground super early in the hopes that someone is leaving. And no one cheating NPS by failing to put money into the envelope like they did back when camping was first come, first served and payment was on the honor system. We heard a few complaints from people who didn't realize it was now reservation only until after they arrived at the park, but considering the campground was close to 100% occupancy until the last few days of the month I'd say most people had done their research. I know one annoyance is now gone -- the large number of cars and trucks coming into the campground and circling repeatedly hoping to see that someone has vacated a site.

Hurricane River flowing straight out, at least for a day or two. 

We did have one site where people managed to completely ignore the multiple signs all saying camping was by reservation only and set up on a site. I had to give them the bad news the site was reserved by someone else and they had to take all their stuff down and leave. They weren't happy, but they complied without much argument. As camp hosts, we received a report each morning listing the names of incoming campers. It helped. Except for that one incident we didn't have anyone trying to squat on a reserved site, but it was still reassuring to be able to do random spot checks to make sure people belonged there. And for sure it helped a lot to have a clipboard in my hand with a multi-page printout as I told the unauthorized campers that if their names weren't on the printout they were SOL on that particular site. If they were lucky, the state forest campground a few miles down the highway had space -- and all state forest campgrounds are still walk-in, first-come, first-serve. (Michigan state parks do use a reservation system, but they also have staff on-site and offer more amenities than the campgrounds.)

One first this time around was people wanting to park vehicles on the tent pads. Had one guy who had one of those nifty tents that's mounted on the box of a pickup position his truck right on the tent pad -- his reasoning was that it was the one level space. True, but he was lucky he didn't get stuck. Tent pads are designed to be comparatively soft. They're periodically maintained to keep the dirt from becoming too compacted. Another dude backed his pop-up camper onto a tent pad using the same reasoning: the pad is level. Given that he was already on one of the flattest sites in the campground, I wasn't real sympathetic. Pop-ups are remarkably easy to level almost anywhere. I gave him the speech about never parking on a tent pad because they're soft and you can easily get stuck, too. I doubt if it registered.

We did tell the park we'd be happy to come back next year. September is a great time to be at Pictured Rocks. The bugs are gone -- Hurricane River would be an obvious mecca for mosquitoes and biting stable flies in the hotter months; there's a lot of swamp around it -- and the weather has that nifty crisp feel to it. When the sun shines, the sky is an incredible shade of blue and so is the Lake. And when it's rainy and the wind is blowing, the wave action on the Lake is nicely dramatic. Large waves always mean getting to play the "which way will the river flow out now?" game. The mouth of the Hurricane River changed on an almost daily basis. Sometimes it went straight out, sometimes it swung west, sometimes it swung east, and on at least once occasion it split: long sand bar right in the middle and the river going around it. You know life is good when the biggest question each day is which way is the river flowing now?

Life as a VIP at Pictured Rocks

I occasionally tell the S.O. that it's a shame no one goes looking for volunteers to serve as hermits, or maybe to do living history as someone who's Old Order Amish and has never heard of the Internet. I am an absolutely classic introvert, a person who falls into the deepest corner of the psychotic loner quadrant on the Meyer Briggs Type Inventory. People drain me. Even virtual people on Facebook or via email drain me. So when I saw that Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore was looking for campground hosts for the month of September, my first thought was "Perfect! No one in their right mind goes camping next to Lake Superior in September, especially not at a rustic campground." I figured it would be a nice mellow people-free break after dealing with museum issues all summer.

Our cheap solar panels from Harbor Freight. They actually work pretty well despite the site not getting much direct sunlight.

Holy wah, was I wrong. The number of people at the Hurricane River Campground did not change much after Labor Day as compared to before Labor Day. Occupancy dropped Labor Day weekend -- the campground had been full on Sunday morning, and dropped to next to nothing on Monday. Oh good, thought I, we get to coast for the next 4 weeks.

Trail to the lighthouse. It's also part of the North Country Trail so in addition to the lighthouse foamers we see backpackers staggering along realizing too late they packed way more heavy stuff than they should have. 

Pshaw. On Tuesday, September 4, both loops of the campground were full well before noon. People were apparently hovering like vultures waiting for a cow to take its last breath hoping to see campers currently on sites deciding to leave. And it was like that for two solid weeks. Things finally slacked off last weekend when we got hit with gale force winds and weather so nasty they actually cancelled the lighthouse tours. When we left yesterday to come home for what amounts to our 24-hour weekend, the campground was "only" about half full.

On the positive side, we had only one incident where some guys paid for a site but failed to put anything substantial on it so someone else assumed it was empty. That led to some unpleasantness but no actual fist fights -- we were told that toward the end of August there had been a similar incident but in that case punches were thrown and law enforcement became involved. The campground rules clearly state that if you pay for a site, you must put something on it: a tent, a trailer, a screen tent over the picnic table, a tarp over a clothesline, something substantial enough to indicate the site is taken. If you don't, you're likely to discover that no one pays any attention to that little tag on the post other than the camp host who gets to go around copying the information (camper's name, vehicle license number, and planned departure date) on to a spreadsheet. And if you complain about someone taking your site, you'll get treated to "Did you read the rules? Did you leave something on the site that clearly indicated the site was occupied? Do you see where it says 'No Refunds' in multiple places on the form?" Then, if you're foolish enough to push the issue, you'll get to see the host key the radio and utter the ominous phrase "Any Ranger. . . Hurricane. We have a situation." Which is a strong clue that you should just suck it up and walk away before your disappointment about losing your camp site turns into dismay over the fine you incur if you decide to argue with the LEO.

Tower at the Au Sable Light Station. It was built in 1874. It is known as a Poe tower because Orlando Poe was the engineering secretary for the Lighthouse Service at the time of its design. 

But I digress a bit. The campground was busy. In addition to the people camping, the day use parking lots tended to be full regardless of weather. The Hurricane River Campground is also the trail head for the trail to the Au Sable Light Station. I personally am not that enamored of light stations -- you see one Poe tower you've basically seen them all (the government loves cookie cutter designs) -- but I must be the exception.  I look at that tower and don't go into ecstatic spasms about how beautiful it is. I look at it and think "The lantern needs painting."

