Sunday, November 7, 2010

So finished a GCFI trip this week, and had a few weird interactions.

Campsite 32 has a CCC lean-to, three picnic tables, and six ammo cans for food storage. I pull into site 33, and I have five ammo cans and six lids. Hmm. So I discreetly check out site 33: sure enough, they have six lids and seven cans. So I waltz over and tell them I believe they have one of my storage cans. "Oh, no, I'm sure not."

"Well, see, I have six lids and five cans, and I have 11 people, so we kind of need all our storage."

"By golly, this can I'm sitting on has no lid! It must be yours!"

"Fine, thanks, no harm no foul," and I take the can back.

Later that night one of them walks over (short-cutting through the re-veg area -- tsk, tsk) to apologize and say he had NO idea, NONE that he wasn't supposed to take cans from other sites. Yep, just because it says so on the lid of the can? Just because he has three picnic tables, six ammo cans, AND the benches inside the lean-to to sit on? Poor baby.

Then the water goes out. Again. 24th time this year. I have a water filter, so that's OK, but it means there is one bathroom with two stalls for 45+ women campers. And one has to grab a bucket, clamber down the rock-lined stream bank to Bright Angel Creek, fill said bucket, clamber back up and use it to flush.

So I have actually done this a lot. Our toilet used to break, and we would use a bucket to flush. Also it is a good way to clean the bowl. No biggie.

Except most of the women don't re-fill the bucket. It is too, too difficult to climb up and down with a bucket of water, so I fill the #$%^ buckets every time I go to the bathroom, and every time I walk by the bathroom. And most women apparently have never dealt with a broken bowl, or have never cleaned one, because they don't get the flush technique (which is, for future reference, to pour quickly from a substantial height). One lady gets her boyfriend to haul the water --that's OK -- but then has him flush as well, which is not OK because it means there is a guy in the ladies' room.

So the morning we hike out, I go to the bathroom, and without going into sordid details, I am desperate. And Mr Boyfriend is in the ladies' again. There is a slight problem with the flushing, and he is working on it. I wait, and I wait, and when he steps outside to grab another bucket, I grab the bucket, push past him, and fix the problem: both his and mine. I suppose he thought he was doing the world a favor, but Pl-ease, don't stand around posing in the only two women's stalls in the entire campground.