Camping is Dead

Enough bubbly fun stuff. Enough sunsets, burping, farting, and funny pictures of my butt. It's time for some darkness and despair:

Camping is Dead

This is the type of camping that is dead: The family arrives at a campground, picks out a nice site, and sets up a modest tent. The kids run off to catch bullfrogs or swim in the pond with the other kids. After dinner (after Norman Rockwell leaves), they sit around the fire, talk quietly, listen to the crickets and the wind in the trees, and gaze at the stars.

That type of camping is dead because now, it's party time with as many of your toys as you can cram into your huge pickup truck and trailer. To illustrate, here's one campsite right near mine:

All of that stuff is for just two people!

There were a lot more sites just like that, but I didn't want to disturb the passed out revelers with my flash.

Now I'm not against party time, I'm just showing how effectively it kills off camping as I described it above. These parties go late into the night, and they're usually loud.

Noise

Sounds then: Wind in trees, crickets, happy kids.

Sounds now: Car alarms, generators, boom boxes, cell phone rings, Gameboy music, loud talking over the music.

Sometimes the temperature is a pleasant 75 degrees in the shade, but inside a big RV, it might be as hot as an old Volvo at the Ensenada Walmart. So, the RV owners run the generator so they can have the AC on. That's fine unless you are sitting in the shade at the campsite next door. Some RV generators sound like an idling cement truck.

I understand the attraction of RVing, and I have some good friends with RVs. I've even rented one. It's just that they are not always compatible with someone who wants to sit outside and read a book.

BTW, generators are no longer limited to RV's. I now see a lot of these at campsites:


Something new: a lot of cars have remote locks that briefly honk the horn when you lock the car. So, as you're going to sleep, you hear these little mini-honks around the campground.

Light

When the campers turn on their Coleman maxi-lights at night, the stars fade out until the sky looks like it does in Times Square. It's worse, actually, because in the city, people have their lights on inside their houses.

Last night I pitched my tent after dark, and I put it here...


...so that the car would block out the light from the neighboring site. But that was only partially effective, because the light streamed under car and onto the sides of the tent. In fact, I was triangulated by lights from three separate campsites.

Again, I realize the benefits of a bright light when cleaning up after the party. I'm just observing how it changes the camping experience.

Fire Rings

For some reason, and I'll bet that reason is "liability," the campgrounds seem to have fire rings with very high sides, like this one:

To give you a sense of scale, I've pasted in a picture of the Empire State Building.

This design might be great if the goal is nostalgia for being homeless and standing around an oil drum in a NYC slum, but for sitting around the fire it doesn't work well. Not if you want to actually see the fire. Plus, the cooking grate sits several feet above the bottom of the pit, so don't count on easy cooking.

Perhaps the main reason for this design is fire safety. But this advantage is gone due to fire-ring inflation. That is, the campers now bring tons of firewood, and fill up the entire ring with it, creating a mini-firestorm, with little fountains of embers shooting out the top.

Big Tents

Just a quick observation about those humongous, complicated three-or-more room tents that are popular today: I've observed that tent setting up time is not happy family time.

Backpacking

I've been talking about car camping here, of course. So you might be thinking that if you want to recreate the real camping experience, all you have to do is go backpacking. Yes, that's true in many cases, however:

1. Some Trinity Alps backpacking destinations prohibit firewood collection. That is, there are so many backpackers, that too much of the scrub manzanita is being used for firewood. So, no campfires.

2. At Mount Rainier National Park, there are so many hikers, that backpackers are required to put all of their waste, and I'm not talking about coffee grounds here, into bags and pack it out with them. You thought it was gross to pick up after your dog! Don't open the wrong stuff sack when looking for the trail mix.

WHO KILLED CAMPING?

I'm guessing that two reasons are overpopulation and consumerism.

In California, you can start making online reservations at 12 AM on January 1. By 4 AM, many of the better campgrounds are totally booked for every day in August. As population increases, we can keep building new Starbucks and strip malls, but the campgrounds are limited.

People apparently have to buy a lot of stuff. A campsite with a trailer, two motorcycles and an off-road vehicle is not unusual. How can this person resist buying a high power Coleman lantern?

In conclusion, it sounds like I'm condemning the change in camping atmosphere, but that's not true. I could get into having an RV with me, being able to take a nap in the hot afternoon even if my campsite had less shade than death valley. I enjoy hanging out with a bunch of friends and talking into the night. I'm just observing that car camping as it used to be is dead, and it's not coming back.

OK, enough darkness and despair -- back to farting and funny pictures of my butt.

Day 4 -- Pismo Beach to Santa Barbara

Tuesday, Aug 14, 2007

I actually slept until about 7 AM today -- good for me! There was even sun on the tent.



After breakfast (pan-roasted sprouted wheat bread and hot cocoa),


I hung up a few things to air out.


One of the problems with car camping, is the the thing you want is always under other things. The first method of dealing with this is to unload, find, take, and reload. The other technique is to reach in until you feel the object, and then pull. I'm demonstrating this here:


I met these two guys that had a "Rip Stick." This is a skateboard with two inline wheels. It can actually be propelled very effectively, even up hill, by making strong S curves.



I next put on my wetsuit and walked to the beach. The waves weren't that good there, but there were two large grey dolphins playing very close to me. Much bigger than the ones at home, and grey instead of brown. One popped most of the way out of the water, and fell onto his back.