The one amusing aspect about the lighthouse foamers is their obsession with parking as close to the lighthouse as they can get. It is at a minimum a 1.5 (as in one-and-a-half) mile walk one way. That's from the gate close to the host's site. If you park in the day use lot like you're supposed to, you've added maybe another tenth of a mile to the hike, two tenths if you think about the round trip total.

Hurricane River. Supposedly there are fish in it. I've sent the S.O. out a couple times with instructions to catch a steelhead or a brook trout. So far no luck on his part. 

Still, I've managed to survive it being so people-y. Pushing the S.O. to being the person who actually answers questions and deals with the most with the public helped. The fact most people are more fascinated by the light station than they are by the beach at this time of year also helps. A person can go down, watch the waves, and pretend a world exists that is free of politics and weirdness.

The S.O. checking out remnants of a 19th century shipwreck. This past of the Lake Superior shoreline was notorious for shipwrecks even after the Au Sable Light was built.

In any case, hosting here has been an interesting experience. It's the longest we've ever tried dry camping. We got to test out the solar panels, figure out how long the water in the fresh water tank will last before the pump started sucking air, test drove our outdoor bathroom privacy shelter (we used it for bathing; some people use them to provide a screen around a latrine bucket), know now more or less how long it takes to fill the black water tank (less time than we thought it would, unfortunately), and we may have killed our not-quite-30-years-old-original-equipment refrigerator. It doesn't want to work right on propane; after we get the Guppy home we'll figure out if it still functions on alternating current. If it doesn't, we may have just acquired a well-insulated pantry. 

There are some differences between the people who are regular campers in national parks and the folks who are used to camping elsewhere. Not surprisingly, because this it is a basic campground, most of the campers are doing it old-school: tents. I have met some people who were tent camping that I wouldn't have pegged for tent campers: single ladies in their 70s driving typical old lady cars who put up a small backpacking tent and aren't fazed at all by nighttime lows in the 30s or cooking on a tiny backpacking stove. They're rather inspirational. I've also seen the opposite end of the tent camping spectrum: the humongous multi-room cabin tent with an elaborate outdoor kitchen and multiple coolers (which we always have to remind them need to get stashed in a hard-sided vehicle for the night).

There are some folks with small motorhomes (lots of Class Bs) and travel trailers, too, but so far only two actual Class A motorhomes have tried squeezing onto a site at Hurricane. Whatever they're using, though, the campers are universally clean. Very little litter, almost no trash left in fire rings, almost nothing forgotten on the camp sites, although we have acquired several lengths of parachute cord and a tiki torch in the past 3 weeks. And none of the cutesy stuff that we'd see at the state parks where we volunteered. Some of it is no doubt due to the no electricity (hard to do inflatable Halloween decorations when there is no power), but I think more of it is a different mind set, at least in September. People come to relax, unwind, get away from stuff, not to party. I'm told things do get rowdier in the summer -- more younger campers, more beer flowing, and a generally more chaotic atmosphere. 
Time to head back to the Park and more adventures in people watching. I'll do a post with more photos when we're home for good next week. 

Another mystery solved

During the month we spent at Johnson's Shut-Ins we found ourselves wondering why a fair number of campers never bothered going to the check station to register even when the station was open. People would come in, set up on the site they had reserved, spend a couple days camping, and never bother to check in. We  had a couple campers tell us they thought we'd come to them when we reminded them to go to the check station because that's where the computer was. It made no sense at the time, but then when I was going through some random photos I'd taken at the park I noticed the sign to the right. It's at the entrance to the campground and as of a week ago still had an "off" season message up on it. That line saying "Your Site to Attendant" is removable; it should have come off on April 1 to indicate you're supposed to register at the check station. (It's also a contradiction of what's on the Vacant tags that get placed on available sites, but that's a different issue.)

Oh well. Not my circus, not my monkeys. Just a general feeling of relief that we're never going back to that particular park, or maybe any park in Missouri. I'm still interested in trying other places, but the S.O. says he's not sure he's up to being actively shunned again. But then he's more of an extrovert than I am. Being treated like Invisible People bothered him a lot more than it did me. Although I will concede that it was pretty weird that when one of the maintenance guys dropped off a shovel and bucket he basically just dropped the items and ran. He didn't exactly just do a rolling stop and toss them, but he came pretty close.

Musings on the hosting life

That title kind of makes it sound like we're harboring alien life forms or I've decided on a career as a surrogate mother despite my advanced age. Nope. I've just been thinking about the way one park can manage to get so much right and another one get so much wrong. Being campground hosts three times at Montauk State Park definitely ruined us for hosting at any other park that hasn't managed to corral its fecal matter as efficiently.

I probably should cut Johnson's Shut-Ins some slack. The guy who took care of the campground side of the park and dealt with the hosts changed jobs sometime between January and when we arrived. Maybe things would be different if he was still around. Or maybe not. Because if he supervised the campground side, then he would have been supervising the person who works in the check station (fee booth, campground gate house, whatever). Brief suck and stab on her: she's a really nice person, but, holy wah, she does some strange stuff. She's been working in that booth for a number of years now, and in the time it takes her to check in one camper, Brittany or Lori or the typical campground host at Montauk could get a dozen or more done. Whoever trained her either didn't know what he or she was doing or didn't care. It does not help that she is, and I quote, "very territorial about the check station." Translation: she doesn't want the hosts doing anything while she's in the booth. Doesn't matter how long the line is waiting to check in; Linda wants to do every step of the process, from asking the campers if they have reservations to handing them a campground map. Definitely different from Montauk where as one person would be chatting up the camper at the window, someone else would be assembling the bundle of goodies to hand the camper (park newspaper, campground map, flyer advertising the naturalist's talks, etc.). It definitely puzzled me, the intense desire to keep the hosts out of the check station, because it's not the direction the state parks system as a whole seems to want to move. They recently scheduled a training rally for campground hosts that focused specifically on how the registration system works so obviously this is an area where they'd like to see hosts helping. Apparently Johnson's Shut-Ins hasn't gotten that message yet.

But inefficiencies in the check station are a minor quibble even if they're symptomatic of larger problems. As long as the park is happy with Linda's work -- it is getting done, after all, without any egregious errors; she's just doing it in a way that would drive Frederick Taylor crazy. And how the check station does or does not function has little to do with why we're not too thrilled with Johnson's Shut-Ins.

