Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Camping Gone Bad

This post is going to relate to one of my main passions, camping and the outdoors.
I absolutely love the outdoors and have been tent camping since I was a child.



Now, over the years, I’ve been seeing more and more of those 20, 30, 40 even 60 foot RVs motoring through our campgrounds and forests. Now I get it a bit, if you are touring the country or something like that, but its when I sit at my campsite, beer in hand, and see this monstrosity pull in (blocking my view) and proceed to unload for about 2 hours…until they have their complete set up configured. Oh…this set up includes;


offloading the golf cart (exercise should be saved for the gym), and the configuration and placement of;



24-hour a day generator (which makes normal communication with your fellow campers impossible),



a 75 square foot roll of fake grass laid out in front of the mobile “waste of money” (so that no dirt gets tracked in onto the carpet),



a set of plastic pink flamingos strategically positioned around the site (“to ward of the annoying birds”),



the completely enclosed screen porch (incase there are bugs or squirrels around),



the propane gas fire pit (“cuz the smoke of a campfire gets into the fabric in the RV – and stinks”),




the side-mounted, pull-out TV with satellite dish (incase Jerry Springer or People’s Court are on),



several pole-mounted bug zappers and motion sensor outside flood lights (to scare intruders),




strings of neon and twinkle lights outlining the RV and entire site ( incase it gets dark),



the 20 x 20 foot dog pen (for that little annoying beast that yapps its ass off all night and every time ANYTHING goes by – people, birds, squirrels, …anything), the two EZ Ups (just in case the sun comes out),



the misc. games and the radio with speakers mounted outside – continuously playing (…. Something that 95% of us hate), ….and then there is the nasty old woman that you never see…she sits inside the whole time barking commands and yelling at hubby and the kids to do this or that (she hates camping but they are not allowed to leave her home.)

Most times, after watching a “full set up”, I can bank on looking over the left side of my chair to see a pile of vomit. We do take pictures when we are not laughing too hard or while on breaks from completely dissing every item that they roll out. I guess I just don’t understand why they don’t go to a hotel or theme park or something.

I guess I was curious to see if I were alone on these feelings and am just insanely irritated by things other people like that I don’t, or if some of you shared my thoughts.

Any other tent campers out there? And if you are one of those people with a big RV and the above mentioned “camping gear” PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND.

11 Comments:

Anonymous said...

HAHAHA I Love the flamingos and since when do people bring pool tables camping?

Anonymous said...

I don't get the TV business while camping, it's just a little wrong

SherE1 said...

It cracks us up when we see all that fancy-shmancy stuff when we go camping, too! We rented an RV to camp once - it was October and FREEZING in the mountains so it was nice to have the heater inside the RV. That was about as fancy as we got though. The rest of the time was spent sitting outside in front of a (real) fire, roasting marshmallows and talking. Love camping!

K8E said...

I LOVE tent camping... theoretically. I'm just really scared of bugs. Like, panic attack, screaming my head off and needing a tranquilizer if there are too many of them. Still, I wouldn't go camping in an RV, unless I just needed that much space to haul all of the family's real camping stuff.
When we do 'camp' we go to a cabin and we have a real fire outside and cook most everything on it.

TentCamper said...

Yeah, we've rented and RV (once) - last winter. Wdrove about 1000 miles and camped at 7 or 8 campgrounds. I actually did not like it much. we would have frozen our arses off if we did not have it on that trip though.
Now, when we camp (at least twice a month) we dedicate at least 30 minutes to walking around the "RV secion" to "see the sights."

Brigindo said...

That was hysterical. We're tent campers here and try to find sites as far away from RVs as possible so I often don't get a look up close like that. Thanks for the laugh.

Anonymous said...

I agree, Far away from the RV's
This is hilarious

Mitch said...

Found you through SITS and I had to relate this story because I thought you would appreciate it!

We used to camp with our good friends (and godparents to the mini mes). They have a huge tent. And a German Shepard that shares the space with them. She brings white carpet. He brings a high duty fan. They used to bring a TV until my husband got so fed up with the noise that he threw it into the camp fire. Needless to say, we no longer go camping with them!

Mama Dawg said...

Ummmm....once it's all set up and done, isn't it just like a house....which kind of defeats the whole purpose of camping?

Just thinkin....

Connie said...

My idea of camping is the Hilton but I do agree that having all this 'stuff' for camping is defeating the purpose. They should just admit defeat and visit the hotel.

Anonymous said...

We have always tent camped. It's always been fun. Even at 38 weeks pregnant.

My SO has been trying to talk me into getting an RV. I'd rather spend the money on nice cots for a tent.

Went looking and they're just too nice inside. It's not really camping. I think he's talked me into a pop up camper though. Too small to defeat the purpose of camping, but big enough to sleep.

I'm scared he's just going to drive up with an RV soon

 

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