Honor Guard
Hello World,
Alert readers may be wondering what the heck ever happened to me last week, and well may they wonder. For anyone who answered "camping out at Wildwood on vacation," that would be absolutely correct, so please contact me regarding your prize, although I feel it's only fair to warn you that it might be Monopoly money or a post card of Long Island. After all the hullabaloo of the previous week, I was really looking forward to some rest and relaxation in the woods, or know the reason why. Things got off to an inauspicious start when Bill's car needed to go to the mechanic's on Friday, when I was supposed to be packing it full of camping supplies, and even though it had just been there a few weeks earlier and given a clean bill of health. But we got it back, and got it packed, and actually left bright and early on Saturday morning, because last year when we left later, we got stuck in all sorts of traffic. Nothing like that happened this time around, and we got out there in record time, and even better, they let us check in early because both of the campsites were already vacant. It was just as well, because setting up turned out to be a whole adventure that I hadn't anticipated.
Those same alert readers may recall that when I made my reservations at the park, the two campsites that I usually reserve were already taken, so instead I reserved two similarly adjunct sites across the road. I figured that I had been in these campsites often enough, scavenging for firewood or whatever, that I was adequately familiar with them, and in my mind, they looked just like my regular two sites, but wider and flatter. That turned out to be not the case at all, as they were full of trees, and one of them had a cement platform. The trees were close together, which would have been handy for people with hammocks to string up, but posed a problem for me as I was trying to find flat open spaces for two tents, two picnic tables, the fire bucket and clothesline. Putting the tent on the platform was not an option, since it needs to be staked into the ground in order for the door zippers to work properly, and while I considered parking the car on the platform instead, in the end, it just stayed empty for the duration. All of this dithering really threw a monkey wrench into our usual set-up process, and so even though we started earlier than usual, it took a lot longer than I expected. Finally we just left everything else for later, and headed for the beach.
I will say right up front that the camping gods were smiling on me this time around, and I had the only good week of weather that there has been in the entire metro New York area all year. I couldn't believe that it was beautiful every day, and held up all week like that, instead of all the miserable weather we had been having up until that point. However, it was all of that miserable weather up until that point that kept the water in the Sound from warming up like it usually would by the middle of July, especially since my vacation was a whole week later because July 4th was on a Saturday. I won't say the water was like liquid nitrogen, but it was not for the faint-hearted, and took some getting used to on that first foray into the briny deep. But we took the plunge, and thanks to Bill's new camera mask that he got for Christmas, we even have bad aquatic videos to prove it. At the concession stand, the cheese fries were as good as we remembered them, and it was good to get back out in the sun and the sand after a year. Walking back up the hill to the campground, I found that all of those weeks of Walk Group finally paid off, as I had much more stamina to get all the way up that hill than ever before. Then we tackled the rain fly and the clothesline, which are a lot easier with two people than with one, and got everything ship-shape before leaving to check in at the Comfort Inn at Medford, the same place we had stayed last year. Even though it was a whole week after July 4th, every campsite was taken on Saturday, and it was shaping up to be a wild and raucous night, so we were just as glad to get out of there while the getting was good.
The hotel is nice enough and not far from the park, and just up the block from a diner, which is handy since there is no restaurant at the hotel. We had brought some DVD's with us and were planning to watch one after dinner, but found there was no DVD player in the room, and decided against watching a movie on Bill's laptop instead. Although there is free WI-FI in the rooms, Bill didn't have his network card, so things on the technology front didn't work out as well as might be hoped. In the morning, we stopped at a nearby Radio Shack and got a portable DVD player, so at least we wouldn't be stuck watching bad hotel TV for two nights in a row. The hotel provides a nice breakfast, which is always a special way to start the day, and much more convenient than carrying snacks around on your own. After our breakfast and shopping, we went back to the beach and had another lovely day, and less crowded than Saturday, which made it even better. We wanted to try some place different for dinner besides the same diner, so we found a little Italian restaurant near the hotel, and really enjoyed it. Back at the hotel, setting up the DVD player turned out to be its own version of "Mission Impossible," but everyone knows how Bill loves a challenge, so he finally got it up and running so we could enjoy a movie and that was a nice treat. After breakfast on Monday, we checked out of the hotel and Bill helped me set up my cot and shelves and lanterns that I would need at the campsite during the week. Then it was back to the beach, and while it might seem like just too much wonderfulness for two people, it was a good thing that we did.
