Campground Issues

After the hike we drove back to the campground. After getting out of the car I remember walking toward the picnic table and noticing some things that were different. There was this spot on the table that looked like water and I thought that was weird since we were in a dry climate. I saw this other spot on the table that was red, like some kind of paint. I stood there trying to figure out what was going on. Around this time I noticed our new neighbors across the road were a little loud. I wasn’t too excited about that since I don’t like camping near loud, obnoxious people. And then I remember looking over at the grill and noticed that the grill rack was in a different position than it was that morning. At about the same time the campground hosts pulled up to our site and were talking to Quent behind our car. I walked over and they were saying something about how they weren’t sure if we were coming back (even though our tent was set up), so there were other people using our site for awhile, but they had made them move because they figured that we were probably coming back. They pointed over to the obnoxious, loud people. Oh great! They said that they weren’t sure if we were staying because we didn’t register. We told them that we had registered. I had put the envelope with our registration money into the slot like we were supposed to and we put our receipt up on the poll. They had this shocked look on their face and I think we all figured out at that moment that those people had removed our receipt. The hosts left and Quent and I unpacked our cooking stuff. I was starting to feel really uncomfortable at this point and I just wanted to leave. Later on Quent told me that there was raw hamburger near the water spout. I couldn’t believe it. Good thing we weren’t camping in Yellowstone where they could attract bears. They also left French fries under the picnic table and Quent said that one of our tent stakes was bent a little, which is crazy since they are pretty heavy duty stakes. We really felt weird about all of this. (The red 'paint' on the picnic table was red nail polish. Nice, people, nice!) Quent cooked up some hamburgers and while we were eating I heard a couple of the guys across from us say that they had better do something before it got dark. So they come walking through our campsite, between us and our tent. They kinda looked at us and Quent was like, “Are you looking for something?” They didn’t acknowledge him, but just kept on walking through. They went up to this woods and clearing and were picking out firewood. We were both pretty much annoyed at this point. I told Quent that I was really uncomfortable and that I wanted to leave. I didn’t care if we had to sleep in the car, I did NOT want to be camping with these people. Quent agreed and left to talk to the hosts. He told them what happened and asked for a refund. We packed up our stuff and then left. We were so happy to be out of there!

We drove back up toward Flagstaff to another campground. This campground was SO quiet, with the sites spread far apart for privacy. You could see the beautiful night sky, and it was QUIET! Did I mention that it was quiet! Haha! We played a little bit of 3-13 (card game), recorded in the voice recorder what had happened, and then headed to bed.

These are pictures of the campsite in the morning.