Monday, May 24, 2010

Camping in May







We spent Tuesday afternoon getting everything loaded and tied down. RV is all loaded up with warm clothes, tons of food, and fishing gear. Pickup is loaded up with boat, motor, and campfirewood. We hear there is a severe weather alert for western Washington so I check the weather forecast on Yahoo for eastern Washington, which is where we are headed. Just some clouds and possibly a few sun breaks. Cool! No mention of the severe weather expected at home.
We are on the road by 7 am Wednesday morning. Because of morning commuter traffic it took us 5 1/2 hours instead of the normal 4 hours it takes to get to our destination.
We have camp set up and lunch consumed by 2 pm. It's too windy to take the boat out on the lake so we decide to just kick back and relax. Norm takes a nap and I settle in with a good book.
At 3 the campground caretaker shows up with another gentleman in tow and tells us we have chosen a campsite that had been reserved and we would have to move. Hmmmmmmmmmm...... When we arrived 2 1/2 hours before we were the only campers in a campground of at least 35 camp sites. Now this PERSON is telling us the spot we chose is RESERVED???? No one told us it was reserved. There was no sign that said RESERVED. There are 34 OTHER campsites available but we have to move because the site we chose is RESERVED.....???
Now, Norm had just awoke from a nap and he's sorta cranky when the these gentlemen show up. I was very proud of him though, because he did a really great job of hiding most of his irritation at having to pick everything up and move it to another campsite. 
It wasn't the poor old gentleman who had reserved, (and paid for), the campsite last September, who was to blame, but someone from the state parks dept. who dropped the ball and didn't follow through with the reservation by placing a reserved marker at the campsite.
We had just finished moving the trailer, resetting the jacks and releveling everything when the sky started to turn very black and the wind started to howl. The storm that was expected at our home had found us at our campsite! Thunder, lightning, pouring rain, and severe wind. In fact a tornado was reported to have touched down not far from where we were camping!!! LOVELY!
Thankfully the storm didn't last long but the wind stuck around for the rest of our stay, making it impossible to take the boat out on the lake or even to sit on the dock and fish.
Our plan to beat the crowds of Memorial Day weekend campers sort of backfired. The weather for the middle of May just isn't reliable enough in Washington for outdoor activities unless you're a fish. Better luck next time I guess. We'll try again in July......

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