Bill always carries his binoculars to the beach, and likes to watch the sailboats, barges, fishing boats and other marine traffic going to and fro, out on the water for business or just for the fun of it. While we were there on Monday, he spotted a catamaran making some good speed in a brisk wind, and when he looked a bit later, it seemed to have vanished from sight. It had a big blue sail, so he knew that he should still be able to see it somewhere, and he kept looking until he realized that it had capsized, and where the sail should have been, all he could see was one of the pontoons sticking out of the water with the unfortunate occupant of the vessel hanging on for dear life. Bill watched the fellow for about 20 minutes trying to right the craft, get the sail out of the water, and be on his way, but all of his efforts were unsuccessful, as the boat stayed upside-down and drifting farther out to the ocean by the minute. Finally Bill went and reported it to the lifeguards, and they sent out one of the crew in a kayak, but even two of them together couldn't turn the thing over and get it underway, so the lifeguard radioed for the Coast Guard, who sent four rescue ships plus a helicopter. All in all, it was a pretty exciting day at Wildwood beach, and the fact that the local newspapers weren't full of stories later about a catamaran and sailor lost at sea, is all because of Bill's presence of mind and quick actions. After that, The Hero Of The Day packed up and drove home, leaving me to my own devices for the rest of the week.
I found this an odd week for camping, and not just because I was on two unfamiliar campsites, thanks not. First of all, I have never seen so many spy sites at Wildwood ever in my whole life, and I have pretty much gotten used to the proliferation of covert operatives out in the woods by this point. Everywhere you looked, in every different section, there would be a single tent standing all alone, with no car, no people, no kitchen or chairs, no grill or campfire, or any evidence of food, sports equipment, beach towels, clothing or anything that would indicate that actual campers were using the site, rather than spies sneaking in for clandestine meetings in the dead of night. On the other side of my site, there was a lone tent standing at C-13, and I never once clapped eyes on the people that belonged to it all week. It was like that all over, and I've never seen anything like it. I found my usual site, C-35 was empty on Saturday when we arrived, then there was an old funky tent erected on it on Sunday with no evidence of people anywhere around, and it was gone on Monday. It stayed empty all the rest of the week, which was especially annoying to me from across the street. My other regular site, C-17 was occupied from Saturday to Tuesday, while the corner site of C-16 was empty except for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. This blew a hole in my theory that these three campsites had all been reserved early by a large extended family or a Korean church group, which is why all of them were already taken when I tried to make my reservations. Frankly, my theory made a lot more sense than what actually happened in reality. After Sunday, it was pretty quiet in the park all week, but it took until Thursday for me to be the only person on the inside circle of my section.
Speaking of Thursday, I was enjoying my nightly campfire when I couldn't help but notice what appeared to be distant lightning in the sky, although I couldn't hear any thunder. I turned on the weather radio to find out that there was a severe thunderstorm watch in central Connecticut with heavy rain, high winds, quarter-sized hail and local street flooding. The word must have gotten out, because all over the campground, you could hear the sounds of people battening down the hatches for the big blow. Now, I've been camping my whole life and rain doesn't bother me, but I draw the line at thunder and lightning when I'm in a tent, so I was prepared to grab my gear and sleep in the car instead. But in the end, it blew over without a drop falling, which surprised me, because I thought it sounded like a pretty serious storm that was going to do some damage over a wide area. I should have realized that it was never going to rain, once I took in all of my stuff from the clothesline.
