The new camp managers hate Kevin, and therefore, hate me by association. Unbelievable. We had a really nice friendship with the old camp managers. Kevin would talk hunting with him. I would talk kids, church, camping, movies, and on and on with her. They are one of the reasons I loved this place so much, and losing them has been hard this summer. And now, this.
July went fine. We both tried to be very friendly, lots of smiles and hellos. Inside, I was actually very resentful that they were here, but I know what side my bread is buttered on, so on the outside, I was very accepting and pleasant. Then August and the hunting season arrived. The 2nd weekend of the bowhunt, Kev comes up with a friend. Check-in at the park ends at 9pm. If you pull in after that, you're supposed to pull in somewhere by the office and stay until morning, when you can find a site. They don't want you disturbing other campers by trying to hook-up and level out at midnight, or running over spigots after dark when you can't see anything, which makes total sense. So Kev pulls in just before 10pm. He's actually just in the suburban, and doesn't even want a camp site. He just needs someplace to park until 4am, when they'll get up and head out hunting. There's a big street light at the entrance of the park, so he decides to pull all the way to the back of the campground and park in a big open area back there. He does this, they quietly roll out some sleeping bags in the back of the burb, then get up in the early morning and leave.
Well, apparently, unbeknownst to them, someone out walking their dog sees them and gets freaked out. Even now, I'm not sure why. You're certainly allowed to drive your vehicle in and out of the park all night long if you'd like. There aren't gates that lock. They just don't want you pulling your camper in after hours. So, this "incident" is reported to the new camp managers, who are new and over-zealous and on a power-high, and by the time Kev has pulled back in the next night, right before 9pm, they are fired up! Gary, chases Kevin down and is ready for a confrontation. "You really freaked my campers out last night, " he says, automatically on the attack. Kevin doesn't get upset, thankfully, and they have somewhat of a conversation, where Gary also said, "You're not even a member here, are you son!?" I'm not a customer service pro, but I'm pretty sure it's not politically correct to call your customers/clients/members "son" or "boy" or anything close. So Kev has to flash his ID and credentials, which cools Gary down considerably, but the damage has already been done. We have been blackballed. And each visit since, there has been something.
"You can't park your car here, you'll have to move it. You can't put the fire pit there, you'll have to move it. You can't have a clothesline to hang wet bathing suits on, you'll have to take it down." Just pick, pick, pick at things we've always done, or things that we see other people doing all the time.
So, it wasn't a surprise when he chased us down, upon our arrive last night because he had a problem with the spot we'd chosen. "I have a bit of a mess back there behind your camper," he says, referring to the leaves. "That's OK," I said. "We don't mind, and we won't let the girls spread them around." "I just can't figure out why you picked this spot," he said.
I honestly think that he thinks we picked it just to tick him off. Really? Maybe he'll develop amnesia over the winter, and by spring he won't remember us, and we'll get a fresh start. One can only hope. In the mean time, I think I'll take him a couple of homemade caramel apples in an attempt to sweeten him, and thaw his wife, the ice queen.
You are NOT the only one who hates Gary!!! My husband who has been a member of Camperworld for years, and who has worked for Annie and Wynn, the former managers, for three summers, also "volunteered" this past summer and worked for Wynn a couple days a week without pay. We were there when Gary the Ghoul and his "Ice Queen" came into power. Power is the word, and I mean it. He promptly evicted us and told us "they didn't need any more help, they brought their own" and so we left. He also said he "needed our spot." When we drove over a few weeks later, our spot was vacant and the park didn't look well cared for. He's a total control freak and many other campers we've run into have told us other incidents about him and his wife. The other employees who were full time there working for him told us they would NEVER return to work for him again!! By behaving as Gary did, he lost a potential future employee for the summers who was able to do the job of three people, run all the equipment, work without supervision, and fix the office computers and the Internet - my multi-talented, layed-back but very hard working hubby!! He wouldn't work for him if he was the last employer ON EARTH!!
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