Camping disasters

Hello peoples.

I went camping with my lovely neighbours this weekend in what is quite possibly one of the most beautiful areas of Western Canada - Waterton National Park in SW Alberta.

We had the best time camping together, hiking around, wandering around town with our monstrous ice-cream cones, and talking about how hardcore everything was. I can't post pictures cuz I took way too many and would never be able to choose which one or two to put up here.

So perhaps you are wondering why the title of this post refers to disasters? Well, I shall tell you.

Let me add one small tidbit to my description above... our weekend was FABULOUS... except for the actual camping.

To sum it up:

1. I got the most sleep out of the group on Friday night, cuz I sleep with earplugs. There was a drunken and loud group of partiers just behind our site, and another group showed up around 1:30 am to set up and were apparently not quiet about it.

2. When we got back to our site Saturday evening and both groups were already drunk, that was our first clue that perhaps we should have packed up and left right then and there.

3. Pretty much no sleep Saturday night. Loud, drunken and drugged-up group on one side, another loud, drunken and drugged-up group on the other, and members from both sites commuting back and forth (our site was in between the two). A third site on the other side of us was blasting their music.

4. RCMP unwilling to kick campers out cuz then they'd be drunk & drugged & driving. Camp managers (well, camp manager's wife, really) unwilling to let us sleep in office building.

5. 2:30 am. We (who are still all wide awake, or close to it) hear some very disturbing noises and call 9-1-1.

6. 5-10 minutes later, 5 RCMP show up. One officer follows L to where the sounds were coming from, another breaks up yet another pending fight in the other group.

7. Short version - RCMP deal with situation, get our info and our account of what happened, and one stays behind to watch us pack up and leave to make sure we get away safely. May I say how grateful and impressed we were with how the RCMP treated us - I know they'll never see this blog entry, but they were amazing.

8. We get home at 9:00 am and head promptly to bed, having thankfully NOT run out of gas halfway home despite being past empty with no gas stations open at that time of morning on a Sunday in very rural Alberta. Also, we're quite thankful that none of the roadkill on the highway was from us...

We don't know how, but we seem to attract interesting camping situations. Hopefully this is the last or at least worst we'll ever experience.

And now I've just finished having S & R visiting, and we started planning things to do when I visit them in the fall, and it was soooo good to see them and soooo not good to have them for such a short amount of time - but thanks S&R for taking the time to come visit!! I love you bunches!! Perhaps I will post one or two pictures of R & I from our photoshoot in the park...