Camping Le Ventadour

Stepping out of my tent into the light of day, I have to admit something to myself. Last night, grateful to have a space to myself with a nice shade tree and help with the electricity, I avoided looking too closely at my immediate neighborhood. There was something not quite right about it---pale angular shapes loomed in the darkness. Human voices accompanied by mechanical clanking. It was disturbing, but I held in my mind the tranquil leafy scene I’d seen on the camp’s website as I settled down to sleep. 

Now as I zipped open the tent flap the first object that greeted me was a trailer hitch, jutting toward me. I remember that trailer hitch. It belongs to the trailer next to me. I pitched my tent facing it because the trailer on the other side has a window that would look right into my private space, and facing it toward the street would have exposed me to the row of trailers across from my site.

I let Beau out of the car, where he had chosen to sleep after freaking out when the walls of the tent fluttered in a sudden night breeze. He likes a more solid enclosure. Who knows what signals danger in the mind of a rescued greyhound. We walked through Camp Suburbia to the river, where I hoped to find the wild natural beauty that I’d paid for with MasterCard.

Here’s how it looks in the morning before the kids come with their floats and flippers. I sat on a smooth rock and watched Beau standing in the clear water in his hunting pose, intent on the tiny trout zipping around just under the surface.  He quickly realized that it wasn’t like hunting rabbits. The first time he thrust his snout into the water he jerked up and blew out bubbles. But he kept at it. If I hadn’t led him back to the campsite he would have stood there calculating his chances for another hour.

Back in Camp Suburbia, I pulled up the tent and turned it to face the street so that if I got up in the night to go out and pee I wouldn’t be impaled on the trailer hitch, or caught in the light from the other trailer’s window, where mysterious voices and shadowy figures loomed. The only other option would have been to turn the tent toward the back, but the morning sun revealed that what looked like a vine-covered wall was really…yes…more trailers. In the closest window, a flabby, shirtless (and probably pantless) guy  scratched vigorously under his arm as he reached up to a shelf and found the coffee to start his day.

I have to be honest with myself. I booked too far into the vacation season. I can imagine the conversation when they received my request for a site. “You know…there’s a little space down in the trailer section we could rent her.” “You’re right! And after all, it’s just one woman.” 

So they'd put me in the trailer park.