Walkabout: Privacy, Overlanding, and Yellowstone’s Nazis Part 1

[Everything on my blog, including talking squirrels, is true. However, I sometimes change details in the interest of privacy. If I fudge a few details here and there I’d rather not spark a manhunt among the weaponized autists of the net; just go with the story y’all. My posts are honest in spirit and if you really think I drove a Dodge to Guam you’ve got issues.]

[Also, I went off the rails a bit over Yellowstone. We all have things that light our fuse; camping in Yellowstone’s front country is one of my pet peeves. In keeping with my “be the mellow you wish to see in the world” policy I’d try to edit it down… but I can’t. I should be forgiving but I’m not. Oh well.]

So, where was I? Oh yes… by design, my time in the urban Utopia of preachy recyclers with good coffee was short. When my patience wore thin, I blew town.

After a few hours on the highway I arrived in Guam; a city that’s not actually called Guam. I didn’t have a hotel reservation. However, I had a plan. I’ve recently geared up as a “State Park Schlub” and planned to use my new tent as an alternative to expensive hotels.

Oh heck, lets ramble down a side ally of thought; I’m on vacation after all.

…

When I was a child, I associated State Parks with families and innocent fun. I loved camping in parks. Because kid.

Later I used them as an alternate to hotels I couldn’t afford. Because broke.

I called this “car camping”.

Car camping also applied when you wanted to go half assed camping with friends (or alone) without a lot of effort or planning. “Hey, y’all, let’s meet Friday evening at ‘Whacknut State Park’. I’ll be on the ‘Happy Poplar Loop, site #35’. Get the adjacent campsite if you need more space. Bring beer.”

It was a fine form of low-key outdoor recreation. It may be fading. For example, I notice some State Parks no longer allow alcohol? WTF? Rationally I get it, the family of Thaddeus McSnowflake and his wife Helicoptermom Yogapants don’t want their precious offspring roasting vegan hot dogs while deplorables rut in the spot next door. But it’s also sad. It sucks to see nanny state nimrods overmanaging outdoor recreation. Lighten up y’all; it’s hardly untrammeled wilderness so live a little.

This is important: Parks take themselves WAY too seriously and it worries me. I smell creeping elitism and big brother’s socially nudging booted foot getting warmed up for the big game. A healthy society makes room for poor and just laid-back folks who could use a little fresh air but don’t want a goddamn safari.

Let ‘em see nature without excess hassles. Not everything has to be an expensive professionally guided birdwatching/learning expedition. Nor must the baseline start at three years of planning and huge wads of logistics for a character-building free climb assault on a dangerous peak. It’s vitally important for society to leave room for an average person to catch a bluegill on a cheap fishing pole. Let the old folks snooze in a lawn chair. Let the kids dig a hole with a stick. Let campers toss pinecones into the fire. Leave part of the world unscripted.

There’s nothing wrong with parking a Civic in a dirt spot so you can set up a pup tent and sit around the campfire telling jokes. Stifling that simple humble approachable activity with red tape is why nobody hugs bureaucrats.

I’d always gone deeper into the woods whenever I got the chance. With age and greater resources, I stopped at “State Parks” less and less. Eventually I forgot they existed. How strange that sounds now. I suppose we all become different people in different ages.

[Warning: Angry Rant:]

(Also, under the term “State Park” I’ll add National Parks and local parks. Basically, if some seasonally employed weenie might materialize to bitch you out if you park your vehicle in the wrong spot… it’s my definition of “State Park”. In particular I’d like to single out Yellowstone Park rangers as sourpuss totalitarian twits that need a wedgie. I don’t know why Yellowstone is special, but it seems to grow crops of micromanaging Nazis with a hard on against everything. They shamelessly use bears to justify their bullshit and I bristle under the constant impositions. Grizzlies are repurposed as a codpiece and a cudgel. The park shamelessly bosses adults around like they’re children.

More people die of heart disease than bears in Yellowstone. But math doesn’t stop Treeweenie McHighorse from patrolling a five-acre campground that’s packed like a ghetto as if the only thing that keeps roving gangs of tactically trained death bears from killing everyone in an Ursus terrorist attack is a thin blue line of Mall Cop badge sniffers.

Hey assholes, Yellowstone is a zillion acres and you’ve crammed 300 tents into a postage stamp; fence it and shut the fuck up. Hell, this is the same logic that makes me quit watching zombie movies. 

I’m pretty sure parkies secretly (and not so secretly) want to line you up against the wall and shoot your ass. Doubt me? Listen to ‘em. Their biggest complaint is the horrible burden of people enjoying the Park instead of staying bottled up in the city where they belong. It’s a mistake of logic; drawing a line around a piece of earth and thinking “humans don’t belong here… except me because I’m special”. It massages the ego to be “the only one who belongs here”. Eventually one winds up thinking of free citizens as speedbumps interfering with your righteous Gaia worship. You can see it in their aggressive behavior; leave a half-eaten candy bar on a picnic table in Yellowstone while you adjust your tent guylines and they’ll spring into action. Otherwise unemployable uniformed zeros who are halfway through a degree in Nature Hugging Through Interpretive Dance will materialize out of the ether and freak out like you just raped a badger.

I’m not saying I want a bear to eat me… I’m saying you can take reasonable precautions without being epic buzzkill overlords. It’s immoral to boss around citizens in a way that no citizen should ever be treated. Say it with me folks: Citizens are adult men and women who should be treated with respect. Yellowstone is not Disneyland. I fuckin’ hate camping in Yellowstone!)

[/Rant]

Whoops… I totally lost it there didn’t I? Focus, Curmudgeon! I’ll try again in Part 2.