Week
Thirteen – Spray Lake, 2015
It’s been
another typical week at Spray Lake Campground.
We had an interesting weekend with a couple of odd campsites. Last Thursday night someone came up and put
tags on two sites, put a tent in one of them and a tent trailer in the other
and then didn’t pay or register for them.
On the ticket that a person is supposed to put on the post in the
campsite the fellow had left his name, the date they planned to leave and where
he was to fill in the amount paid, he put N/A (not applicable). Hmmmm…he must be very special if he doesn’t
have to pay! Anyway, I called the
Conservation office to see if they could track down the owner through the
license plate on the tent trailer. That
didn’t seem to work because the phone numbers attached to the license plate
were out of order. So…I let it go the
first night because we were not full and I thought maybe the campers would come
back but they didn’t. The next night we
were full…I called conservation and an officer came and confiscated the tent
and told us to call as soon as the person arrived for the tent trailer. I sold the sites to two families who were
waiting in overflow. At about 11:00 on
Friday night three car-loads of kids arrive at the campground. Tom stopped them at the gate since it was
after hours and asked them where they were going…yes, it was the unregistered
campers. He called me on the
walkie-talkie and told me they were arriving and I called the conservation
officer again. Tom said the kids looked
like a rough bunch so I relayed that information to conservation. He happened to be just across the lake
dealing with some campers on the beach (a $300 fine for fire on beach and $150
for random camping!) and so he came over immediately. I had just spoken with the kids who had
arrived and could tell they had been drinking on their way up here. I told them there was nothing I could do to
hold their sites since we were full. They
were very angry about the whole situation but not so much with me as with their
leader who had tagged the sites but didn’t pay for them. I told conservation I’d seen beer cans in the
car and he went and looked and actually caught one of them drinking in the car
while he was talking with them…dumb kids!
Anyway, he evicted them so they wouldn’t go park in the overflow area
and off they went with fines for failing to register and having open containers
in the car. After that little fiasco,
the weekend went very nicely!
It’s been a
bird week up here as far as animals go.
There are always loons on the lake but I did get some nice pictures of
one of them. As well a heron came and
posed for me on the big rock right in front of our site. He stood there for a while surveying the area
for minnows…he probably ate his fill as the shores are thick with them!
I gave Oso a
haircut this morning as the weather is nice and warm…high 70’s…perfect weather
as far as I am concerned. He sits really
well for his haircut…such a good boy!
Afterwards he went and sat on his big pillow outside and was just about
asleep when his nemesis, the chipmunk appeared.
That little rascal ran right up and over the pillow Oso was on. Oso jumped up and chased him but the chipmunk
ran into one of his hiding spots…Oso is definitely on high alert now!!
The other
day we had four young guys come into the campground. I stopped to sell them some firewood and
started chatting with them. They said
they were going to hike the Big Sister Mountain right across from us the next
morning. I told them that I would take
pictures of them at the top if they wanted.
They were quite excited about that and so I did. Two of them were more experienced so though
they all started together, those two got to the top first. The other two made it about a half hour
later. It’s so cool to watch them up
there and to see them finally make it to the top. They stopped at our site when they got down
and I showed them the pictures and promised to e-mail them. They were pretty happy with the results.
There are
hikers going up the mountain every day and though it’s a tough climb there are
not often any problems. That night
however, I’d been watching some people coming down quite late. They were still up above the tree-line at
dark and then of course all we could see were their headlamps in the dark. It’s unlikely anyone but very experience
climbers could come down in the dark and experienced climbers wouldn’t be
caught in that situation. Anyway, we
called conservation to report it but there is nothing they can do about
it. If the hikers were wise they would
just find a place to hunker down for the night and stay there. I think that’s what these folks did because
other campers reported lights on the mountain till four a.m. When we got up the next morning their car was
gone so they’d obviously gotten down safely.
Tom and I
celebrated our 10th Wedding anniversary last Thursday…here’s a picture
of my honey!
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