I rolled into Guam, which isn’t Guam, around noon. I was going to meet some friends, chat for a few hours, and then split for a campsite. I wanted to camp solo for the night in one of three or four nearby State Parks. My truck bed was full of new, untested, “overlanding” gear and I was looking forward to playing with my new toys.
Did you know that Parks do reservations now? Go ahead and laugh! I totally forgot “camping” and “reservations” can happen in the same sentence. This leads to the second fact; “camping” and “sold out” can happen too.
Shit!
Frustrated, I bumbled into the third fact; there are no people at the Park gate. There are possibly no humans manning any State facility in this season…. Or, for all I know, any season ever. The whole thing is done online; which suits the current generation of campers which have had a smart phone in their hand since they were born. I do not have a smart phone; or at least one suitable to handle the situation.
This whole thing was ruining my laid back “go where the wind blows me” attitude. Does it have to be this way? Reservations are for business dweebs flying on airplanes, not me on vacation with a truck and a tent. I regretted being in the metro area of Guam instead of the unpopulated areas I usually frequent.
What now? I glare at the front gate of “Snickerdoodle Campground” but all the spots are reserved… or maybe not. How can one know? I wind up driving AWAY from the campsite TOWARD Wi-Fi to log on with my apparently cro-magnon obsolete laptop to investigate the same situation that would unfold like a flower for the smartphone set.
A few miles away I sip an overpriced latte and discover that all three campsites in Guam; “Snickerdoodle”, “Snowflakes”, and “Triggerdom” are reserved. Booked solid. Since they’re all reserved, people will notice an interloper. I can’t sneak in and stealth camp with a giant Dodge and my brand new (i.e. huge) tent.
This is my fault for being so locked into the backcounty mindset that I didn’t imagine the problem. I generally camp wherever I wish. (I often go a week at a time without seeing anyone. Do that a few years and you’ll forget about reservations too.)
Campout denied!
Adaptive… that’s me. I start burning up Wi-Fi searching alternatives. Hotels are easily in the $150 range (and up!). My inner cheapskate can’t have that. I begin to explore other options.
I travel a lot and have loyalty cards for every hotel chain known to man. I’m loyal to none but have points in various accounts. I never monitor this. Several re-established passwords and multiple re-logins ensue. This is followed by a tedious conversation with someone who doesn’t speak English and is connected by a phone VOI system that sounds like Smeagol chain smoking at the bottom of a well.
The phone service person fucks up everything I request. I mean like an incredibly thorough 100% fuck up rate. Every detail, no matter how small, is mishandled. I almost respect that level of incompetence. It takes forever to explain that I’m not trying to check into a timeshare in Baltimore. Nor am I reserving a wedding suite in Vegas. Nor do I want anything to do with anything in Europe, no matter how close it is to the train station. After all this crap, the shameless bastard tries (or is forced to try) to upsell me, in order, with a car rental, a trip to Cancun, and a credit card. I shout “NO” so many times that I’m getting hoarse.
Eventually it works out. I literally step the yoyo on the phone though the process of data entry in his own software (which I can’t see). Despite being routed through hell and back, the great database in the sky does what the phone service drone can’t; get the job done. I’ve grown to prefer robots to humans.
That night I’ll stay at a fabulous high-end hotel for free. A win for team Curmudgeon!
So is your “overlanding” gear still in our truck the next morning? Or has some “urban youf” decided that you didn’t really need it?
“your”. Nor “our”…
OK what am I missing here?
You stayed in a “high-end hotel”, which generally means in a hive, since “high-end hotels” are not usually out in the boondocks. And hives have “urban youfs”, who are prone to deciding they own anything they can see. Your gear was in your truck. Now if it was inside the cab, they might not have been able to see it. However, if you had it in the truck’s bed and you don’t have a camper shell or tonneau cover, then they COULD see it….
Thanks. I was totally lost for a bit. Yes I was in a city. No I wasn’t robbed.
I had shit in the back of my truck but it was in cargo crates and/or tied down with chains and padlocks. An incredibly annoying setup but definitely enough to stop a casual thief. (A padlock and chain won’t stop a dedicated thief but then again what dedicated thief is going to get excited to steal a tent?)
I hope to refine my setup in the future. A locking tunneau cover or topper would be ideal but I’m just too tapped out to afford such things. I’ll probably slap together some silly overengineered plywood box affair which is pretty dumb. Then again it’s not stupid if it works.
Mark: “Not” not “Nor”. 🙂 (doncha hate it when that happens?)
OK what the heck is my grammatical error? What am I missing?
AC: not your error. In his first post, Mark typed “our truck” instead of “your truck”. In his 2nd post correcting the first post, he typed “Nor” instead of “Not”.