Campground Chores

Monday and Tuesday are our days off and we had big plans but Mother Nature threw the rain card which trumps hiking and photo taking any day. At least it does for me so we’ll have to come up with Plan B. The rain doesn’t seem to dampen the spirits of the inhabitants of the island. Our campsite is alive with birds of all description although the ones capturing my attention are the Cardinals, little splashes of red flitting from branch to branch. I’ve never seen so many at one time. Across the way, Sika deer and rabbits graze on the quickly greening grass. There are three horses, on site 15, backed up to a bunch of thick bushes trying to find shelter from the wind. They don’t seem to mind the rain at all.

I spent the morning putting my domestic engineering skills to work. We had morning coffee and blueberry pancakes followed by a heavy dose of vacuuming. It may not seem like a tough job but you have to literally move everything twice to get at those pesky 3 square yards of carpet.

Part of our job here is to make sure that every camper has an enjoyable experience while adhering to the rules and regulations of the park. Most of the time camper contact consists of reminding them to keep vehicles on the paved pads, have all of their food under cover, never feed or approach the horses and to register at the office in the morning if they arrived after hours. After the first friendly reminder, we get to call in the Law Enforcement Officer on duty.

On Friday afternoon, 3 campsites were occupied by a large group of college aged guys, drinking, playing games and generally being guys. Saturday morning we reminded them to register at the office by 9:00 AM. With 18 guys drinking and rough housing for two nights and a day, Carl and I were concerned about the condition of the sites once they vacated them. We needn’t have worried. Theirs were amongst the cleanest on Sunday morning. I picked up a small plastic wrapper and an partially eaten apple.

Morning shifts are proving to be the busiest. We arrive at the Ranger Office around 8 to collect our  paperwork. On this Campground Patrol Sheet we record which sites will have people staying over and who will be leaving that morning. On our first round, we remind unregistered campers to do so. As we travel in our golf cart, we also chat with early risers, record already vacated sites and keep an eye out for any other infractions. By 11:00AM, all departing campers should be gone and we check each site, cleaning up any trash, dousing smoldering fires and collecting any firewood left behind. We get to keep that!