I've already mentioned the fact the campground is an electronic dead zone. No cell service in most of it, although if you're a horse you might be in luck. When you get down to the end of Loop 1, more or less in the parking lot for the equestrian trail head, multiple bars occasionally appear on some cell phones. This bothers me -- several times while we were at Montauk emergencies serious enough to require an ambulance occurred, which were no problem because there was decent cell service there, but how do you call for an ambulance quickly in a dead zone when the nearest land line phone is several hundred yards away in a locked building? I mentioned this to the other hosts at Johnson's and they reported that there is a connection at their host site for a land line, but there currently is no active phone with it. Apparently a previous host had insisted on its installation, but the park management decided that if that phone is turned on, it will be configured in such a way that every time someone tried calling the park after hours, all calls would be forwarded to that number instead of to voice mail. Holy wah. Instead of realizing that having a reliable phone for the hosts to use to call out would be a really good idea in a pit where cell phones don't work, the park administration decided that it made more sense to set it up in a way that guaranteed hosts would want it turned off. Once again, someone has heard the challenge implicit in "how stupid can you get?" and decided to provide a demonstration.

But the phone thing was a recent discovery. The disillusion with Johnson's actually began on Day 1, March 31, when we arrived at the park a day early so there'd be plenty of time for an orientation. Except there was no orientation. The park superintendent (although that's apparently not his title on paper) dropped by the host's site very briefly, dropped off a 3-ring binder that included a key ring, suggested we read it, and said he'd be back the next morning at 9 a.m. On April 1, the other host showed up at 9 and said Jeff (the superintendent) would be there shortly. We got told what the keys would open, a maintenance person showed up with a radio, and then Jeff told us to work out a schedule with the other host and that was that. No orientation whatsoever to the park, no mention of who to contact if something bizarre happens after normal business hours, no description of our specific duties. He left a stack of paperwork for us and said he'd be back the following day to pick up the forms we needed to sign.

One week later we got tired of waiting to see Jeff again and took the golf cart down to the River Center where the park offices are located on the day use side and brought the paperwork to him. Part of me wonders if he ever would have noticed that those forms hadn't been filled out. Maybe we should have just waited until our last week and just turned them in with our time sheets? The contrast with Montauk was stunning. On our first day there, we got a complete tour of the park, a thorough explanation of what was where, a sheet showing the work schedules for the month for park staff, a separate schedule for the law enforcement ranger's days on and off, and were told that both the superintendent and assistant superintendent lived in the park and so were reachable after the office closed for the day. And when I say tour, I mean tour. It wasn't just the campground -- it was the entire park.

In any case, we worked out a schedule with the other host that worked for both couples, and that was basically that. We found out we had to share the golf cart and the pickup truck so agreed to do the hand-off the evening before our days off started so that the person who was about to enjoy some time off could sleep in. The first time we actually did that hand-off, the other hosts explained what was involved in selling firewood and ice. If we sold anything, we were to bring the money to the check station the next time it was open. And that was basically that.

The other hosts signed up for 3 solid months and started in March. I have no idea how much of an orientation they got, but they do seem to be more focused on peddling firewood to the campers than on doing things like checking sites when campers leave to make sure there are no problems (trash in the fire ring, forgotten items like grills or chairs). Maybe they got told when they started at the beginning of March that they should load up the golf cart or truck with firewood and cruise the loops actively peddling the stuff; Jeff didn't mention it to us other than saying the hosts sell firewood and ice when the campground store is closed. Having experienced the Valley of 10,000 Smokes at Montauk, we figure that if people want firewood, they'll come looking for it. We have had firewood customers, but the demand doesn't seem to be high enough to merit turning into peddlers. This is the other hosts' first time volunteering at a Missouri state park so they have no basis for comparison. If they had a lousy orientation, they don't know it.

Of course, it turned out that firewood and ice weren't the only things we were expected to collect money for. We also sell campsites. If someone comes in as a walk-in after the check station closes, we collect the payment for the site they select -- cash or check only, of course. There have been a number of people who came in after the check station closed (5 days a week it's only open from 3 to 6), stayed for one night, and left long before the check station opened again. I wound up selling a campsite or two at Montauk, but it was a remarkably rare occurrence. The coverage there between the park office and the fee booth was so good that it wasn't something hosts had to deal with very often. At Johnson's it happens all the time. I don't know what their summer hours are, but I sincerely hope they're less weird for Saturdays once it gets to be May than they are now. This past Saturday was a gorgeous, gorgeous day; the check station closed at noon. Granted, the park is one that's 100% advance reservations so maybe during the busiest season they don't need the check station to be open because everything is already sold out, but it still seems weird that the hours are 8 a.m. to noon.

Then again, there are many odd things about Johnson's Shut-Ins. The park naturalist was scheduled to give a talk Saturday evening; there was no notice up at the check station advertising it and there were no flyers to hand out as campers arrived. The naturalist also did not bother informing the campground hosts she had the talk scheduled nor was it advertised on the bulletin boards at the showerhouses. If it wasn't being advertised, how much of a surprise would it be if when she arrived at the location, there was no one there to hear it? I had a camper ask me a few days ago about church services in the area. He wanted to know about a specific denomination. I had no clue, of course, not being from the area, but it struck me as being the type of general area information that's usually available at the check station. Nope. There is no list of local churches, how far away they are, or what times services are.

What about other common questions, like alternatives if the campground is full? No list of those either. I have no doubt Linda can rattle them all off without thinking twice (she's from the local area), but that doesn't help the hosts any when the check station is closed. We were able to tell some tent campers about a nearby commercial campground only because we've driven past it and know it exists. We couldn't accommodate them at Johnson's because there was only one basic site left and they had 11 people in their group. The other hosts told us they'd probably refer tent campers to Taum Sauk Mountain, which apparently has tent sites, but didn't realize that a private campground just a couple miles up Highway N existed. Nor did they know that Johnson's might actually be closer to a couple of Forest Service campgrounds than it is to Taum Sauk Mountain when you're driving. In contrast, Montauk had a list of campgrounds that included geographic distance and phone numbers so people could call ahead to see if they still had space. Once again, stuff like having the information on hand to answer questions like churches, other campgrounds, and grocery stores individually falls into the category of a minor quibble, but a whole lot of minor quibbles add up to one huge one. 