When I came back from the beach on Friday, the whole campground was unrecognizable from the day before, with every campsite taken and crowds of people everywhere. Although I enjoy camping out in the woods for a week, it's days like this that make me glad to be leaving, and the idea of home starts to sound pretty darned good to me. In fact, I woke up at midnight to find people on C-14 setting up their tent right next to me, with their car headlights shining right in my windows. On Saturday morning, I overslept for the first time all week, and Bill showed up at the site before I got back from the bathroom, which was not helped by having to go to three different vending machines in separate areas of the park to get something to drink, and lost 50 cents overall in the process, thanks not. But we managed to pack up everything and get it stowed in both cars without incident, and checked out with five minutes to spare. After that, we went back to the beach, where it turned out to be another lovely day, in spite of the forecast. While we were there, a young boy had an accident and injured his leg, setting in motion another whole emergency operation full of special equipment and tactical forces to get him off the beach and back to civilization for treatment. I finally said to Bill that they weren't going to let him come to the beach anymore, the way things had been going. I've been going there for 50 years, and no one ever had to be rescued in that entire time. Now Bill was there on two different days, and both times, they had to call out the life guards, Coast Guard, helicopters and Police SWAT teams with all-terrain vehicles. If this is the new version of camping at Wildwood, I can't say that I care for it all that much.
After a long day, we finally had no choice but to pack up and head for home, although first we stopped at the deli to pick up sandwiches and salads to bring with us, so we wouldn't get home hot and tired and still have to come up with something for dinner. Even though we left later than we expected, we were surprised that there wasn't any traffic, and we got home with no trouble. We took the time to eat first, so unpacking after that didn't seem like so much of a chore. It didn't appear that the cats remembered who I was, but they were pretty sure that they didn't like me anyway. Of course, it goes without saying that I came home with the usual piles of dirty laundry, and I expect I'll be at the washing machine every day for a month before I start to see the end of that. You don't even want to ask me about my email, and I'm not sure that I will ever catch up on that in my lifetime. But I will say that I had a good vacation, with remarkably good weather, and it was better than it might have been with two different campsites, which is an experiment that I would hope to avoid in the future. I always say that there's nothing like a week in the woods to make you really appreciate the comforts of home, by golly, and the benefits of electricity and private bathrooms cannot be overstated in my opinion. Best of all, I've been here an entire week, and haven't seen the Coast Guard once, and the way things had been going, that's not something to take for granted.
Elle
Alert readers may be wondering what the heck ever happened to me last week, and well may they wonder. For anyone who answered "camping out at Wildwood on vacation," that would be absolutely correct, so please contact me regarding your prize, although I feel it's only fair to warn you that it might be Monopoly money or a post card of Long Island. After all the hullabaloo of the previous week, I was really looking forward to some rest and relaxation in the woods, or know the reason why. Things got off to an inauspicious start when Bill's car needed to go to the mechanic's on Friday, when I was supposed to be packing it full of camping supplies, and even though it had just been there a few weeks earlier and given a clean bill of health. But we got it back, and got it packed, and actually left bright and early on Saturday morning, because last year when we left later, we got stuck in all sorts of traffic. Nothing like that happened this time around, and we got out there in record time, and even better, they let us check in early because both of the campsites were already vacant. It was just as well, because setting up turned out to be a whole adventure that I hadn't anticipated.
Those same alert readers may recall that when I made my reservations at the park, the two campsites that I usually reserve were already taken, so instead I reserved two similarly adjunct sites across the road. I figured that I had been in these campsites often enough, scavenging for firewood or whatever, that I was adequately familiar with them, and in my mind, they looked just like my regular two sites, but wider and flatter. That turned out to be not the case at all, as they were full of trees, and one of them had a cement platform. The trees were close together, which would have been handy for people with hammocks to string up, but posed a problem for me as I was trying to find flat open spaces for two tents, two picnic tables, the fire bucket and clothesline. Putting the tent on the platform was not an option, since it needs to be staked into the ground in order for the door zippers to work properly, and while I considered parking the car on the platform instead, in the end, it just stayed empty for the duration. All of this dithering really threw a monkey wrench into our usual set-up process, and so even though we started earlier than usual, it took a lot longer than I expected. Finally we just left everything else for later, and headed for the beach.
