50+ thread

Same here. Very few places have actual plumbing. Figure it's due to needing to winterize everything. With the pumps, you just unbolt the handle and it's done.

 

been to a lot of campgrounds this summer. it has been super busy and so many more people are camping this year. i do campgrounds as a means of crowd control. dispersed areas are packed with 8 and 10 rigs where there's only room for 3, folks leaving their campers parked all week even though they're only there 1 or 2 nights a week. plus, where i was at there is no dispersed camping.

 

Yeah.... that was the other thing...
Friday night was peaceful. Camp was full but it was nice. There's a lake up there that gets a lot of day traffic and the road is pretty rough so big campers don't generally venture out there. There was one bumper pull trailer up there, another truck camper, me, and a bunch of tents. Not a generator in sight. So I paid for a second night (I learned to pay one night at a time just in case you're totally miserable and want to GTFO after the 1st night). The site to my left was empty Friday, the site to my right was full and the same folks were there Saturday too so I figured I was good. Didn't have any problems Friday so why would Saturday be any different? The day was fine, everyone was at the lake and I had the camp to myself. Totally peaceful. About 4 pm some folks pull in to the site on my left. They've got 2 little kids and a German Shepard that's afraid of its own shadow. Constantly yelling at the kids. The dog whined the entire time. I don't know why they even owned the dog, they never paid any attention to it unless they were yelling at it to stop whining. It didn't bark though so the owners were the bigger issue. Everyone started filling back into camp after 5 and things got loud. Lots of kids, new families showed up that weren't there Friday. The campers on my right were college age. They were fine Friday but Saturday they got totally drunk. At first, they were just having conversations that shouldn't be had around little kids (no background noise of water or birds or anything up there so voices travel) about sex and whatnot. Things kind of calmed down and I hung out by my very small campfire since the fire danger is so high right now. The folks to my right had gone back to the lake, came back around 7 and stoked their fire until it was about 8' flames coming out of the fire ring because they needed to dry off. I stayed up for a while just in case they passed out and didn't douse their fire. Way too much... Things died back down and I went to bed. Woke up about midnight to shouting. They had started arguing about something and one dude was yelling loud enough for me to hear him inside the camper. I caught something about "you can't tell me how to think, or tell me what my rights are...its a free country" and then something about "what? who's going to kick me out? The forest service? it will only take them 15 hours to get here so good luck" after one of the girls in the group told him to shut up. Died down a little after that and I fell back asleep. Woke up about an hour later when they started in again. Finally, the dad of the two kids on my left yelled at them to shut the hell up. They complied after a few slammed doors. They were packed up and out of there before anyone else in camp was even up. I heard the cars startup. I guess they sobered up and realized what assholes they were being, didn't want to face anyone.

So one good night and one shitty one. On the plus side there was a truckload of wild raspberry bushes in the area so I spent my morning out picking...I'm thinking raspberry scones for breakfast tomorrow.

 

yeah...kinda disappointed. but i'm looking forward to my raspberries!!!

 

Park Lake. It's south of Helena.
My bounty....

 

Last week's pickings....hucks!

 

I just sort of stumbled into both the hucks and the ras-pah-berries....didn't know I was camping in the middle of them until I was well settled in. Assuming you're allowed to reenter MT this time of year, next year, let me know. We can meet up and go picking. Until then I'm not sharing...