Today you have a guest blog entry from Lee. Sam does a fine job being video and blogmeister while I am busy doing important stuff like driving, making fire, pooing or having a snooze.
I just wanted to share my personal thoughts on camping after the first 20 days of our road trip.
On the whole, I look forward to the camping parts of our trip more than the hotel stays. After a couple of nights in a town motel, we can't wait to get back in Fin and head to a campsite.
There are, however, two main things that irk me somewhat.
The first is the rain. It feels like we have had more than our fair share of wet weather during our first 8 nights of camping. I have to be thankful that we haven't had to pitch or depitch in the rain thus far, but packing away a wet tent is not the most fun of tasks, and neither is it good for the tent.
There is nothing we can do about the weather of course, so it's nothing to spend any time thinking about really. I bet when we're in Texas or Nevada in blazing sunshine, we'll be praying for some cooler air and a heavy shower.
The second thing is people. Given that one of the goals of this trip was to expand horizons, open minds and meet new people, I am obviously disappointed with myself here.
Some of the campgrounds have been great. Attracting an older or more coupley crowd meant that we had some great chats with our neighbors and a peaceful night's sleep.
For the other campgrounds, it has been two ends of the spectrum. In a couple we have been literally the only ones in the campground. This may sound idyllic but in reality it makes you feel a bit isolated.
At the other end of the spectrum is the family-oriented madhouse, which the last two campgrounds have been. I'm not saying that kids don't deserve to make a noise and have fun, but when the quiet hours (typically from about 10pm to about 7am) are both merely notional and unenforced, you get screaming and shouting - not only from the kids I hasten to add - from well into the night until the crack of dawn.
It boils down to a simple lack of respect, and this annoys me so much. It is certainly not an American disease either - this crosses nationalities and is really an indictment of society as a whole. It is Memorial Day weekend here in the States, so maybe we have stumbled across an artificially higher-than-usual density of this kind of behaviour? Let's hope so.
I want this blog to give a true impression of the ups and downs that our road trip is bound to throw our way. The ups have far outweighed the downs many times over, and I don't want to give the impression any other way. But at the same time, I'll not be afraid to shed some light on the less positive sides to the trip.
Maybe you can think of Lee as bad cop to good cop Sam's awesome and positive review of MERTA :)
Hey we need to hear about the downside to things too and get a rounded picture of things. That said, the Hollingdale men are renowned for being intolerant, especially of other humans (or is that just me). For the record though, it would have annoyed me too!!
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