Camptown Lady

Natural Springs Resort County Park
Owensboro, Kentucky


You’d think it would be easy.

You pull into a beautiful county park. It looks deserted. The temperature is 104 at 4 in the afternoon. There are lakes galore. A pool. Golf carts. A horse in a corral. Even a go-cart setup.

The office has a snack bar that promises grilled cheese, burgers and other assorted deadly American food. Perfect. We won’t have to cook. We can park, have a swim, grab a burger and watch TV in the air conditioning and go to bed refreshed. There’s a country music concert on Saturday night that promises to be fun.

I’m excited for this break in the long hours of driving.

There’s a nice lady behind the registration counter. John gets a spot. We drive half way to California and there it is. With a nice view of the dumpster. And trees that make it impossible for him to negotiate the turn. In this huge park, isn’t there something nicer?

I drive our little tow car back to the office and ask, sweetly, if there might be something else. But with 50 amps of electricity. We need that much to run the AC.

“Wayl,” she says, “Let’s see. Y’see, that’s the problem. I don’t have much that can accommodate your vee-hickle. But maybe …”

“I just don’t want to be near the dump, “ I say. “How abut that one right there?” I say, pointing to a lovely spot overlooking a small lake right across from the office.

“Oh, that one is too small for you.” She says.

“No, I’m sure it’s fine, “I say. “I checked it out.”

“No, your car won’t fit.”

“I’ll park the car in the parking lot.”

“No, let’s see if there’s something else. Now here’s a spot that has everything you need, but there’s someone coming in tomorrow.”

“That’s perfect,” I say, “We’re leaving in the morning.” A sudden decision. I can miss the concert. At this point, I just want to be back in the air conditioning with my pajamas on. This whole negotiating thing has taken almost 20 minutes. I’ve left out the part about 7 spots that were offered and then retracted for one reason or another.

“No,” she says, “that one’s reserved.”

“But for tomorrow,” I say. “We’ll leave early. I promise.” Now I’m planning getting up at dawn. John will love this one.

“No,” she says, staring at her computer screen, apparently mesmerized. “That’s not gonna work for me.”

The negotiations continue. This one doesn’t have 50 amps, this one is booked, this one has too many trees, this one has someone coming in for the weekend. The weekend! It’s only Thursday and we’re only staying for one night! Half a night! Twenty minutes! I’m getting desperate.

Finally, among at least two hundred empty sites, she finds one. It’s a pull-thru, yes! With 50 amps, yes! With no satellite or cable, because this is the country, honey. Fine, I’ll do without.

John can’t figure out what’s taking so long. He drives the bus over to the office and the nice lady shows him on the map of the campground, the precious, one-of-a-kind spot. We head for it.

It’s a nice spot on a little hill with a view of, oh I don’t know, something acceptable, I guess. We pull in, set up, and hook up. And nothing. Nothing works. We don’t have electricity. It’s not working. We’re going to die in this heat, in this giant coffin. Even the dog is grumpy now.

Half an hour later, the bus is an oven, but the camp’s handyman has fixed the problem. Oh joy. We eschew the burger, drown our sorrows in beer, ice-cold from our own refrigerator, and wait for the cool to kick in. Ah, there it is.

It happens that we’ve pulled into another time zone, so we could stay up an extra hour, but instead, we hop under the covers with our books and read until the eyelids begin to shutter. After all, tomorrow is another day and, since we’re leaving, another campground. We need our beauty sleep.

We’ll have to be fresh for the next round of negotiations.