I then walked about a mile down the beach to the pier, and the waves were better there -- surfed for about an hour.

I packed at noon, made a sandwich for lunch and headed to Santa Barbara. My campsite had only one tree, but I was able to rig my hammock, put in the earplugs to block out the generators and boom boxes, and take a nap.


I took a peek at the beach (this is El Capitan State Beach), then headed into S.B. to the library and dinner. I'm back at the library now posting, and it's 8:30 PM and dark. I gotta finish up and head back to the campground and set up the tent. Besides, the guy two tables down is farting and burping, and making other weird noises, so it's time to head out -- no time for proofreading!

I'll be here for three days, so I get a break from the driving. I'm going to burn out if I don't slow down a little.

Day 3, Part 2

Monday, Aug 14, 2007.

From now on, I'll put the day of the week and date on the post, 'cause I am so losing track of what day it is.

After posting to the blog from an Aptos coffee shop, I talked with Jenny and Lena (daughter and wife, both of whom are currently in Sweden) via Skype. Pretty cool.

The trip to Pismo Beach took me through the Salinas valley, a major agricultural area. Lots of strawberries were being harvested.


Artichokes be big here too.


Next was a quick stop to have the surfboard blessed by Neptune and Minerva.



And after a lot of drivinng, I checked into the campground at Pismo Beach State Beach, and took a walk down the beach to check out the pier.




Remember, you can click on these images to see the full-size version.

I was really beat by the end of the day. A few hours of surfing in Santa Cruz, four hours of driving, then the long walk to the pier and back. I've got to cut down on these activities!

I had planned to drive to Santa Barbara early tomorrow and surf there, but since I'll be in S.B. for three days, I think I'll shoot the pier here tomorrow, and then head on down the coast.

Pepsi Can Stove

I have to take a second here to praise my favorite camping device, the Pepsi can stove. I am always amazed at how well this thing works. No moving parts, weighs a few ounces.

I use "Heet" gas line antifreeze and water remover as fuel. It comes in the convenient yellow container shown in below, and is available at most gas station mini-marts. There are no moving parts, and it heats almost as well as the burner on our stove at home.

Here's a picture of it cooking my chili.


This is a closer view of the stove.


And this shows the flames.

Day 3 -- Santa Cruz to Pismo Beach

Sorry that this blog is all about me, but I'm alone on this trip. Besides, how else will everyone know how cool I am?

Predawn check of the weather and it's time to get up.


BTW Ihave to admit that some of these pictures are staged, since I'm by myself, and have only the timed release mode to work with.

These guys were checking out the campsite. The racoons here were not agressive like those I've seen at other campgrounds.


This campground (New Brighton State Beach) doesn't have wi-fi, but I realized that I don't have to edit the pictures and compose the posts at a coffee shop, I can do it ahead of time.

So here I am uploading photos and writing this very post.


I finished up writing, and finished breakfast, then packed up the campsite and headed back to the 38th street break in Santa Cruz. The waves were even smaller than yesterday and besides it was low tide, which meant that there was a lot of kelp around. But I was here to surf, so I put on the (wet) wetsuit and headed out.

I actually had plenty of fun rides and surfed until about 11 AM. I got a medium ding following a collision with a beginning surfer's board, so I had to quit so that no water would get in.

I headed back to the campground, made a sandwich for lunch, had a shower, and rinsed the wetsuit. Hopefully this will be the last time I'll need the wetsuit.

I'm posting this from Aptos Coffee, and will be out of power soon. I'll repair the ding with my "sun cure" repair kit, then drive to Pismo Beach, charging the computer along the way. Stay tuned.

Day 2 -- Santa Cruz

A quick bowl of cereal and I was off to Santa Cruz. Traffic wasn't bad, and I soon found myself at 38th street, site of a few breaks recommended by members of the surfing forum.

The waves were quite small, but every 20 minutes or so a reasonable set would come in. Actually, most of the time I had the whole break to myself -- I guess most locals felt the waves weren't worth it. But I got some great rides. I used the wetsuit but no booties or gloves, and immediately discovered that I needed more wax (booties are less slippery than bare feet). A quick trip back to the car and I was all set.

I surfed three or four hours until my arms fell off. More of a crowd appeared as soon as I left, and here are some pictures of this break (called "Pleasure Point").

[Remember, you can click on any picture for a larger version.]




Next, I checked into the campground in Capitola, and took a well-deserved nap. Note the new anti-sun hat recommended by Caroline in the ER forum (thanks, Caroline).


After that it was time to find a cafe with wi-fi. I'm posting this from Toot's coffee shop in Capitola -- it took 20 minutes to find parking here -- oof!

Day 1 -- Drive down to Bay Area

What a great sense of freedom to take off on this trip! Left the driveway with Beach Boys music blaring, and all the checklist items checked off.


First stop was the Chalet House of Omelettes for a fuel up


I realized that the trip is the kind of thing one would like to do as a teenager, but without the main objective being finding girls. I thought of this when I saw this T-shirt on one of the other breakfasters:


A quick stop at one of Duane Flatmo's famous Eureka murals, and I hit the highway.


It took about 6 hours to get down the Bay Area, including a stop for lunch. I had to stop by the my old windsurfing haunt, the Berkeley Marina (click on any picture to enlarge).

Then it was on to visit our great friends, Berit, Tom, and Sam. Please ignore my expression in this picture.

After a great dinner, beer, wine and talking into the night, I dropped into bed and slept until 5 AM the next morning.