Cheney State Park, Cheney
Saturday, 17 October 2020
When I first got into my campsite yesterday, I was pretty grumpy.
The campground was poorly marked and it was just luck that I stumbled on the section I had a reservation in. Then the sites were poorly marked so I had to drive all through that section to figure out which spot was mine. It was especially difficult because the campground had marked some sites as having been reserved, but not mine, and I was left to remind myself that I had a confirmation number for my reservation and hope I didn't have to convince some park ranger. Then I found that the campsites were laid out really close together and all I could do was hope that no one had taken the site next to me, because it'd be too close for comfort. Then I discovered that the water spigot at my site was messed up and I'd be able to use it only if I had a pair of Vice-Grip pliers, which I don't (I had this happen in Arkansas and the manager loaned me his pair, which was how I knew what the problem was), and the campground charged an extra $2/night for that water hook-up I couldn't use. And finally, I couldn't get an internet signal on my hotspot.
So yeah, grumpy would just about sum up my mood. So I was sitting at the table being grumpy and wondering what 2 days here would be like when a pair of Bluebirds landed on my water spigot. I'd sprayed a lot of water around when I was trying to get it to work right, and the Bluebirds were drinking the overflow. And like magic I got ungrumpy. Nothing like a pair of Bluebirds for happiness.
In Kansas, I'm required to reserve 2 nights if I want to stay on a weekend anywhere, otherwise the system won't let me make the reservation. So I'd paid for both Friday and Saturday nights here. Not too surprisingly, there were quite a few people staying here over the weekend. What was surprising to me is that most of them were from Kansas. My row of RV sites was directly across from 3 cabins, all of which were taken for the weekend, and they were immediately beside Cheney Lake. So I had a decent view of the lake, which was a redeeming feature.
On Saturday night, at least 3 groups of campers had friends visiting. Lots of friends. All eating and playing games and talking and so forth. Not one of them wore a mask or seemed to know what social distancing was. And that explained to me why the virus rate in Kansas is shooting up lately. There's no statewide mask mandate and I can't tell that many people are taking it seriously. And I just don't understand that.
Unfortunately, those game-playing folks included somebody bouncing a ball and several people playing cornhole, both of which activities send Gracie into a frenzy. We had a hard time taking walks while that was going on.
I did finally pick up an internet signal, so I could get another blog post written and published, and that was good.
The wind had been blowing while we were driving here, but it really picked up and was rocking the RV during our stay. On Saturday, I had a hard time opening the door for walks, because the wind blew the door wide open so hard I was afraid it'd break the hydraulic system or the hinges or cause some other problem I'd have to solve that'd be worse even than the non-working tail light. In fact, the wind was so strong, the wind would blow whichever of my legs was off the ground into my other leg. And legs are heavy. It made walking a challenge from start to finish.
Altogether, it was a strange stay here.
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