I May Never Go Camping Again!
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 Posted In Camping Edit This 1 Comment »
Andrew and I went on my very first camping trip in Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The trees, the lake, the weather, and the company were awesome.
We arrived in Tahoe on Friday August 17, set up our tent, got out our chairs, and so my first camping experience began. We decided to walk to the beach that was across the street from our campground to check it out. It was beautiful looking out across the water from the 30 feet of rocky beach our campground owns. Right before we left to go back to our camp the bats decided it was feeding time, so we got to encounter them swooping through the air to catch flies. Ah...how romantic.
When we got back to camp it was getting dark, so we made a fire. (When I say "we" I really mean Andrew, but I think I did a pretty good job of observing.) We roasted hot dogs and smores and then enjoyed what little fire we had left. The first night went pretty smoothly without anything too exciting to blog about.
We got up the next morning (Saturday) and Andrew made a very delicious hash brown, sausage, and egg mixture. We relaxed for a little while and then decided to take a drive with the plan of going to Vikingsholm Castle. We got to the D.L. Bliss entrance which is not far from the parking lot for Vikingsholm, but we decided we wanted to go to the beach for a little bit before our hike down to the castle. The beach is two miles from the entrance of D.L. Bliss and we were told there should be a few spaces available at the bottom. Half way through our drive we got to the ranger station where you have to pay to get in. The little ranger girl with shorts up to her nose told us there were no spaces available at the bottom so we had to park right by the ranger house and walk a mile to the beach. That isn't a big deal right? Wrong. We are out of shape, it was hot, and when we got to the bottom guess what...there were TONS of parking spots. (Picture me shaking my fist in the air at Ranger Shorts.)
We laid on the beach for a while, ate our lunch, and Andrew noticed that there was a fire in the same area as our campground. We decided we should head back to camp to make sure we still had camping gear to sleep in. It turned out they were blocking the road right after the entrance to our campground and thankfully we survived another night without burning to death. Yay!
We got some more wood and Andrew started another fire. We roasted hot dogs and smores and then I put everything away in our bear locker. If you do not know what a bear locker is, it is a metal locker that you are required to put food, coolers, etc. in so bears don't eat your stuff. I have been told that bears know what coolers look like and they can smell food from a mile away. If you leave a cooler in your vehicle and the bear looks in and sees it the bear will tear your car apart to get to the cooler. That is why the campgrounds provide bear lockers.
As we were sitting by the campfire I told Andrew we shouldn't have to worry about bears because our campground was surrounded by people's houses and it was a populated area. The wind was blowing the smoke from the fire right in our eyes, so we moved our chairs around to the other side and about that time I looked toward the bathroom. (The bathroom was right up a little hill from our campsite.) I saw what I thought looked like a person coming out of the women's bathroom. I didn't want to shine my light on the person because I thought that might be rude, so I just watched. The "person" looked like they were hunched over or crawling and huge, and coming toward us, so I decided to shine my light on whoever it was. It wasn't a human...it was a BEAR! A very big bear I might add. Without any emotion I said, "Shit...there's a bear." Andrew thought I was joking and looked over where I was shining my light and said, "Yes there is." He also shined his light on the bear and I think we spooked it with our lights and it started to back away.
I decided to be a good samaritan and tell our camping neighbors about our new friend, so I walk-ran over to them and said, "I don't mean to scare you, but there was just a bear at our camp." There were only 3 out of about 10 of their people there and they said, "Are you serious?" Come on people why would I come over here not even knowing who you are and tell you there is a bear. I told them, "Yes I'm serious." Without even a breath they were all in there SUV watching their campsite.
I ran back to Andrew and asked where the bear was, but he didn't know. About that time the bear was climbing on the table of our neighbors where I just ran away from. He was hungry and he was determined to find something to eat at their camp. Our neighbors must not go camping much because they had all of their stuff scattered everywhere. It took the bear a while to find the cooler, but when it did he opened it up and ate all of their cookies.
This whole ordeal probably only lasted about 15 or 20 minutes, but the whole time we had our lights on the bear watching for its next move. Our unlucky neighbors decided to go tell the ranger that there was a bear and see what should be done. When they returned the rest of their group was with them. I won't go into detail about how dumb they were, but believe me they were not made out for camping.
After the bear scare was over we sat back down at our fire and tried to relax. Of course Andrew was calm, cool, and collected the whole time, but I just knew the bear was going to come back. Fortunately he did not return, but I was on edge for the rest of the night. Every little noise set me off and I had to scan the entire area with my flashlight.
We could hear everything our neighbors were saying partly because they were drunk and they must be deaf. They were right next to each other and they were using their big voices to talk to each other. I know I said I wasn't going to go into detail about why they aren't made out for camping, but here are a few reasons:
We arrived in Tahoe on Friday August 17, set up our tent, got out our chairs, and so my first camping experience began. We decided to walk to the beach that was across the street from our campground to check it out. It was beautiful looking out across the water from the 30 feet of rocky beach our campground owns. Right before we left to go back to our camp the bats decided it was feeding time, so we got to encounter them swooping through the air to catch flies. Ah...how romantic.
