Strolling Amok

The July 4th Crunch

Early Friday bliss.

Holiday weekends are a big time for locals, who pack up and then pack into any camping facility around. Rock Cut was no exception. Because of a fully booked park, I had to move a hundred yards into the site that I’d originally reserved for that weekend. It was far from level, but my weird Anderson levelers got the camper into the “acceptable” range when placed under the front tires – even though they sank well into the soft ground. I did have to cheat and run the Furd forward between a BBQ and a picnic table to find less sloped ground. My end of the camping loop was deserted when I moved in early on Friday. By late Friday evening, the place was nearly packed out, awaiting only the few stragglers who planned to arrive early the next day.

I must say, this bunch was comparatively quiet. No yelling or hooting, no loud music, no arguments, no firecrackers, no camo-clad rednecks. Most of those who rolled in were tenters, mostly young families who were car camping. Campfires abounded. Little kids roamed in marauding packs during the day, many on their bikes, and even then there was a minimum of yelling or crying from feared mortal wounds. Some of the kids were impressed by seeing a bicycle towing a trailer (or at least its bright flag on a long stick), said trailer containing my greywater tank on its way to the nearby dump station. It must also have been weird seeing a bike appear to “coast” uphill. They pretty much clogged the playground/road, and the ringing bell I had just didn’t seem to register with them, so it was a leisurely task to thread between them and goose the throttle.

The only odd thing was that, with the exception of the big fifth-wheel parked in front of the Mighty Intrepid, all of the conversations within earshot were in foreign languages. On one side was what ringed of Eastern European, and on the other, a large pile of fathers and sons speaking in what sounded like a Middle Eastern dialect. I’m still trying to glean some Significant Message from all this, but all I can come up with is that furriners living near Rockford, Illinois apparently like camping out on big holidays as much as anyone else. None of those people working the check-in booth had nervous breakdowns caused by the Friday and Saturday onslaught (one was practically giddy when I checked in this afternoon), and a good time was had by all. I’m amazed that I finished such a popular weekend with nothing to grouse about.

Early Saturday. I can’t see out the front, so any visual imposition rested upon those inside the fifth-wheel. (This shot does not show the general packing in, since the trailer blocks much of it.)

It’s now late Monday, and I managed to move back into my now-open “good” slot, shown in the previous post. From this point on, I mostly await Magic Thursday, which should determine whether I’m free to depart for Indy, or must stay for additional medical torture and, worse, eventually viewing bills for same. Oh, the humanity!