You’d think the biggest entertainment at a campground would be going to the beach, or sitting around a campfire, or meeting new people, but you would be wrong.
The best entertainment at a campground is watching all the other campers arrive and park their RV or trailer on their campsite. Bonus if that camper is a newbie.
The second I pulled up to my original too-small campsite at Wildwood, the guy situated directly across from me came out of his trailer, sat down in a lawn chair with a beer, and watched my first and futile attempts at backing into a site.
You learn a lot about people from how they cope with this exercise. Years ago LL & I pulled into The Pinery on Lake Huron (Western alum will know it well), and after 15 minutes of to-ing and fro-ing, and turning and straightening, we manoeuvred a 29’ RV into place. There was never a raised voice, never any tightened vocal cords, only considered and quietly-delivered comments like, ‘wait a minute Elaine, I want to think about this’, or, ‘LL – do you think we’re level?’ – a truly respectful process, considering we’d never does this before. In fact, another camper came up after and said, ‘well done – you two did a great job.’ As we’d done a crap job at parking, we could only assume she meant we’d done a great job working together.
My sister & I didn’t do quite as well here at Wildwood this morning, but that was no one’s fault – she hadn’t expected to be roped into helping me get settled (that’ll teach her about the dangers of arriving on time), and I hadn’t told her where I wanted to be positioned. But we got there in the end. My only complaint? I was calling to her (calling to her, mind) to be heard over the engine as we were manoeuvring, but she later told her family I ‘yelled at her’. I wasn’t yelling, I was calling. But in all honesty, I was glad to have her there for my first kick at the can.
Now that I’m settled in, it’s my turn to watch others as the campground fills up for the weekend.
Aside: I still remember one particular evening camping in Prince Edward County. My friends and I were all set-up with RV all hooked up, awning out, lawn chairs placed, Weber grill on table, dogs on leashes, the whole shebang – which had taken the three of us at least an hour to accomplish, when in pulled up a Dodge Ram hauling a looong travel trailer. He swung up to his site, backed in in one single, smooth, quick motion, stopped perfectly, unhitched his truck, hooked up the trailer, levelled it, opened the awning, placed an area rug, lawn chairs, and bbq, moved the picnic table, and drove away, all in under 15 minutes – it was like watching a well-choreographed ballet. It seems it’s a service – he provides the rig and the set-up, and the campers just drive up an hour later to a perfectly arranged campsite. Magnificent. Hoping I’ll hit that level of expertise some day.