Bottom line: Johnson's Shut-Ins is a lovely park, I'd cheerfully recommend it to anyone looking for a place to camp for a few days (just try not to have a cardiac event while you're there), but it's now off our list of places where we're willing to be campground hosts.

Can you hear me now?

It doesn't look like a dead zone. It looks like a perfectly nice state park, Johnson's Shut-Ins, near Ironton, Missouri. But it's a dead zone. Turn on a cell phone and what do you see? Nada. Nothing. No bars whatsoever. It's like one of those spooky Verizon commercials from a few years ago.

We were not expecting much in the way of either the Internet or cell phone service when we arrived to start our month of campground hosting. After all, we've gone down this state park route before. Life at Montauk State Park demonstrated that wifi can be sporadic, coming and going on a whim. The busier a campground gets, the shakier the wifi turns. Too many users crowding too narrow a bandwidth. And we know that anytime you drop into a holler, a valley, a low spot between some hills, you're risking dropping into a dead zone. Cell phones are, after all, radios and radio operates by line of sight. We did not, however, expect Johnson's Shut-Ins to be quite as much of a black hole as it's turned out to be. It's rather disconcerting. It's so. . . .so. . . twentieth century! It's like we're trapped in the 1990s.

Other than that, it does seem to be a nice park. Its claim to fame is a natural feature, a section of the East Fork of the Black River that has "shut ins," a section of river bed where the water has carved pools, waterfalls, and what amount to natural water slides. It's extremely popular for wading and swimming in the summer. There's also a trail system for people who want to hike or bike, and there's apparently one section of the river close to the shut-ins that allows scuba diving. Why someone would want to scuba dive in a section of the Black River is a mystery to me, but maybe it'll make more sense after we've had a chance to tour the Visitor Center or to actually see the river. At this point, we haven't been over to that side of Highway N. We were on duty in the campground so were kind of limited in just how much exploring we could do. (And we are now on our days off, which we are wisely spending outside the park, back in civilization where the Internet still exists.)

The campground itself is a nice one. It's new -- less than 10 years old -- although the park itself has been around since 1955. The Missouri DNR had to build a new campground, as well as a new visitor center and a lot of other facilities, after a massive flood wiped just about everything out in December 2005. A huge pumped storage hydroelectric reservoir breached; close to 2 billion gallons of water came down the mountainside and went through the old campground, which was located easy walking distance to the shut-ins.

Oddly enough, the DNR decided that maybe putting the campground right back where it had been wouldn't be a particularly good idea. They built a totally new one that's at least 3 times the size of the old one and (to anyone who never saw the park before the flood) one that's probably a huge improvement over what got washed out. There are five loops: 1 set up for equestrian camping (the sites have water and electric), 1 that's full hook-ups (water, electric, sewer), 1 that's just water and electric, 1 basic (no hook-ups), and 1 walk-in loop that's really a walk-in loop: tent campers get to carry their stuff far enough from the parking lot that they can pretend they're doing old-fashioned backpacking out in the real woods. Of course, that illusion is probably easily shattered when the campground hosts go tooling by in the golf cart.

The S.O. riding Ol' Paint; the golf cart bucks and is trying to throw a shoe.

There are also half a dozen camping cabins: nicely rustic buildings that are furnished and will sleep six. The cabins come with a microwave, small fridge, and are air-conditioned but don't have plumbing. You have to bring your own bedding and kitchen supplies. They rent for $80 a night, which I tend to think is rather steep when you're going to have to walk several hundred feet to get to a lavatory in the middle of the night, but obviously other people don't mind. Every cabin was rented this past weekend.

Taum Sauk reservoir. The sucker is huge.

As for the RV sites, they're almost all so level that there isn't much work involved in setting up, especially for folks with newer rigs that have self-leveling systems and electric landing gear. Every loop in the equestrian area is a pull-through; the other loops with electricity each have several that are pull-throughs. They're nice. But, again oddly enough, I've already heard complaints from people who are unhappy about being forced to camp someplace that is not in a flood plain or located nanoseconds away from a disaster. Personally, having seen the reservoir from a distance (it looks like a giant spaceship landed on top of Profitt Mountain), I'm quite happy to be camped a couple miles away from where the water would go if that reservoir ever breached again. But maybe because there wasn't a massive loss of human life when it breached ten years ago the people who do the complaining figure it wouldn't be that bad if it breached again. They're conveniently forgetting the breach happened in December, not a time of year that's real popular for camping anywhere and especially at a campground located next to what amounts to a natural water park. If it had breached in July, they'd still be finding pieces of destroyed cars and RVs downstream.

I will say that after only a few days at the park, I'm happy with our site. There are two sets of campground hosts: Host 1 (us) gets to sit in Loop 1, the Equestrian loop (one reason the golf cart gets referred to as Ol' Paint). Horse camping  has not proven to be as popular as planners thought it might be. There is an equestrian trail, but it's "only" 14 miles long. A trail that would keep a person on a horse for at least half a day strikes me as more than long enough, but apparently not. You know how many horse campers were in the park during our first four days in the park? None. There were a couple campers in the loop, but they were overflow from the other loops, which were basically totally full. It was great. There are only ten camp sites and because the loop was planned to include horses, the sites are widely spaced. It was almost like having our own private campground. Definitely a nice change from the fishbowl at Montauk State Park. Not that Montauk was that bad, but it is nice being able to keep the blinds up and not feel like I'm living on a stage. And it was especially nice this morning. No other campers in the loop (the two who were there left Sunday afternoon), no one else wanting to get into the showerhouse. Lots of hot water (endless hot water!) and no worries about someone flushing a toilet and the water temperature changing dramatically, which did happen at Montauk because the showerhouse there is an older one.

It was also, I must say, rather nice this morning to be able to amble to the showerhouse in my bathrobe and bunny slippers (figuratively speaking; I was actually wearing Tevas). I know I saw ladies ambling to the showerhouse at Montauk who were dressed in the equivalent of flannel jammies but I never felt particularly comfortable doing it myself. No worries at Johnson's about an unwanted audience, at least not during the week.