I will say right up front that the camping gods were smiling on me this time around, and I had the only good week of weather that there has been in the entire metro New York area all year. I couldn't believe that it was beautiful every day, and held up all week like that, instead of all the miserable weather we had been having up until that point. However, it was all of that miserable weather up until that point that kept the water in the Sound from warming up like it usually would by the middle of July, especially since my vacation was a whole week later because July 4th was on a Saturday. I won't say the water was like liquid nitrogen, but it was not for the faint-hearted, and took some getting used to on that first foray into the briny deep. But we took the plunge, and thanks to Bill's new camera mask that he got for Christmas, we even have bad aquatic videos to prove it. At the concession stand, the cheese fries were as good as we remembered them, and it was good to get back out in the sun and the sand after a year. Walking back up the hill to the campground, I found that all of those weeks of Walk Group finally paid off, as I had much more stamina to get all the way up that hill than ever before. Then we tackled the rain fly and the clothesline, which are a lot easier with two people than with one, and got everything ship-shape before leaving to check in at the Comfort Inn at Medford, the same place we had stayed last year. Even though it was a whole week after July 4th, every campsite was taken on Saturday, and it was shaping up to be a wild and raucous night, so we were just as glad to get out of there while the getting was good.
The hotel is nice enough and not far from the park, and just up the block from a diner, which is handy since there is no restaurant at the hotel. We had brought some DVD's with us and were planning to watch one after dinner, but found there was no DVD player in the room, and decided against watching a movie on Bill's laptop instead. Although there is free WI-FI in the rooms, Bill didn't have his network card, so things on the technology front didn't work out as well as might be hoped. In the morning, we stopped at a nearby Radio Shack and got a portable DVD player, so at least we wouldn't be stuck watching bad hotel TV for two nights in a row. The hotel provides a nice breakfast, which is always a special way to start the day, and much more convenient than carrying snacks around on your own. After our breakfast and shopping, we went back to the beach and had another lovely day, and less crowded than Saturday, which made it even better. We wanted to try some place different for dinner besides the same diner, so we found a little Italian restaurant near the hotel, and really enjoyed it. Back at the hotel, setting up the DVD player turned out to be its own version of "Mission Impossible," but everyone knows how Bill loves a challenge, so he finally got it up and running so we could enjoy a movie and that was a nice treat. After breakfast on Monday, we checked out of the hotel and Bill helped me set up my cot and shelves and lanterns that I would need at the campsite during the week. Then it was back to the beach, and while it might seem like just too much wonderfulness for two people, it was a good thing that we did.
Bill always carries his binoculars to the beach, and likes to watch the sailboats, barges, fishing boats and other marine traffic going to and fro, out on the water for business or just for the fun of it. While we were there on Monday, he spotted a catamaran making some good speed in a brisk wind, and when he looked a bit later, it seemed to have vanished from sight. It had a big blue sail, so he knew that he should still be able to see it somewhere, and he kept looking until he realized that it had capsized, and where the sail should have been, all he could see was one of the pontoons sticking out of the water with the unfortunate occupant of the vessel hanging on for dear life. Bill watched the fellow for about 20 minutes trying to right the craft, get the sail out of the water, and be on his way, but all of his efforts were unsuccessful, as the boat stayed upside-down and drifting farther out to the ocean by the minute. Finally Bill went and reported it to the lifeguards, and they sent out one of the crew in a kayak, but even two of them together couldn't turn the thing over and get it underway, so the lifeguard radioed for the Coast Guard, who sent four rescue ships plus a helicopter. All in all, it was a pretty exciting day at Wildwood beach, and the fact that the local newspapers weren't full of stories later about a catamaran and sailor lost at sea, is all because of Bill's presence of mind and quick actions. After that, The Hero Of The Day packed up and drove home, leaving me to my own devices for the rest of the week.
