We hopped in the car today and headed up to Lake Como to do some camping.
Here are some images:
Here are some images:
The camping supplies
Cooking outside
Around the fire
The wildlife
And let's not forget the fishing!
I know what you’re thinking…Lake Como looks nothing like that!
I’d have to agree.
Here’s the place we wanted to go:
Lake Como in Montana
And here’s another one we tried.
Blodgett Canyon
Both those places were full.
We drove 50 miles south of Missoula to find two full campgrounds.
It was a real bummer, and my six-year-old, Paul, was crying a bit.
Getting home and having a BBQ on the porch helped, but now he’s sitting around feeling bored when we could have been playing in the lake or creek or fire or something.
Oh well.
I was bitching to my wife on the drive home, “Damn it, our country’s so messed up. Pissing money away on useless wars but then we can’t even get enough campgrounds here in America. Let’s put people to work building more campgrounds, damn it!”
She politely nodded and said nothing…a very common reaction I get from her.
Anyways…what do you think?
Have you ever headed out to try and get a camping spot only to head home, head hanging low in defeat?
Up at Lake Como they have two campgrounds and a group campground and a huge day use area.
I’d say there are only 20 to 30 camping sites, however. They cost $16 a day.
At Blodgett Campground there are just 5 campsites.
I saw two up there that had been closed off and people couldn’t use anymore. I dunno…maybe the cliffs were gonna fall down or something.
We had similar problems on 4th of July weekend, with Lake Inez, Holland Lake, Placid Lake and most of Lake Alva full.
We were lucky to get a spot at the cramped, 40-campsite Lake Alva then.
Mainly, I’d love it if the Forest Service built more campgrounds.
For instance, at Holland Lake there’s ample room to put in another loop with 10 to 15 campsites there.
Why isn’t this country doing some kind of Civilian Conservation Corps kinda work to get this done?
We have around 100 million people out of work in this country, and I know lots of young guys that’d just love to get out and make trails and campsites and such.
But instead we spend money on wars overseas and for tax cuts for the rich.
This at a time when your National Park system has an $11.3 billion backlog of deferred maintenance projects.
Interior Secretary Zinke wants to cut the department’s budget by 13%, and wants to get rid of 6% of the National Park Service staff.
I wish we’d invest in those parks, federally not with private companies doing the work…as Zinke suggests.
But then maybe it would take private companies to get more campgrounds.
Hell, I’d be happy to pay to go up to a new place around Lake Como if it meant I didn’t have to drive 90 miles today to camp at home.
Costs $16 a day now…what is a private company going to charge…$20, $30 maybe?
People will pay that.
Mostly, it’s a situation where the government isn’t doing the work, hasn’t in years, and a big reason for that is stupid, corporate-politicians that won’t fund government.
Then they blame government and say it’s time to pawn the task off to the private sector.
What a cluster fuck.
All I wanna do is go camping. Tons of people are just like me!
C’mon, America…let’s figure out a way to do this.