The one thing I'm not too thrilled about is being tasked with selling firewood, ice, and camp sites when the camp store and check station are closed. I don't like handling money. And I don't like the idea that campers will know that we handle money. It's not huge amounts of money, but it's still enough to attract potential thieves. The having to handle money at our own camp site (it wouldn't bother me at all to work a register in a camp store or in the check station) is the main reason we've already decided we won't apply for Johnson's Shut-Ins for next year. We like the physical layout of the park; we're less than thrilled with the assigned duties even if in some ways they require a lot less work than what we did at Montauk last year. The life in a dead zone would be annoying but tolerable. But add in the handling money part and the park slips over the line into been there, done that, time to explore other places.

Homeward bound

The Guppy leaving Loop 2

Our month at Montauk is now behind us, we're in Farmington for a few days, and then we'll be heading North. At this point, we seem to be lucking out with the weather. The latest forecasts show mild temperatures in the Upper Peninsula through next Wednesday so we may not have to plow snow in order to get the Guppy parked in its winter location near the barn. Last year we got home just as snow started falling, managed to get the Guppy positioned, and then got hit with a storm that dumped about 18 inches of snow in a little over 24 hours. Timing is everything. . .

We did decide that we like Montauk enough that we're going to apply to come back in 2016. I may whine about idiot campers knocking on the Guppy's door at odd hours, but they're actually a pretty minor nuisance. We do like being at the park in October so will ask for that month again. We are not, however, going to request March. We've figured out that the Guppy is too uncomfortable in truly cold weather. RVs are notorious for condensation problems, and the Guppy is no exception. Between the lack of insulation in the walls and the condensation building up on every glass and metallic surface, when the temperatures outside dip below freezing life in the Guppy becomes unpleasant. Then when you add in the nuisance of having to haul water in a bucket for a couple weeks because we knew the water hose and filter would freeze if we connected them, Montauk in March is not something we want to repeat. So we may shoot for April -- although I'm sure there's a lot more competition for April (spring flowers blooming, warmer temps in general) than there would ever be for March.

Campers in Loop 1

We are going to make one change in our application. We're going to ask for the Loop 3 host site. Host 3 is the relief host -- they cover the other loops when those hosts are off duty so they get to see the whole campground. The way the rotation works, if there are 3 hosts, Host 2 covers Loops 1 and 2 and only 1 and 2; Host 3 does their own Loop and Loops 1 and 2 when Host 2 is off duty or their own Loop and Loop 4 when Host 4 is off. Host 4 covers Loop 4 and when Host 3 is off they also cover Loop 3. So Host 3 probably has the best overall sense of what's happening in the campground; they get to see all 4 loops on a regular basis. If there are only 2 hosts, then each host has two loops all the time and covers the entire campground when the other host is off duty. 

Once again, I'll include some second and third choices on the application form. One of the attractions of campground hosting is seeing different places. I'll probably put Johnson's Shut Ins as a second choice again and maybe someplace we haven't seen at all, like Pomme de Terre, as a third. Maybe. I keep hearing Pomme de Terre is a nice quiet park with an under-utilized campground. Nice and quiet sounds good when you're sitting in a park that's at 100% occupancy, but that 100% occupancy also means you're rarely bored.You get to see stuff like the interesting tents, the retro campers, and general weirdness (hammocks dangling 20 feet up in the air, systems of ropes to hold up rain flies that are sufficiently complex that it looks like they're trying to install a zip line), not to mention dealing with the guys who want to build campfires big enough to serve as Hindu funeral pyres and then getting to pick semi-melted beer bottles out of fire rings when those guys leave.

Thanks, but no thanks

Host's site at Pulltite.

One of the maintenance guys here at Montauk is a former National Park Service employee who worked at Ozark National Scenic Riverways. When we met him a year ago, he and I had a good time chatting about various people we knew in common as well as the current status of various structures and landscapes. OZAR was one of my parks; I made several trips here to count buildings and bushes and to document the cemeteries. Each time we've been here, he's suggested the S.O. and I apply to be campground hosts at Pulltite.

Pulltite is a campground on the Current River. I had a vague memory of having seen it, at least briefly, when I documented the Weese Cemetery almost 10 years ago. Yesterday the S.O. and I decided to go check it out. It was kind of a gray day but not actually raining so it wasn't a bad way for us to spend our day off. Besides, it would take us out of the park and away from campers asking us to do the impossible (e.g., find them an empty site with electricity when the park has no vacancies).

On the positive side, the host's site at Pulltite is thoroughly modern. It has full hook-ups, the concrete pad to park the RV on is a decent size, and there's even a DISH satellite dish sitting there just waiting for someone to hook up a receiver. At some point, someone decided to do some landscaping: there are irises and other perennials planted in an attempt to sort of disguise the utility hookups. There's also a camp store located within easy walking distance so if you run out of something basic you wouldn't have to drive anywhere just to pick up some milk or bread. That's the good news.

Looking toward the campground area from the picnic shelter at Pulltite.

The bad news is that the camp store is also the Current River Canoe Rental company, one of the concessionaires allowed to rent canoes for use on the river. The campground itself is not real big (55 sites, according to information I found online) and is primitive, i.e., no hookups. It was hard to tell with the leaves on the ground, but it appears there are also no defined tent pads or parking at each site: you have a metal lantern post, a picnic table, and a fire ring. It's actually quite nice with a decent amount of space between the sites, although the sites themselves are fairly small. It's definitely set up for tent camping, not RVs. Someone with a small trailer or a pop-up would like camping there, but it can't accommodate Leviathans or the gigantic 5th wheels we get here at Montauk. This is not a bad thing except for one small detail: canoes.

The Current River Canoe Rental company is now shut down for the season, but when it's summer, it must do a booming business. There were multiple school buses and specialized canoe-hauling trailers parked in a lot off to one side of the campground; there is a humongous parking lot labeled "Floaters parking" spitting distance from the host's site. And there were photos in the multipurpose building (picnic shelter/showerhouse/contact station) showing so many people on the river in canoes that you could probably walk from bank to bank stepping from canoe to canoe without getting your feet wet.

I have nothing against people who like to canoe. We own a canoe ourselves. I am, however, less than enthusiastic about the idea of spending a summer sitting next to a super busy parking lot while crowds of people are departing or returning from floating the river. One or two people with canoes -- no problem. Dozens, possibly hundreds, of them every time the sun shines? That's a slightly different story.

Looking toward the host's site from the multipurpose building.

