Welcome to the "Great Outdoors"

Camping is one of the great American traditions. You pack up just enough equipment to be civilized, drive to the campground of your choice, pitch your tent and enjoy nature.

Well, this last weekend I found a lot of things I expected, other campers, hikers, bicyclists, campfires and good food. I also found things that I consider unthinkable, TV's, generators (at 3 in the morning), lights that cause retina burn, stereos, people running through your campsite ATV's, and people that not only lack respect for nature, but for their fellow campers.

It took me a while to tie this all together, but it seems that there are people that like to go "camping?" while destroying the environment that everyone else wants. I was thinking it was the RVers, whom I always believed were just campers that had gotten to old to set up camp without injuring themselves. After talking with several people, it appears the issue is with the ATVers.

Said ATVers are loud, obnoxious, inconsiderate and act as if they alone own the place and nobody else exists.

Over the weekend we were subjected to their teenage children running through our campsite repeatedly. When we finally said something we were declared *"uptight"*. They rode their ATV's through our campsite. The generator ran at all hours of the night and day, despite quiet hours being from 10pm to 6 am. When the entire campground was dark and quiet they came and lit up the generator and their retina burn lights. When we made comments about this, within our own camp, they declared us *"tree-huggers"*. After three days of enduring all of this, and their excessive partying through out the night my brother in law reached a breaking point. When ever they got excessively loud, after 10 pm he would set off the car alarm for about 30 seconds. This technique, despite bothering the other campers, proved to be more effective than talking to the camp host. Long will live the phrase"I have the key fob".

Though our last vestige of showing our annoyance while making sure we were well supplied was chopping wood at 730 am before starting our camp fire with a road flare. This does not sound bad, it is normal for camping. Though our ATV neighbors showed early on that they were annoyed by this normal function of camping.

Society never ceases to amaze me, sometime for good, unfortunately usually for bad. This was no exception. One thing that I considered sacred has been tarnished by another sect of self-centered people who need to go buy 50 acres in the middle of nowhere and leave those of us who want to camp in peace!