Took Harry Jr., on a last minute camping trip to Acadia for hiking and kayaking this weekend. Since it was last minute, needed to stay at much more of a commercial campsite than I ever had in my adult life (pool, playground, etc.). Still it was fairly private and on the ocean so no real complaints. It was just interesting to observe three sets of college kids, two on sites adjacent to us and one we ran into by the pool.
Group #1, four guys, was a bunch of “dudes” into being organic and talking about all the hardcore hiking they were doing. I think they spent close to 3 hours cooking some kale + and telling each other how awesome everything was.
Group #2, four guys/ two gals, polite partiers, who came over and immediately told us to let them know if they were too loud. They were drinking the entire time we were in the camp site, generally after 5pm but weren’t wasted. When my son asked me if we could get pizza and they overheard and started to ask out loud if any place delivered, we volunteered to pick something up for their pizza and they promptly paid for our dinner too.
Group #3, 3 guys falling down drunk at 5pm two nights in a row
Took Harry Jr., on a last minute camping trip to Acadia for hiking and kayaking this weekend. Since it was last minute, needed to stay at much more of a commercial campsite than I ever had in my adult life (pool, playground, etc.). Still it was fairly private and on the ocean so no real complaints. It was just interesting to observe three sets of college kids, two on sites adjacent to us and one we ran into by the pool.
Group #1, four guys, was a bunch of “dudes” into being organic and talking about all the hardcore hiking they were doing. I think they spent close to 3 hours cooking some kale + and telling each other how awesome everything was.
Group #2, four guys/ two gals, polite partiers, who came over and immediately told us to let them know if they were too loud. They were drinking the entire time we were in the camp site, generally after 5pm but weren’t wasted. When my son asked me if we could get pizza and they overheard and started to ask out loud if any place delivered, we volunteered to pick something up for their pizza and they promptly paid for our dinner too.
Group #3, 3 guys falling down drunk at 5pm two nights in a row
When I was in my mid 20’s my friends and I had a camping trip where we ended up as part of your ‘group 2’. We booked last minute (everything here sells out in January, so we weren’t sure what we were getting) and it was in an area we weren’t familiar enough with to just head off in to nowhere and rough it.
Anyways, the camp site was very close quarters. To the point that it was almost like a parking lot with trees between the sites. Luckily it was on a beautiful lake with a beautiful beach, so, the actual site didn’t bug us too much.
Anyways, the 6 of us rolled in and every family in there was giving us the stink eye, thinking we would be trouble makers and keeping everyone up. Like group number two, we made our intentions pretty clear by letting people know to tell us if we were being loud, etc, just general courtesy type stuff. By the end of the first day, we had a few couples from various sites grilling with us, one couple’s 5 year old kid hung around with us for pretty much the entire long weekend, and another family took us out water skiing. It’s amazing what being polite and respectful, even when having a few beers, can do.
Anyways, the 6 of us rolled in and every family in there was giving us the stink eye, thinking we would be trouble makers and keeping everyone up. Like group number two, we made our intentions pretty clear by letting people know to tell us if we were being loud, etc, just general courtesy type stuff. By the end of the first day, we had a few couples from various sites grilling with us, one couple’s 5 year old kid hung around with us for pretty much the entire long weekend, and another family took us out water skiing. It’s amazing what being polite and respectful, even when having a few beers, can do.
We had a similar experience back in high school. We rented a cabin in North GA for New Years weekend. We did some hiking and a lot of drinking at night. The cabin owner didn’t ask us our age when booking and gave us the stink eye pretty seriously when we picked up the keys. Even though we did some heavy drinking we left the place spotless. About a week after one of my friends got a card in the mail hoping we enjoyed the stay, saying no one had ever left the cabin that clean and invited back any time we wanted. Glad she didn’t check the pH in the hot tub, it was definitely off from all the spilled drinks.
Of course this weekend I was up in TN rafting with guys from my neighborhood on our annual Bourbon, Beers, and Boats adventure. We ended up the only ones still awake and drinking past 1am. At least this year no one called the camp owners on us to shut down our drinking
I don’t disagree, other than on Mt. Desert Island and one other trip in the last 20 years, all my camping has been bring/ treat your own water and bury your own shit backpacking or kayaking. Given this trip’s short notice and proximity of the camp site to a village, we opted for takeout. With the exception of some remote islands, I doubt there is any legal way to meet a definition of what many would consider camping on MDI or Acadia National Park.