Camping with the Gomers

Eric used to work with a guy named *Gomer.

Gomer was a nice enough guy, but sort of, hmm, unpolished. Not that there's anything wrong with that if one keeps it to himself or just shares with close personal friends, but Gomer was a social guy. Thought nothing of going out into the forest in the middle of the night and having a big party, usually near campgrounds etc.

Got in trouble with the law a few times for discharging firearms/drunk and disorderly a little too close to SLEEPING FAMILIES.
Aaack.

The phrase, "Oh shit, there's a bunch of Gomers here." has entered the family lexicon, along with, "I don't want to go if we have to hang out with a bunch of Gomers." and "OH MY GOODNESS! I've never seen so many Gomers in my LIFE!!"

Last August, we had a family camping trip. We went to Trillium Lake. It's a popular lake, and one doesn't go there expecting a lot of privacy... I was just hoping for a little quiet. Ha.

We camped at Trillium a few years ago during May, just before school got out, and had the place to ourselves. Our trip last year was a vain attempt to recapture the fun we had then.

Guess what?!?!

There was a family of Gomers camping in the very next campsite! Mom was a yeller, and English was not her first language. Her native tongue was German, which means she spit a lot when she yelled at her children. They had two small children, a boy and a girl. The little boy was called Hans. She bellowed the diminutive form, Hansie, at regular intervals, but because of her accent, it sounded like Hussy.

I'm sorry, but it caused my entire family to have hysterics every time she yelled at her daughter, because it's cruel and unusual to name your daughter Pussy. I know that probably wasn't her name, but that's what it sounded like.

Now imagine hearing "Hussy!! Pussy!!" at top volume approximately every 2 minutes all day long and up until about 10 at night. She wasn't mean to the kids, she just didn't have a low setting on her voice. We thought she was alone over there with them until the evening of the second day when we spotted the dad through the trees.

He was a quiet man.

Between the yelling and suddenly chilly, wet weather on our 3rd day, we ended up leaving early. We were all just... done. The next morning, the weather jerk reported that an out of season snowstorm had dumped a couple inches of snow where we'd been camping.

As an added you're-smart-for-leaving-early bonus, no one had to be at work the next day since we'd planned to be still camping. That means everyone was available to help me put things away. I did appreciate that.
It seems that every time we've gone camping over the past few years, we end up with a bunch of Gomers in the campground. About 4 years ago, it was a man with three almost teen daughters. They thought Matt was cute, because they hung out near the edge of our campsite looking at him and talking loudly until late at night. (Ohmigod! Like, Rilly!!) They also made that strange, gutteral sound commonly heard from pre-teen queens. You know the sound I mean. Like a cat yarking up a hairball. They went to the outhouse at least 5 times a night, and did not choose the one near their tent... instead choosing one that caused them to have to walk through the edge of our campsite to get there, giggling all the way in that screamy, shrill way they have.

Another campout, which had been going well, was interruped about 11 pm by several carloads of less-than-sober Gomers coming up to the lake to "PAR-TAAAAY!" We knew, because half of them were screaming that word as they sped up the dirt road, dusting everything as they came. It was about 15 minutes (long enough for their bonfire to get big and for at least two people to loudly barf) before our geriatric campground host woke up, put his teeth in, and drove over to boot them out. Only takes about 2 seconds to ruin someone's sleep anyway. No point in him hurrying, I guess.

This year it's hard for all of us to be able to get away at the same time. Matt's working full time this summer and starting back to school in the fall, I have been putting in 4 or 5 days a week at work, and of course Eric is the original 60 hour a week man. We hadn't really thought about a family campout this year.

However...

Lyssa is heading over to Butthump, Oregon to visit my parents this month. Matt's quite capable of staying home alone and making it to work on time so Eric and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to go camping together alone, something we haven't done in the more than 20 years since Matt was born.

We've spent the evening looking through our maps and online for the campgrounds likely to be free of Gomers.

We're going scouting this weekend and hope to find a peaceful one.

Wish me luck. I don't want to camp with a bunch of Gomers.

:: You'll notice if you've already read this entry that I changed the name of hub's former co-worker. Edited at hub's request. I'm pretty sure that Gomer doesn't surf the internet, would not be the least interested in my blog if he did, and is probably much too busy to even remember former co-workers, but whatever :::