Living in a campground

I like living in a campground. At least sometimes I do. I like how the place fills up with families on the weekends. It's fun to notice the variety of camping rigs and equipment, to observe the newcomers unloading bikes and rubbers rafts, expanding their sliders and rolling out their awnings - and maybe even pitching their tents. Before long there are sounds of happiness and the smell of campfires.

I also like the Monday mornings and Tuesday mornings when it is relatively quiet and peaceful again with mostly just the regulars around. The seasonal people - some of whom leave for work between 6 and 8 a.m. and many who are retirees. People that we have begun to know a little bit. Several work in construction and several at the Michigan Renaissance Festival a few miles away which just opened for the season. One neighbor walks across the highway to her job at the animal hospital behind Frosty Boy and McDonald's.

There might be a few "campers" still scattered on sites here and there - maybe because it is vacation week for them - or maybe they live close enough that either mom or dad can commute to work from here.

On the mid-week mornings I don't meet many people while walking around the lake and I don't have much concern about being overtaken by golf carts. The pontoon raft is usually empty and silent and still on Tuesdays. The rentable log cabins may or may not be occupied during the week.

...

There is a bi-weekly rhythm around here. The atmosphere changes. When the rigs start pulling in on Thursday evenings it begins to feel like the weekend.  And when people start hitching up and packing up and pulling out on Sunday morning and throughout the day, it's as if normalcy returns - but with a twinge of sadness. I always feel a teeny bit sorry for those who have to leave so soon. To go back home and back to work and the real world. The week-end must have seemed so short. Once again I'm glad that we live in a campground - and we don't have to pack up and go anywhere. Because we are already home.