When we got back to camp it was getting dark, so we made a fire. (When I say "we" I really mean Andrew, but I think I did a pretty good job of observing.) We roasted hot dogs and smores and then enjoyed what little fire we had left. The first night went pretty smoothly without anything too exciting to blog about.
We got up the next morning (Saturday) and Andrew made a very delicious hash brown, sausage, and egg mixture. We relaxed for a little while and then decided to take a drive with the plan of going to Vikingsholm Castle. We got to the D.L. Bliss entrance which is not far from the parking lot for Vikingsholm, but we decided we wanted to go to the beach for a little bit before our hike down to the castle. The beach is two miles from the entrance of D.L. Bliss and we were told there should be a few spaces available at the bottom. Half way through our drive we got to the ranger station where you have to pay to get in. The little ranger girl with shorts up to her nose told us there were no spaces available at the bottom so we had to park right by the ranger house and walk a mile to the beach. That isn't a big deal right? Wrong. We are out of shape, it was hot, and when we got to the bottom guess what...there were TONS of parking spots. (Picture me shaking my fist in the air at Ranger Shorts.)
We laid on the beach for a while, ate our lunch, and Andrew noticed that there was a fire in the same area as our campground. We decided we should head back to camp to make sure we still had camping gear to sleep in. It turned out they were blocking the road right after the entrance to our campground and thankfully we survived another night without burning to death. Yay!
We got some more wood and Andrew started another fire. We roasted hot dogs and smores and then I put everything away in our bear locker. If you do not know what a bear locker is, it is a metal locker that you are required to put food, coolers, etc. in so bears don't eat your stuff. I have been told that bears know what coolers look like and they can smell food from a mile away. If you leave a cooler in your vehicle and the bear looks in and sees it the bear will tear your car apart to get to the cooler. That is why the campgrounds provide bear lockers.
As we were sitting by the campfire I told Andrew we shouldn't have to worry about bears because our campground was surrounded by people's houses and it was a populated area. The wind was blowing the smoke from the fire right in our eyes, so we moved our chairs around to the other side and about that time I looked toward the bathroom. (The bathroom was right up a little hill from our campsite.) I saw what I thought looked like a person coming out of the women's bathroom. I didn't want to shine my light on the person because I thought that might be rude, so I just watched. The "person" looked like they were hunched over or crawling and huge, and coming toward us, so I decided to shine my light on whoever it was. It wasn't a human...it was a BEAR! A very big bear I might add. Without any emotion I said, "Shit...there's a bear." Andrew thought I was joking and looked over where I was shining my light and said, "Yes there is." He also shined his light on the bear and I think we spooked it with our lights and it started to back away.
I decided to be a good samaritan and tell our camping neighbors about our new friend, so I walk-ran over to them and said, "I don't mean to scare you, but there was just a bear at our camp." There were only 3 out of about 10 of their people there and they said, "Are you serious?" Come on people why would I come over here not even knowing who you are and tell you there is a bear. I told them, "Yes I'm serious." Without even a breath they were all in there SUV watching their campsite.
I ran back to Andrew and asked where the bear was, but he didn't know. About that time the bear was climbing on the table of our neighbors where I just ran away from. He was hungry and he was determined to find something to eat at their camp. Our neighbors must not go camping much because they had all of their stuff scattered everywhere. It took the bear a while to find the cooler, but when it did he opened it up and ate all of their cookies.
This whole ordeal probably only lasted about 15 or 20 minutes, but the whole time we had our lights on the bear watching for its next move. Our unlucky neighbors decided to go tell the ranger that there was a bear and see what should be done. When they returned the rest of their group was with them. I won't go into detail about how dumb they were, but believe me they were not made out for camping.
After the bear scare was over we sat back down at our fire and tried to relax. Of course Andrew was calm, cool, and collected the whole time, but I just knew the bear was going to come back. Fortunately he did not return, but I was on edge for the rest of the night. Every little noise set me off and I had to scan the entire area with my flashlight.
We could hear everything our neighbors were saying partly because they were drunk and they must be deaf. They were right next to each other and they were using their big voices to talk to each other. I know I said I wasn't going to go into detail about why they aren't made out for camping, but here are a few reasons:
- Leaving their food and coolers out all day and night.
- Wearing high heels.
- Leaving their bags of trash in the bathroom on the floor for someone else to clean up.
- Burning a 4 foot section of tree. The campgrounds in Tahoe had a rule that you are not supposed to "disturb" nature therefore you are not allowed to cut down trees or take wood, branches, or anything off the ground to burn. They provide bags of wood for a fee that you can burn. Not our neighbors, they just took the "tree" they found, laid it over the top of their fire ring, and set it on fire, the whole log.
- Going to Starbucks early in the morning to get coffees.
- Parking in the driveway of other people's campsites.
I know this was my first experience camping and I might not know the "right" way to camp, but these people just didn't seem like they knew what they were doing.
All in all it was a fun experience and I can't wait to go again, as long as we don't have idiot neighbors. Oh and one more thing...if I say there is a bear, even if it is said without emotion, I'M NOT JOKING!
