Curses and Bad-Campers

      So after a night of not-much sleep (if a pack of coyotes outside your tent won’t keep you awake a train whistle every 30 minutes will)  I got back on the bike and—after a brief visit to a hardware store to find something to secure a loose saddle bag---was headed west.    Regretfully I passed right through Omaha, without a stop at Cabelas, through Lincoln without a stop at Osso Burrito, through Nebraska as whole only stopping for gas.   Somewhere west of North Platte the interstate splits and and I’m forced to decide whether to go through Wyoming and try and make Steamboat by the evening or to head south on the 76 and camp.  It’s a beautiful day, I have the gear, I choose to motor towards Estes Park and pitch a tent.  I don’t know what kind of blinders I have been wearing the last few times out this way but, is it me or have the Rockies become the Smokies?  I mean, I guess the town of Estes park has been a lot like Pigeon Forge for a long time, but somehow this is the first I’ve noticed just how ridiculously crowded it has gotten around town.   I mean, I’ve got no problem with the concept of private property but what ain’t condo’s is campgrounds is McMansions….if you’re thinking about coming to the Rockies in the summer to “get away from it all,” think again…so has everybody else.   I’d love to know between the RV’s and the tenters what the “temporary” population is here.    I wouldn’t know where to venture a guess, all I can say is it’s crowded.

     So crowded that--so far as tent sites in Rocky National Park--there are none available.  So crowded that, at Estes Park Campgrounds there is ONE tent site left…it’s a Wednesday.  It’s now late in the day.  The one spot left is on an incline, next to the outhouse. I take it.  It costs $27 to pitch my tent, but there is a shower in the bathhouse and they do have firewood and there is a convenience store just down the road.  I quickly set up camp before dark and run down the road to grab some hot dogs and a six-pack of IPA, call my girlfriend to let her know I’m safe while I have signal (Sprint SUCKS) and motor back on the bike.  As I mentioned, there’s a lot of people here.  Not that my Harley's pipes are that loud (when not revving) but I apologize to the family camping next to me for any noise, not that it’s even late yet.  Most campers are cooking and you can hear laughter and the sounds of beer bottles being pulled out of Coleman coolers from every corner of the campground.  It’s a pleasant sound, the sound of summer, the sound of happy times you’ll vaguely remember, it’s a sound I love, and mostly it’s a sound that should CEASE at 11pm.

   
    It does not.

   
      The old cliché about bad-apples rings so true in a confined camping space.  For, while my immediate neighbors have all packed it in for the night, while I should be drifting-off to the sound of crickets my sleep is interrupted every five minutes or so it seems by the “woo-woo-ing of a pack of twenty-something’s down the hill from me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about partying around the campfire.  But when you have little kids around you watch your language and when you have old people trying to sleep you watch your noise level.  These little shits are doing neither.   I want to say that at some point I was jolted awake for the thirtieth time, looked at my phone and saw that it was 3am.  At some point I seriously considered some sort of revenge or at least something I could say to shut these inconsiderates up.  I was too tired and my faith in humanity insisted that eventually they’d behave….

      So at 6am I woke up.  The sun had already burned of the mountain haze and I thought maybe the whole rest of the campground would actually appreciate it if I rolled up to where these kids are sleeping and let them know what a V-Twin with Kerker pipes sounds like when you open her up a little.

    Sonofabitch, they’re already UP.

    FUCK.

    The dudes are already screaming and yelling  again and the girls are woo-wooing and now that it’s light I can see there’s maybe a dozen kids in three SUV’s.  The girls are walking around wrapped in blankets and the guys are in and out of the bathhouse.  They don’t have tents, they don’t have gear, nobody is dressed to camp; the guys are in skinny jeans, wearing trucker hats sideways.   The girls look like they came here directly from a beach bar.  They'd kept everyone up last night and now they’re waking everyone this morning.  I want to say something, but I don’t know what.  Not to be that narc-y old guy but I’d go complain to the camp-hosts if it didn’t look like they were leaving.  If I had avoided confrontation last night for being outnumbered, I’m sizing up these dudes, thinking what a bunch of pussy-ass panty wastes.  Thinking I’m gonna walk over there and give these fuck-sticks a piece of my mind…thinking Chill first, Sean.

      So I grab a quick shower, break camp, roll up my gear and pack it on the bike.  The annoying twenty-somethings are still there.   Hooting and hollering.  I look at my phone again.  It’s not even 7am.  The family guy camping next to me comes over making small talk.   We’re whispering about where we’re from and where we’re going while the kids down the hill are loudly throwing coolers in their SUV’s.  Gravel flies as they start leaving.  The camping loop is small, unpaved, narrow and rutted.  Two of the vehicles are at the entrance to the grounds while one of the kids decides to take a lap around the grounds and spew some dust at anyone he hasn’t pissed off yet.  As the Escalade comes flying around the thicket where I’m camped the driver notices my bike and hits the breaks.  Passing between myself and my fellow camper I say to the pimply-faced driver:

“Hey, you with the group down there?”

“Huh?  Um? Yeah…”

“Hey man, I just wanted to say, I can appreciate that, at your age you don’t need much sleep.  And I hope that at my age you can appreciate that I DO…”

Kid looks at me dumbounded—or just dumb.

“Yeah man, and to thank you for keeping me up most of the night I just wanna say that I hope none of you got laid last night, and if you did,  I hope you got yerself a really nasty STD, I’m talking like a case of herpes that haunts you for the rest of your life okay?  Great man, fuck ya very much, have a GREAT day!”

I said this all sincerely.  With a smile on my face.

I bet the kid’s still coinfused.