It didn't look like there had been a campground host at Pulltite this past season. There were no signs anything bigger than a lawnmower had driven on to or off the site in a long time, and the two picnic tables sitting on the parking pad looked like they'd been there for awhile. Given that it was a dry summer, if the site had gotten used for several months there'd have been some evidence. Jack said the Park Service has trouble finding a host for that campground, and I can see why. All those canoes. . . and then when you add in the fact it's down in a dead zone (neither the S.O. or I had any cell service; the host's site is wired for a landline) and quite a few miles from an actual town of any size . . . we could never host at Pulltite to begin with because we're not giving up spending summers in the U.P., but having seen the site, I now know why even people who live in Missouri aren't lining up to volunteer there.

On the positive side, the host's site is set high enough above the river that in the event of a flood, the host would not have to evacuate. That's not true here at Montauk.

Random thoughts

Thanks to being relatively isolated from news media here at Montauk, about all we know about the latest round of Benghazi hearings comes from a few comments on the local NPR station and some clips on the Internet. We did not go looking for more -- the Republicans have been obsessing about Benghazi for several years now, and, like most people, we're thoroughly sick of hearing about it. At this point, the only question I have is why the idiots in Congress who keep wasting time with these hearings can't seem to figure out what everyone else already has: it doesn't matter what any of the witnesses say, no one is going to change their minds.

There is a sizable percentage of the American populace that is convinced that Hillary Clinton is evil incarnate, an incorrigible liar and opportunist who doesn't give a rat's patoot about anything other than her own political career. There is an equally sizable percentage of Americans who view her as the best qualified person to be the next President of the United States. Neither group is ever going to change its collective mind. As for those of us who fall somewhere in between those camps, we're so sick of hearing about Benghazi we're tuning out the whole thing. So what's the point? If anything, each round of hearings makes it more and more obvious that it's all political theater, and rather ineptly done political theater at that. At this point, the only people who are paying any attention are the ones who get paid to or are ideologically committed to one of the two camps mentioned above.

Meanwhile, out here in the real world, people seem to be paying a lot of attention to the weather. It's sounding like the folks down in Texas need to invest in arks. A friend who lives near Waco said they got 12 inches of rain down there a day or two ago. That is a lot of rain in a very short period of time. The upper Midwest is being told (depending on which source to believe) to brace for a lot more snow or a lot less. Given that the county is no longer plowing our driveway, I'm voting for the "lot less," but I'm probably going to be disappointed. I'll just have to hope that our POS Dodge plow truck functions through another winter -- and if it doesn't, there's always the Guppy and the highway south.

More and more people do seem to be willing to concede that climate change is real, we can no longer count on much of anything being the same from year to year. Not that we ever really could, but guesstimates of last Spring frost and first Fall frost used to be reasonably accurate. Not anymore. I saw a headline recently that said the sea level rise is going to make it inevitable that both Miami and New Orleans end up underwater. For that matter, most of the state of Florida could vanish in a few decades -- there's quite a bit of it that's only a few feet above current sea level. We have a friend who owns some property in Florida that he inherited from his parents. He's been trying to figure out what to do with it. My suggestion? Sell it now before it reverts back to swampland or worse.

Here in southeast Missouri it's definitely fall. The leaf colors seem to be at peak, or close to it. The rainbow tree (sweet gum) I see out the Guppy's windows is still about half green, but those green leaves are mixed with red and yellow. In some ways the fall colors in Missouri are less spectacular than those of the upper Midwest. Oak tends to be the dominant species in much of the forest, and oaks turn a russet color so don't have quite the drama of the brilliant red of hard maples. On the other hand, there are those rainbow trees. . .

The weather this month has been, I think, slightly warmer than it was when we were here a year ago. We haven't had to run the furnace much, although I did turn it on this morning (it was 40 outside and 50 here in the Guppy when I got up). There also hasn't been as much rain, which means fewer problems with condensation and dampness. I think the S.O. is a little disappointed. He invested a fair number of hours in sealing the front window by the bunk over the cab but we haven't really had enough rain for him to be sure his repairs worked. It would be good if it did rain -- things are tinder dry in the woods; it wouldn't take much when the ground is covered with leaves for some spectacular wildfires to get going. Given that people in Missouri are every bit as inclined to burn trash in the ditches as the folks in Texas, I'm a little surprised we haven't been hearing wildfire warnings on the radio. Of course, we listen to KMST, a public radio station "broadcasting from the campus of the Missouri College of Science and Technology in Rolla," and this is fund-raising time. Lately we're a lot more likely to hear about your chance to win an I-phone if you donate than about anything else.  

In any case, our month here at Montauk is now winding down. The campground (at least our loop) is a little fuller than one would expect for the last week in October -- lots of people staying through the end of the month instead of just coming for this weekend -- but promises to be relatively quiet. This is the time of year when the park gets a fair number of snowbirds from the St. Louis area who stop here for a week or two to make sure their equipment is working right and they didn't forget to pack whatever they need before they head farther south for the winter. We talked with one fellow last fall who gave us a pep talk about the Del Rio, Texas, area. I'm not sure we're interested in that particular part of the state, but you never know. He made it sound pretty nice so we researched it -- the fees at most of the RV parks around there are remarkably low.

We have had slightly more excitement this month than on previous stays here. More weirdness, more knocks on the door late in the evening. Had two strange ones yesterday. First, late in the afternoon a close to hysterical camper came to tell us that some idiot was burning leaves down at the other end of the loop. We looked down that way and sure enough, there was a huge column of smoke wafting through the trees. Got on the radio to alert someone with more authority than we have to go deal with it. Turned out the guy doing the burning wasn't a complete idiot -- he had raked up the dry leaves on his campsite and piled them in the fire ring to burn. His plan was to clear all the leaves in a fairly large radius around the fire ring so they wouldn't be a hazard when he did an actual campfire. Except he had such a huge pile they basically buried the fire ring so to a passerby it looked like he was just burning a pile of leaves out in the open . . . and it's never a particularly smart idea to burn leaves anywhere when an area is in drought conditions and you're surrounded by many square miles of forest where the ground is covered with dry leaves. All it would have taken was one strong gust of wind to scatter those burning leaves and it could have been a major problem.

Then, around 9 pm we had another camper at the door reporting an emergency. Someone had managed to lock himself in one of the individual showers at the showerhouse in Loop 4. I was a little puzzled as to why the guy came to tell us when there is a host in Loop 4 (we're Loop 2), but then I remembered that those hosts were off duty. Still, I'm a little surprised they weren't available -- even on their days off we tend to see them cruising around the park on the golf cart for no apparent reason. If they have a life outside campground hosting, it's not obvious.

