Camp Neighbors

I love camping for many reasons, one being the peace and quiet it brings.  I love the sounds of the stream, wind in the trees, and the calmness.  This is where I recharge, and create non electronic quality time with my family.

We camp at Enterprise Reservoir a couple times a year.  Enterprise is a good place to go for one of the first camping places of the season.  It is not as cold there, and the days are beautiful.

Last year after spending a few nights at Enterprise Reservoir, we were prematurely woken up by some extremely loud music.  This music was not only loud, but hearing the F bombs from Eminem so early in the morning, before the sun was up, was NOT appreciated by me or my husband.   After listening to it for a few minutes and wondering what they were thinking so early, my husband convinced me to go talk to them.  He was too mad to deal with it nicely.

I Walked over to the campsite right next to ours, but since the boulders are so high, we could not see them and they could not see us.  These camps are very close, but they feel secluded.

After walking up on their site  and standing there in my PJs, and waiting for them to look at me, it seemed like a few minutes, and finally the wife or girl friend came over and gave me an irritated look.  I asked if they could pleae turn the music down, and that we were still trying to sleep.

After a few choice words from the guy, and some erratic behavior, he reluctantly turned it down a little.  "f***, I come to the mountains to listen to my music and do what I want, and you're telling me to turn it down...we just got off our grave yard shift and came here to listen to our music...".  I went back to bed.

The next day we were packing up camp to go home.  I always send my kids around the site with a grocery bag to pick up all trash that did not grow there.  Our site was pretty clean to begin with, so I said I didn't care where they went to get it, but they needed to find 20 pieces each.  While they were on trash duty, the "no etiquette" neighbors saw them and must have felt bad.  They gave each kid $5 and said thanks for picking up trash.  Obviously the kids were elated to be rewarded for trash duty.  Then surprisingly the neighbors came over and apologized for their music the night before.

I would hope that everyone would respect their neighbors and have some etiquette when they are camping.  If you want to blast your music and stay up all night being loud and obnoxious, then don't go to a campground or next to other campers.   Have some respect.