Camping 2011: Riffe Lake Campground Review

We hit the road around 11 on Thursday bound for the Riffe Lake Campground.  Boy, was THAT ever a mistake!

It had been a couple years since the family has had a chance to get together around a campfire, thanks to scheduling malfunctions and the utter lack of a quality campground to visit.  The eternal struggle is to find a place that’s equidistant to both Tacoma and Yakima, to find a place that’s on some form of water that’s easily accessible, to find a place that’s a group site so we don’t have to go to sleep at 10pm.  Turns out two out of three IS bad.

We settled this year on Riffe Lake Campground.  It was only 2 hours away, it’s on a lake, but it’s not a group site.  In order to temper the fact that we’d be amid other campers, we decided to rent three spots away from most of the other campers.  Unfortunately, their map is kinda bullshit and out of date, because they’re like most other campgrounds who try to cram as many campers into as small of an area as possible to try to squeeze as many extra dollars out of their patrons as they can.  I get it, it’s business.  I guess us city folk aren’t the only greedy fucks out there only in it for number 1.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.  We got there, we got settled, we swam in the lake, we cracked some beer, we played some beer pong.  We were excited to all be together in one place.  We were exuberant and a little boisterous.  Nightfall came around 8 or 8:30, so the kids wanted to play some flashlight tag.  We got in one round before Bubba (the bald, bearded, overalls-clad yokel who may not actually be named “Bubba”) came by and told us to keep it down.

Mind you:  “Quiet Time” was supposed to be 10pm.  So, that was pretty irritating.  But, we persevered (and the next day we were told by the lady who runs the joint that she thought we were fighting; because the sound of children laughing and running around is obviously the sound of family getting into a shouting match).

I ended up going to bed pretty early (maybe 11 or 11:30) because my eating was all wrong.  I got there and started drinking around 4pm when I should’ve had dinner and gotten a base of food in my system.  Instead, I tried to eat in the middle of drinking, then tried to continue drinking, and it just wasn’t happening.

Next day, I was up around 10 or 10:30, had some breakfast, sat around, went on a canoe ride, did a little more swimming, then around 4pm started drinking again.  Only, this time I made sure I had a three hot dog base so I could power through a full, long night of drinking.

We played a lot more beer pong, the kids got some good flashlight tag in, we got a game of spades in, 9:30 rolled around …

And Bubba Jr. (a skinnier, shorter, redneckier version of the aforementioned Bubba) stopped by in his orange reflector vest.  Shushing us.

OK, whatever.  We can sit around by the fire, with the radio quietly playing the local country station, visiting with family as the RV’s generator hummed in the background (for the kids who wanted to watch a movie).

We talked, we laughed, we were having a good time.  Just like the old days.  A couple of hours pass, and there’s Bubba Jr. making his rounds.  Standing there in our camp site, telling us everyone else is asleep and maybe it’s time to wrap it up, because after all we’re not like you city folk out here.

Well, we responded by telling him that we’re family, we get to see each other once a year, we’re just visiting, and we don’t like being treated like children.  To appease the jackoff, we turned off the radio, even though it was clearly quieter than the RV’s generator, but whatever.

That pissed us all off.  Pretty much, his ploy backfired miserably because all we did after that was bitch about what a fucking bitch he is, which ultimately raised the level of our voices because:  what a dick!

He came by again a little while later to say something and we pretty much brushed him off.  See, his job is to walk around the campground, and we’re pretty sure he would get to go to sleep once everyone else went to sleep.  Because I know for a fact that when we walked up to our other campsite, we couldn’t hear anything from down below (the furthest point away from all the other campers, which we chose intentionally to make sure we bothered as few people as possible).

Still pissed off, we continued to talk shit about this asshole for pretty much the rest of the night.  An hour or two later, he hollered from up the hill, “Maybe it’s time to wrap it up!”  At that point, my dad said, “You tell your boss that we’re going to demand a refund for tomorrow and we’re going to leave!”

He said, “If that’s the way you want it!”  To which I replied, “Fuck off, bitch!”  It was my little contribution to an otherwise enraging night.

We stayed up until the wood was gone (which was probably 3 or 4 in the morning), and then we woke up the next morning around 10am.  We packed up our campsite and left.

First of all, “city folk”?  Because we’re sitting around a fire, drinking Bud Lights, listening to country music all day and night … THAT makes us city folk?

Is it because we’re not a bunch of fucking retards who bring fishing poles to a lake where kids are swimming in hopes of catching fish that aren’t there?  Literally, in the swimming hole, where there’s a little floating dock for kids to jump off of … fishing.

Or is it because everyone else there was asleep by 10pm?  Are you KIDDING me?  We happened upon the one campsite where nobody drinks, nobody has a good time after 8pm, and they all go to bed before curfew?  What was this, some kind of Christian prayer campground?  I mean, fuck me!

Yes, camping is about bringing the kids to water, maybe riding the jetskis or a canoe or the speed boat being dragged on an innertube.  It’s about a campfire and hot dogs and sleeping in a tent or an RV.  But, it’s also about DRINKING.  Laughing, talking, playing cards, running around after dark with your flashlights being silly.  The after-hours part of camping is just as important as the daytime part.  And these fascist fucks at the Riffe Lake Campground obviously have no use for any fun when the sun goes down.

You know, during the first 18 or so years of my life, when we went camping every year at Rimrock Lake, we were surrounded by other campers as well.  But, you know what they DIDN’T do?  They didn’t pile campers right on top of each other because they wanted to squeeze as much fucking money out of us as they possibly could.  We were spread out.  So, we could hold a reasonable fucking conversation and not worry about our voices carrying the five feet between us and another camper.

Riffe Lake Campground is a decent-enough place to spend a day.  The water is awesome, a great place to take a boat and have a little fun.  But, they don’t clean out their Port-A-Potties (seriously, ours was full of shit the day we got there, and it ran out of toilet paper the next day), and they’re fucking bastards about the quiet time.  Because the owners live onsite, they’re the biggest batch of crybabies I’ve ever seen.

How do you enjoy your lives?  Bubba, Bubba Jr. and Lady Who Runs The Place.  Is this what you thought your lives would be?  Making a minimal amount of money by walking around in your orange reflector vest bitching about people having a good time at 10pm.  Fishing at a spot on the lake that will never give you fish.  I hope you enjoy your lives, because I think they’re pretty pathetic.  If you weren’t such lousy fucks, you could’ve had customers every year.

But, whatever, you’ve got your quiet time.  I hope your campground burns to the fucking ground.