Post Memorial Day Weekend Thoughts

What once was interesting now is annoying.  Boorish people, sun burned, drunk, loud, rude and argumentative, no longer provide me with entertainment. Being awakened by irate campers late at night complaining about revelers only causes me to lose sleep. Campers who demand firewood ignoring the closed for the night sign deserve nothing.

The excesses of the Memorial Day weekend crowd diminishes the camping experience. The piles of wornout, broken or abandoned gear surrounding the trash cans is appalling. The heaps of trash bags broken into by night time creatures reek. The acrid smells of fires started with petrochemicals, including all types of plastics plus garbage reminds me of third world countries I have visited.

Have I mentioned the late night comings and goings of campers in loud vehicles, the emergency car alarms activated by the stupidly loaded, the clanking of trash can lids by early morning zombies searching for returnable bottles and cans. Consider them mentioned.

If I sound like a grumpy old man, maybe I am. Too many people crammed closely together lacking common courtesy for their fellow campers has harshed my mellow. Now I understand why other hosts live in giant, above the fray RV's. Maybe I will buy some concrete block and raise my small trailer.

This Guy

He is kind of ratty like his RV. The Tea Party slogans hand painted on his RV are borderline racist. He  always contests any warning notice issued to him. He believes I am committed to making his life miserable.

I really don't want to have anything to do with this guy. However, he parks off the pavement, parks outside the white lines, claims he has a tow car despite having an inoperable towing hitch. He does not check out at noon. This guy is incorrigible.

I have seen the basket full of medication containers sitting in the passenger seat of his RV. Perhaps he does have medical/psychiatric issues. Maybe he doesn't take his medication per instructions or at all. Whatever the reason for his misbehavior, I have had enough of this guy to last a lifetime. Unfortunately for me, this guy is a frequent flyer committed to spending his days at this park and in this campground.n

They Are Among Us

They are here. Waiting. Lurking. Infiltrating. Hidden until I find them.

What are they doing? Gathering intelligence? Coordinating with others? Awaiting instructions? What instructions? To attack? To intimidate? To instill terror?

How did they get here? By land or sea or air? Maybe with the help of others. What others? With whom are they conspiring and why?

When I locate and capture them, they never talk. Many of them are armed with modern weapons, although some carry swords, spears or lances. Their animal helpers are dangerous in and of themselves and are not easy to corral. Today, while on beach patrol, I captured a militant carrying a semi-automatic pistol. As I took him into custody, I was vigilant for an ambush by his comrades, but none was forthcoming.

I now have eight combatants in my equivalent of Guantanamo, and two lethal beasts. I am sure that more are out there. Despite securing the campsite perimeter by installing motion-actuated lights, I am thinking that a moat might be necessary.

Eliciting the support of others in the apprehension of  the combatants, I showed the captives to a camper kid. He remarked that I have nice collection of plastic action figures.

Blues Festival.

It's over. The vehicles, the people, the music, the drunkeness, the free range children have quit the park. No more lighter fluid drenched campfires, s'mores residue, broken camping gear stacked against garbage cans, nighttime screams of ecstasy and angst, generators switched on after midnight.

Goodbye Bonnie, Boz, Los Lobos, The Mavericks. Your music was solidly professional despite crappy audio mixing. A beautiful venue and fair weather made for a good outdoor concert, except for the frigging zombies.

You ask, zombies? I tell you they are real, ugly and rude. Nearly all of them are white, late middle-aged to young seniors. The women wear flowing skirts and upper body coverings that do not manage to cover that which should never be revealed in public except by permit. The men wear Harley Davidson shirts, pork pie hats, smedium t-shirts, tropical themed shirts. Both sexes sport ink on their limbs, backs, stomachs, hands , including scary neck art.

As they pour beer or wine or mixed drinks down their gaping pie holes, they begin to move, undulating unnaturally to the over amplified blues. They stand in front of their Tommy Bahama low back chairs swaying from the waist, moving their rounded shoulders and weaving their arms through the air while flapping their hands ostensibly in sync with the music. As dusk approaches, these mostly gray or dyed hair creatures resemble those plastic air-filled comic vinyl characters found at children's birthday parties or in front of small businesses in strip malls. THEY ARE ALL HIDEOUS, SHAMEFUL AND DISGUSTING and they amuse me greatly.

