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Camping Etiquette

6/23/2015

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I made a sarcastic post on Instagram  that I now have to amend. I said that it wasn't really camping if there was wifi and no bear warnings, and the KOA was an "adequate" place to rest my head.

Then I spent the night at Barton Park, about 30 min  east of Portland. The elderly camp host was that strange mix of friendliness and generational racism. His directions to my site were to find the "two Orientals" next to me. "They have kids, but seem pretty quiet." To be honest, that's how I found the site, because the numbers were misleading.

The locale was lovely, with treed sites and singing birds.

And now I understand why people hate camping.

I had the neighbours from hell on the other side of me, a group of four friends and their misbehaving offspring. By 2 am I was having murderous rages that threatened to bubble over.

First faux pas: They had quite a large campsite, yet set their tent up about 18 inches from mine. Their inflatable boats and other toys occupied the spacious part on the other side of the site, with no neighbours further on.

Second faux pas: The children, ranging from 3-8, were left to their own devices, shrieking and running through all three campsites. I had no problem with this, and was going to befriend them and keep us all occupied. But once the childless friend mentioned how bratty they were (his words), the parents starting shrieking and swearing. Divorced Dad (tm) was the worst. His 3-year old got an earful, consisting of "You know your mother would be in a heartbeat to pick you up. Do you want to go home with her or go camping with me." She wasn't understanding what he was saying, being three, so he yelled it three times until she started bawling and saying "camping, camping."

Third faux pas: Then commenced a night of smoking, swearing, drinking, yelling. Thing one would let out a war whoop every 20 minutes or so. Thing Two started every other sentence with "mother...". Thing Three shrieked at the children. Thing Four was the country-music-playing DJ until 2 am. Volume up, volume down, song skipped, song repeated.

Being a woman traveling alone, I sucked it up and suffered. I was hoping "the Orientals" or the elderly camp host would step in. Everyone remained silent.

That was my first experience with these kinds of neighbours. I realized that camping near a city would engender this. Camping in remote areas or National Parks would not (in my experience). The humble KOA is typically full of non drinking and swearing young families and retirees with their RVs, out for a quiet weekend or en route to other similar establishments.

My Sunday night was perfect--no neighbours on either side-- and I loved Portland, but I won't dismiss the KOA the next time I'm near a city.




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Strolling Down Nostalgia Lane

6/4/2015

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I recently took custody of the three Rubbermaid totes of family photos, now that I have more storage space than my sister. Our mother kept every Mother's Day card and postcard we ever sent, and though nothing is in albums, she also has photos all the way back to a 1909 postcard someone sent to Svea, my Swedish great-grandmother, which was pressed up against my university grad photo 93 years later.
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Things are looking messy in my condo right now, but it's all for the greater good. The cat disapproves. She likes sitting on the junk mail that's at the right of the shot, though.

My trusty Film Scanner has been working overtime. I love it!

The negatives and slides are an archeological dig into my parents' history. The slides are jumbled (but that's for another post), but the negatives are chronological. I smiled at these shots. They smack of "we're new homeowners." I have similar shots of my first home--no people or interesting angles, just "this is our first home."
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They certainly did listen to the adage of "buy the worst house in the best neighbourhood." It was by no means a hovel, and the back yard was huge, but it was torn down shortly after we moved. 


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I lived there from 6 months to 4 years, so all my earliest memories were within the basic boundaries of these photos. Childhood memories being what they are, most are nebulous and fragmented, but when I saw these photos, they whooshed right back:
  • The crawl space that was built for Lilliputians. I didn't understand it was just for storage. 
  • Watching Sesame Street with my sister and yelling out the number and letter each episode was "brought to you by." Apparently, that's how we woke up our parents
  • Lying in my parents' bed with my Nana while she taught us about cloud animals. What do you see? Close your eyes...keep them closed....OPEN.... what do you see now?
  • Getting a gift of a crocheted blanket from the same Nana
  • Being terrified of a black and white Dracula movie our babysitter let us watch. I remember Dracula crashing through the huge windows and biting the lady. I wouldn't go near our picture windows for ages. I don't think that babysitter was invited back.
  • Peering over the fence at our neighbour's pool fountain, which was a nude boy peeing. Right in the pool!
  • Louise Sawyer's white plastic wicker-look basket on her bike with big handlebars. It had 2 colourful plastic daisies too. Can't believe her name came back to me as well
  • Inheriting our dog Crockett from my mom's friends Lorna and Bob when they moved to Malawi
  • The ottoman (maybe the one in the following picture) that we would flip on its side and pretend was our tv. The wheels were the knobs (the what? youngsters will ask). We even drew squiggly lines for the screen. I think I remember that because our mom got mad at us



There are a few more, but they might be influenced by seeing photos or hearing the lore in years since. Maybe some of the above are too, but I am claiming them as my own.



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There's me and my smiling little face. That's my maternal grandfather partly in the frame, and possibly the ottoman from my memory, though I think this is my grandparents' house. "My" ottoman seemed more stripey and not as tall.

Thank you, Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner!


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