In any case, some poor sap managed to lock himself into a shower room. These are individual showers on the end of the building; each opens directly to the great outdoors. They lock with a deadbolt. Apparently, after the man finished his shower and dressed, he wasn't able to get the door unlocked from the inside. That's got to be moderately embarrassing -- here's hoping it doesn't turn into one of those stories his wife likes to trot out when people ask them about camping at Montauk. We contacted the park's assistant superintendent; he called back not long after to let us know he'd been able to open the door. The fellow was actually lucky he was part of a couple. If he'd been someone camping alone (and the park gets a fair number of people who come on their own for a few quiet days of fishing), he could have been stuck in that room a lot longer.

Been there, done that, time for something different?

I may be maxing out on this campground hosting thing. Between dealing with other hosts with boundary issues and campers who know the rules but prefer to ignore them, my not-exactly-great-to- begin-with people skills are wearing rather thin. Or maybe they were worn thin before we even got here, thanks to dealing with the minions at the museum, and I should have had more of a break between dealing with minions and dealing with campers.

The 'beer garden.' Several sites shared this double screen house, which held an impressive number of coolers and a pretty decent bar. The guys were, however, surprisingly quiet and left their campsites clean. It seemed like a lot of work for just a couple days camping, but maybe they thought there'd still be mosquitoes or biting flies.

I am, however, definitely understanding why superintendents go gray and why some park staff find the prospect of working at parks that focus a lot more on natural resources and less on recreation highly attractive. I'm not sure which would drive a person to drink faster: the obnoxious campers who love to parrot lines like "We've been coming here for 35 years and never . . . " or the campground hosts who, having volunteered a number of times, now think they're actually running the park and in a position to tell the newer hosts exactly what to do, even when their exactly what to do directly contradicts the instructions in the host's handbook or the instructions that were given verbally by the superintendent or assistant superintendent. I'm also beginning to understand why campground hosts tend to rotate around a good bit from park to park, because I'm definitely having one of those "I never want to have to deal with those obnoxious asshats again" afternoons. It is good that (a) the month is almost over, and (b) thanks to the way days off are structured, we don't actually see those people very much -- we only overlap two days out of every six. Which means that in the remaining seven days of the month, there only two days of overlap left.

I do have a hunch there are a lot of asshat hosts out there, too, making life miserable for superintendents and folks at other parks. . .  and when we arrived at Montauk this month we discovered trash in the host site fire ring. Whoever was here just before us tossed cans into the fire, and not just beer cans -- "tin" cans, like the ones pork and beans come in. If the host is trying to burn garbage in the fire ring, just how responsible is he or she going to be about trying to keep the rest of the park clean? And campers have told me stories about the guy who was the host before that host, a fellow who has hosted here a number of times now and apparently had also developed an 'I run the park' attitude. Familiarity breeds arrogance?

In any case, between the combination of campers who want to be jerks, fellow hosts who make the obnoxious campers almost look good in comparison, and the fact that as a host the only way to ever be off duty is to physically leave the park, volunteering as a "visitor use assistant" is looking better and better. Tell people where to find the restrooms, sell them an occasional postcard, and know that when we go "home" to the Guppy, no one is going to be knocking on the door at weird hours demanding to know why there are no campsites available. 

Back at Montauk

 Well, we are back at Montauk State Park. This is our third time here so we're starting to feel like we sort of know what we're doing, although I'm sure I'll screw up something on the computer the first time I touch it. I have a knack for making electronic devices decide that it's time to crash and burn. Our arrival followed the usual pattern: lovely weather when we got to the park, really nice and easy to get set up because the sun was shining, temperatures were (by our standards) balmy, and there wasn't much wind to speak of.

That changed the following day, of course. Temperatures dropped low enough during the night that I felt compelled to turn on the furnace first thing in the morning, and then, despite the Weatherbug claiming that the Montauk area was enjoying clear, sunny skies, it stayed gray and overcast most of the day. Not a particularly auspicious start to the annual Rose Holland Trout Fishing Derby, altough I've hear many anglers say they prefer gray days. I'm not sure why -- makes it harder for the fish to see them? Trout have really good vision -- maybe they are smart enough to make the connection between some oddly dressed human upstream from them and the possibly edible lure floating their way. In any case, the weather didn't matter. The park was full, 100% occupied, every reservable site reserved and all the first come, first served sites snapped up by early afternoon on Friday. I was happy we weren't in the fee booth. The folks working there was going to be forced to repeat over and over that the No Vacancy sign really did mean no vacancy, no empty spaces whatsoever, and that campers were going to have to go back up to the hill to Happy Pappy's, Tradewinds, or one of the other privately-operated campgrounds in the area.

In any case, the park is full, and we're not there. Through sheer dumb luck our first scheduled days off fall this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, so bright and early (for us) yesterday morning we tossed a suitcase in the car and headed east to Farmington. I'm still feeling sufficiently irritated by the hassles getting the new siding on the museum entailed that my supply of patience for clueless people (and that describes most campers) is rather low at the moment. Avoiding one of the busiest weekends of the camping season is probably a good thing. The S.O. got to spend the afternoon watching NASCAR (Xfinity Series) instead of having to field queries from clueless campers; the kid and I went grocery shopping.

Current River at Montauk State Park, October 2014

Today, instead of having to cruise around the campground pulling tags off posts, putting up Vacant signs, and fishing half-melted Busch Lite cans out of fire rings, we're going to check out another state park: Washington. It's between Potosi and St. Louis and, according to the web site, has extensive Civilian Conservation Corps features -- lots and lots of steps and walls and whatever. We'll hike at least one trail, have a picnic lunch, and maybe check out the campground to see how busy it gets in October. That's assuming it doesn't rain, of course, the weather is still looking a little iffy.

