not camping: motellin' it

I didn't bring along Brad Smith's tent, which I hope doesn't offend Brad. The tent's a nice one, but I simply had no room for it in (or hanging on the outside of) my backpack. I'm keeping the tent in reserve, however, for when the weather gets colder (it is, of course, possible that I might need it sooner when I hit the mountains).

Instead of the tent, I've got the sort of setup I used twice (with only arguable success) when I camped in Interlaken, Switzerland: a poncho, a groundsheet, a foam pad, a sleeping bag, and various standard and bungee cords with which to string up said poncho. It's a serviceable setup if you've got trees.

And that's tonight's problem. I used Ye Olde BlackBerrie to look up campsites in the Bellingham area and discovered an RV park about three miles from downtown, or almost four miles from Red Cedar Zen Community, where I'm headed again tomorrow. I called the place (which bills itself as a campground as well as an RV park) and asked whether a person without a vehicle could camp there.

"Sure," the gentleman on the phone said. "But tenters [I learned a new term!] have to pay the same fee as the RVers. Thirty-three dollars."

I asked whether there were trees.

"Yeah."

After the massive hemorrhage my wallet had suffered over the past two days (sorry, Chrysalis Inn-- your hotel is truly fantastic, and I'd love to visit it again, but I really couldn't afford that splurge), thirty-three dollars sounded like a bargain. The fact that it was cold and rainy today didn't bother me; I was looking forward to setting up camp and getting some early shuteye.

But it was not to be. When I reached the RV park, I saw trees, all right; all around the perimeter. I had thought there was some sort of special tree-filled area for campers, but all the usable space was either gravel or flat, mown grass. Without trees, I had no way to set up my camp.

And that was that. (FYI, the other campsites were much farther out of town; using them would have been impractical, as I'd have had to get up around 4AM to wash and pack in time to walk back into town at a decent hour.)

There was a Hampton Inn right next door to the RV park, so I walked over to it. Full tonight, the lady said; all sold out. I walked over to an Exxon gas station and asked the lady there if there were any other hotels in the area. With some hesitation, she mentioned the place I'm in now: the Shamrock, which is run by what appears to be a father-son team who look as Irish as I look Zulu.

The room's fine. The walls are paper-thin, which means I'd better not fart too loudly, and the toilet's built into a stifling little niche that makes me feel as if I'm crammed inside an airplane toilet.

Aside from that, the bed is good, the room's thermostat works (it's actually cold out there, though I've seen some hardy natives walking around in short pants and shirts), and my next-door neighbor is either too drunk or too tired to do much talking.

Not much more a man can ask for.


_