I forgot to mention a sub genre of the zombies. These are the hulks firmly seated within their canvas chairs, usually vaping pot or pouring vodka into their lemonade. Speaking of vaping...... Is it the preferred method for ingesting medicinal weed? Anyway, watching these folks trying to rise from their close to the ground chairs is a hoot. I could distinguish those who desperately needed to urinate from those who were going for food. The urine loaded crowd kept their thighs tightly together and relied on their chairs for support. The hungry crowd crawled on the ground after rolling from their chairs, usually finding a standing friend to assist them to their feet.

A good time was had by all, at least until they got to their cars and tried to navigate out of the park and onto the freeway. As for me and she-who-must-be-obeyed, we walked back to the campground along the beach at high tide, amused and glad to be returning to our trailer trash existence.

A Story I Want To Tell

Sitting next to the firepit on a Saturday night after a day of surfing, watching children play outside, and after a few glasses of Costco's finest plonk, I thought of stories I would like to tell the children. A perfect venue for story telling is located at the other end of the campground, the campfire center.

I would summon the little noisemakers and their helicopter parents to the campfire center and tell them a goodnight story. Perhaps, it would be the story of the grunion and sand snakes.

 

Good evening everyone. This is the time of the year when both the grunion and sand snakes emerge. The grunion come from the ocean onto the sand to begin the cycle of life. The sand snakes come from within the sand on the beach and crawl inland seeking the warmth of campfires and the toenails of those near the campfires.

The grunion wiggle and squirm through the wet sand after the sun has well set. The sand snakes slither and undulate upon the sand in darkness. The grunion are small fish with small mouths. No so the sand snakes whose long bodies are distinguished by their bulbous heads with large mouths containing rows of fangs.

People who stay up late and wear boots can watch the grunion spawn and then retreat to the comfort of their sleeping bags. Others encounter sand snakes by surprise in their flip flops or sandals. Often the initial meeting with a sand snake is a punctured big toenail and subsequent ripping of it from the toe.

Don't worry young ones. Lost toenails grow back after a few months. The pain of their removal, although great, subsides in hours. It helps to soak the feet in cold salt water. But, if there is too much blood, be careful not to wade far from shore. There are, of course, sand sharks waiting in the shallows.

Goodnight all. Thank you for your attention. Now children stop your crying. Sleep well and tight and don't let the sand snakes bite. I must now go to my trailer and remove my boots as my feet are too warm.

Big South Swell

It finally arrived this weekend: a powerful long period south swell from a storm off the coast of New Zealand. Surfers of all types, short boarders, long boarders, and damnable sweepers, drove into the parking lots as soon as they were open on Saturday.

The long paddle to the outer reefs was easy Saturday as the swell built. By Sunday, the sweepers, with their mechanical advantage, got out first. Prone paddlers had to power through the walls of white water. Unfortunately, a sideshore wind developed eventually turning onshore. The waves became sectiony although many long rides were possible on sups.

The spectacle of big waves breaking on outer reefs was remarkable. Some jet skis cruised through the outer reefs. Two standup surfers were killing it off Poche, a break well east of the campground. Some fool launched into the beach break, swimming outside the surf line. Although never in trouble, the guy took quite some time to return to the beach where a lifeguard spoke to him. I know not what was said.

I surfed the rising surf and managed to catch some good waves. When the lineup became crowded with aggressive and mouthy paddlers, I caught my last wave only to have jerks takeoff in front of me causing me to prone out in the soup. My dawn patrol strategy was well intentioned but ineffective.

The sand berm protecting the campground was breached at high tide on Sunday and Monday nights. The waves pushed seaweed and flotsam into a few beach front campsites. No campers had to leave but their sites were messy. The day use parking lot nearby was partially flooded and much debris covered the asphalt.

A full moon illuminating the surf breaking on the outer reefs is a scene I will fondly remember long after the big south swell has waned.