The S.O. did remind me that we'll have the fun of checking multiple camp sites tomorrow. Quite a few of the campers did reservations that include a Monday departure. Some really will stay until sometime Monday, but others will pull out late this afternoon or early evening. They just reserved a site through the weekend because they want to be around when the winners of the derby are announced and prizes are awarded. In addition to the usual prizes given for largest fish, heaviest stringer, etc., a certain number of fish are tagged and there are prizes associated with them. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that they're typical campers and leave their sites clean; the guys who try to burn beer cans are the exception, not the rule. Although it does seem rather petty to bitch about campers trying to burn cans when we discovered a partially burnt can in the fire ring at the host's camp site -- whoever Host 2 was for the month of September, they didn't set a particularly good example by burning garbage, especially when it's an easy walk from the Host's site to the dumpster. J was less than impressed by the evidence left by previous hosts at our site. In addition to the can in the fire ring, they had left a vinyl tablecloth thumb tacked to the wood top of the picnic table. Don't know how long it had been there, but the wood underneath was thoroughly saturated. The flip side of the tablecloth itself was so thick with mold I'm a little surprised it hadn't started growing legs and trying to crawl off the table on its own. 

Thinking about the fishing derby and its prizes reminded me a story I heard last year that just illustrates that some people will cheat at anything. The state hatchery has a lunker pool where they raise trout to Loch Ness monster size, truly humongous fish. Well, you guessed it -- someone tried cheating at the fishing derby by sneaking in and using a dip net in that lunker pool. He got caught with four huge fish in his waders. This brings up several intriguing questions and images. How do you manage to walk with any semblance of normalcy with 4 humongous trout stuffed into your pants? Who noticed that the legs on his waders were bulging in strange ways? And how many years will have to pass before people stop asking him "Is that a trout in your pants or are you just glad to see me?"

When I say humongous trout, I do mean humongous trout. There's a white board up at the lodge where people can record the size of their catches if they think they did especially well. Last year some woman caught a rainbow that weighed over 7 pounds. That is a large fish. . . How weird would it be to walk around with 4 fish each weighing about that much stuffed into your waders? And why bother cheating at all? This particular fishing derby doesn't have huge amounts of prize money involved. It's a fund-raiser for, if I recall correctly, the American Heart Association. You get bragging rights if you win but not much else.

Cruise-in October 2014

The fishing derby does have one event that interests the S.O.  On Friday evening a local car club does a cruise-in. There are usually some interesting vehicles. I didn't bother walking over to the lodge to see what was there this year, but the S.O. did. He said there were a couple rat rods; he always enjoys looking at them. There was also a rather nice looking late 60s Barracuda. The owner was camped in our loop; we could see it from the Guppy. The owner was definitely proud of the car. Seemed like every time I glanced over that way, he was dusting it. He had the hood open, too, a clear sign he wanted people to stop and admire his toy. Don't know if anyone did, but, if not, I'm sure there were plenty of people willing to schmooze about cars for a few hours at the car show in the park office parking lot.

And, speaking of special interest vehicles, I'm now wondering if the World War II group will come camping again this year. Last October members of a club that specializes in World War II equipment spent a weekend at Montauk. They had some interesting vehicles, including jeeps, trucks, and a general's limo. If they come back, I'm going to be a lot more aggressive this year about getting photos of the equipment. Or at least make sure the battery in my camera isn't dead. I haven't taken any photos at the park yet because when I did pull out the camera, I couldn't use it. The photos with this post are from last year.

Moving on

Sunset over Loop 1

Today we'll be hitting the road, sort of. After the S.O. is up and moving (he's not a morning person), we'll do the few things left to do to get the Guppy ready to roll out.

It's been an interesting month. I'm told it was a lot quieter during the first couple of weekends than usual -- the wintry weather discouraged some groups so either not as many people showed up or they were more subdued.  It did seem less busy than it had been in the fall, and the campsites less elaborate, i.e., fewer large pavilions.

Low budget camping using an up-cycled 1978 Ford Ranger. These guys didn't
have particularly elaborate gear, but they were nice enough to bring a keg
instead of multiple cases of Busch Lite. End result? No cans in the fire ring,
Even better? All their red SOLO cups went into the dumpster. They let their
site spotless. 

There were one or two groups that got a little noisy, but we only had one weekend where other campers came knocking on our door late at night to complain about noise.

That was, IIRC, the same weekend the law enforcement ranger got to haul someone off to the drunk tank after the fellow persisted in driving backwards (as in Reverse, not as in ignoring the One Way signs) around the campground. Apparently most of the month has been a little colder and nastier than usual for Missouri in March (it must be Obama's fault), so even though all the reserved sites have been 100% reserved just about every Friday and Saturday, not all of them have been occupied. I personally do not understand how people can be so casual about paying in advance for a campsite at $23 a night and then not bother using it, but then I come from a long line of cheap frugal ancestors and live with a person who, as the saying goes, "knows the value of a dollar."

Another low budget rig. When I saw this coming into the park my first thought
was "Someone dragged an ice fishing shack to Missour?" It's just a box made
from OSB with a door at the end facing the rear of the trailer.  There's an OSB
 patio,  too, in front of the door. They were another group that had a good time but
left their campsite in great shape.

One thing I did notice this year more than in October was how many campers seem to be confusing the fire ring with a trash incinerator. This past weekend there were at least half a dozen fire rings that were absolutely disgusting: filled with half burnt food waste, plastic, tin cans, etc. It's one thing to imbibe a few too many beers and start tossing the Busch cans into the flames; it's quite another to deliberately try to get rid of your trash by burning it instead of bagging it and taking it to the dumpster. I don't understand how people can do that -- they'd complain like crazy if they got here and found a fire ring that looked that bad, so why do they think it's okay to leave the site filthy? I'm tempted to mutter about "trailer trash" because with a few exceptions, the nastiest fire rings were left by people who are camping using large, expensive trailers. It's not the low budget or the tent campers who make the worst messes.

We've already been asked by a number of people if we'll be back next March. At this point we have no clue. It's possible that the simple purchase of an electric blanket and few more modifications to the Guppy (e.g., insulated vent covers) would convince us cold temperatures wouldn't be as annoying. It's equally possible we'll decide to try a longer volunteer commitment at one the National Wildlife Refuges or National Parks farther south, someplace where snow is a lot rarer than it is in Missouri. We may decide to do what a lot of people do -- just head down to the cheap RV parks in south Texas and hang out there doing nothing for several months. We could opt for volunteering at a different park here in Missouri, just out of curiosity. Or we could just stay home. Who knows?

One thing we do know is we'll be back here at Montauk in October. Maybe then I'll actually go fishing.