Neighbors

Short Version:
We return to Oakridge, camp in a nice spot, a plague of Beelzebub-flavored neighbors is visited upon us

Long Version:
It was hot in Oakridge, so we lay on the grass under a shady tree and read our books. Eventually we bestirred ourselves, and drove south-east out of town for 20 miles or so, and found ourselves a nice place to camp at the upstream end of a Reservoir. We had a lovely evening, with much civilized reading of books, watching of wildlife, and eating of delicious foods. We turned in early, so as to get a good night's sleep before tackling the Moon Point ride in the morning.

Unfortunately, pretty much as soon as we turned our lights out, neighbors arrived. And what neighbors! The kerfuffle of their arrival, in multiple large-engined pickups, did not abate with time, as we expected. Indeed, at least two of them stayed up all night, foraging for firewood all over the place, chasing their noisy, ill-behaved dog Weiser - short, we assume, for Budweiser - around the place, and generally making massive amounts of noise.

We woke at one point to find the dog right outside the tent. It didn't seem to appreciate the profanities I levelled at it, and barked at me. Loudly. For ages.

Obviously some squirrel or frog or something made similarly offensive comments at various points in the night, as the dog let loose from spots at all points of the compass at intervals right through to morning.

They'd arrived after dark, so all I'd had to go on were their voices:
- Mom's been a chain-smoker for several years. Has somehow managed to retain a whiny edge to her voice despite the roughness dealt to it by all those cheap and nasty tobacco products.
- Pop's got to be huge to have a voice that deep, and to drink that many cans of beer.
- Older boy's voice has broken, but he's a pussy, as evidenced by his refusal to go see what the dog's barking at, any of the times the dog was barking. Bullies the younger boy incessantly.
- Younger boy looks up to older boy. Goodness knows why.
- Dog is an ill-mannered, ill-trained, piece of crap. Listens to Pop more than others, but even Pop holds little sway. Dung-beetles are cooler than this mongrel.


In the morning, though, a treat, of sorts, for my sleep-deprived eyes; I got to see them.
- Mom might've looked good in those short shorts and that tanktop about thirty years ago. But I doubt it.
- Older boy is fat, with pudding-bowl sand-colored hair and facial features which look like a sculptor set the work aside to finish later while he went for a drink, but ended up on a three-day bender and never came back to finish up
- Younger boy was a slightly smaller version of his big brother
- Pop's short, has one leg, shiny crutches, a pony-tail, and photo-sensitive glasses
- The dog is part black lab, part bull terrier, and all bad

We left early, and drove further up the Middle Fork of the Willamette River, to Sand Prairie campground and the start of the Middle Fork Trail.

I was sleep-deprived and grumpy. Janine had somehow managed to have an incredibly good sleep, and was raring to go.

Bah humbug.