Who have you met along the way?

[CajunCamper]

One of the priviledges we all share as folks that love and choose to camp is the many wonderful people we meet along the way. I can't begin to count all the people that we have met, but I do have a few that we've met that have stuck with me over time. I thought I would share one of those memories here with you and hope that you will share with us some people you met along the way as well.

I remember about 11 years ago my wife and I were tent camping with our two boys in the spring up at Lake Ouachita State Park in Arkansas. This is a beautiful campground with lots of room and sites on one of the prettiest lakes around. I guess it was on our second day there, it was a picture perfect morning and we noticed an elderly couple making their way around the campground. They must have been in their late seventies or early eighties. We were camped out on a point and about 50 yards from our nearest neighbors. Well this couple wanted to make sure they said hello to everyone so they walked out to our campsite. As they approached I remember the elderly gentleman calling out "Good morning, are you taking visitors?" We said sure welcome as we invited them into our site. They introduced themselves and told us that they were from Oklahoma. As we chatted they told us that they had gone camping on their honeymoon and that during their 50 plus years of being married that they had camped in all 50 states and and all provinces in Canada. They had also told us even though most of their early years camping had been spent in tents that over the years they had owned  every type of camper on the market. When we met them they were at that time camping in a truck camper. They told us the big units were nice, but they preferred simplicity. They were as happy of a couple as I have ever met. They seemed to have such a sense of peace in their lives. They told us about some of the adventures they had, and some of the campgrounds they had stayed in. They did mention that Lake Ouachita was one of their favorites. Whne we talked to them about places we camped I believe they had been to each one of them themselves. They chatted with our boys and invited us to stop by their site anytime. We did stop by a time or two just to say hello on our way to the bath house. The one regret is that I didn't write their names down. It would have been nice to keep up with them over the years. They were kind people, knowledgeable about all aspects of camping and loved to share their knowledge with others. If Norman Rockwell had met them in a campground, I'm sure he would have wanted to paint them. Nothing dynamic about these people, other than the goodness that they shared with others just by being around them.

[AustinBoston]

I have a handful of memorable people; I think I'll post about two of them.

The first is (or was at that time) the owner of a campground in Holbrook, Arizona, which is just outside Petrified Forest National Park.  He and his wife had been running the campground for several years, and he told us stories about various campers that had been there over the years, both the good and the bad.  He also talked about which sites to see in the area.  He urged us to see Canyon de Chelly National Park, advice we did not take because we already had a firm schedule.  Perhaps we'll get back to that area some time.  He complained only about one thing.  He had legally purchased petrified rocks from local sellers in order to decorate their high desert campground.  From time to time, someone would attempt to steal one, and it ticked him off.

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The second was a real character, and until I started typing this I hadn't realized that I met him at the same campground.  Well, sort of.  We were visiting Petrified Forest NP, at a site called Newspaper Rock.  There are ancient petroglyphs there, and someone was arguing with the ranger about what one of the petroglyphs was.  The traditional interpretation is of a large bird stealing a baby, but this gentleman was insisting that the bird had a frog.  (IMHO, it looked like a frog, not a baby, but I did not get involved in the argument.)  I didn't think anything more of it.

Later that evening, I was sitting at the picnic table in a mostly empty campground, when this class-A pulls in, goes in a big loop, and parks in the site right next to us.  An older man and his wife, and a teenage girl get out.  The woman and teen girl start setting up, but this guy comes straight over to me and sits down across from me at our table.  I did not recognize him at first, but he sure recognized ME.

He started right in about the NP ranger and how he was a guumit idiot spouting the gummit line and the light clicked and I realized where I'd seen him before.  Despite his rather forward manner, we actually hit it off right away.  He and I had very similar political beliefs (that are very hard to categorize), and we talked for a good hour.  He mistook my (at that time 17 YO daughter) as my wife, which was the first clue that not everything was as it appeared...

In any case, later that evening, we continued the conversation by the pool, and as he began to trust me, he started telling me about them.  Seems he had one in his shoulder, and another in the base of his skull.  There had been one next to his heart, but he didn't think that one was functioning any more.  In all, two of them (by now I had figured out they were supposed to be implants) had been put there by the CIA, one by the FBI, and he had never figured out who put the rest there, but he thought one was put there by the NSA.

I wasn't completely sure how to handle that, but basically said that he probably should not trust just anyone with that kind of information, that some people just wouldn't understand.  He told me that he knew that already, but he had figured out that he could trust me.  He asked if I had any, and I told him that I usually kept a low profile and they hadn't found me yet.

We went our separate ways the next day.  I have since talked with one other person who met him and a couple others who had heard of him.  I guess "JT" is a bit of a legend, being one of the first to suggest that the government had put implants in him to try to control his thinking.  He travels campgrounds all around the southwest, spreading his message of secret government evil and how dangerous he was to the CIA and FBI.

What I did not know at the time is that about that time, my oldest daughter, who was a part of much of the conversation, started listening to a late night talk radio personality whose specialty was conspiracy theories, and that she listened all over the country and off-and-on for years afterwards.  :yikes:

Austin

[wavery]

I've met a lot of the "SCCAMPERS". I consider that an honor and a privilege. A greater bunch of people would be very hard to find.