I found this an odd week for camping, and not just because I was on two unfamiliar campsites, thanks not. First of all, I have never seen so many spy sites at Wildwood ever in my whole life, and I have pretty much gotten used to the proliferation of covert operatives out in the woods by this point. Everywhere you looked, in every different section, there would be a single tent standing all alone, with no car, no people, no kitchen or chairs, no grill or campfire, or any evidence of food, sports equipment, beach towels, clothing or anything that would indicate that actual campers were using the site, rather than spies sneaking in for clandestine meetings in the dead of night. On the other side of my site, there was a lone tent standing at C-13, and I never once clapped eyes on the people that belonged to it all week. It was like that all over, and I've never seen anything like it. I found my usual site, C-35 was empty on Saturday when we arrived, then there was an old funky tent erected on it on Sunday with no evidence of people anywhere around, and it was gone on Monday. It stayed empty all the rest of the week, which was especially annoying to me from across the street. My other regular site, C-17 was occupied from Saturday to Tuesday, while the corner site of C-16 was empty except for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. This blew a hole in my theory that these three campsites had all been reserved early by a large extended family or a Korean church group, which is why all of them were already taken when I tried to make my reservations. Frankly, my theory made a lot more sense than what actually happened in reality. After Sunday, it was pretty quiet in the park all week, but it took until Thursday for me to be the only person on the inside circle of my section.
Speaking of Thursday, I was enjoying my nightly campfire when I couldn't help but notice what appeared to be distant lightning in the sky, although I couldn't hear any thunder. I turned on the weather radio to find out that there was a severe thunderstorm watch in central Connecticut with heavy rain, high winds, quarter-sized hail and local street flooding. The word must have gotten out, because all over the campground, you could hear the sounds of people battening down the hatches for the big blow. Now, I've been camping my whole life and rain doesn't bother me, but I draw the line at thunder and lightning when I'm in a tent, so I was prepared to grab my gear and sleep in the car instead. But in the end, it blew over without a drop falling, which surprised me, because I thought it sounded like a pretty serious storm that was going to do some damage over a wide area. I should have realized that it was never going to rain, once I took in all of my stuff from the clothesline.
When I came back from the beach on Friday, the whole campground was unrecognizable from the day before, with every campsite taken and crowds of people everywhere. Although I enjoy camping out in the woods for a week, it's days like this that make me glad to be leaving, and the idea of home starts to sound pretty darned good to me. In fact, I woke up at midnight to find people on C-14 setting up their tent right next to me, with their car headlights shining right in my windows. On Saturday morning, I overslept for the first time all week, and Bill showed up at the site before I got back from the bathroom, which was not helped by having to go to three different vending machines in separate areas of the park to get something to drink, and lost 50 cents overall in the process, thanks not. But we managed to pack up everything and get it stowed in both cars without incident, and checked out with five minutes to spare. After that, we went back to the beach, where it turned out to be another lovely day, in spite of the forecast. While we were there, a young boy had an accident and injured his leg, setting in motion another whole emergency operation full of special equipment and tactical forces to get him off the beach and back to civilization for treatment. I finally said to Bill that they weren't going to let him come to the beach anymore, the way things had been going. I've been going there for 50 years, and no one ever had to be rescued in that entire time. Now Bill was there on two different days, and both times, they had to call out the life guards, Coast Guard, helicopters and Police SWAT teams with all-terrain vehicles. If this is the new version of camping at Wildwood, I can't say that I care for it all that much.
After a long day, we finally had no choice but to pack up and head for home, although first we stopped at the deli to pick up sandwiches and salads to bring with us, so we wouldn't get home hot and tired and still have to come up with something for dinner. Even though we left later than we expected, we were surprised that there wasn't any traffic, and we got home with no trouble. We took the time to eat first, so unpacking after that didn't seem like so much of a chore. It didn't appear that the cats remembered who I was, but they were pretty sure that they didn't like me anyway. Of course, it goes without saying that I came home with the usual piles of dirty laundry, and I expect I'll be at the washing machine every day for a month before I start to see the end of that. You don't even want to ask me about my email, and I'm not sure that I will ever catch up on that in my lifetime. But I will say that I had a good vacation, with remarkably good weather, and it was better than it might have been with two different campsites, which is an experiment that I would hope to avoid in the future. I always say that there's nothing like a week in the woods to make you really appreciate the comforts of home, by golly, and the benefits of electricity and private bathrooms cannot be overstated in my opinion. Best of all, I've been here an entire week, and haven't seen the Coast Guard once, and the way things had been going, that's not something to take for granted.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 9:06 PM
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