Re: [at-l] Rainbow Springs Campground

[S2ndChnce@aol.com]

In '98 i had the "honor" of staying at Rainbow Springs Campground both in the 
hiker cabin and in a regular cabin the next night.

The hiker cabin was pretty grim...but ok, we're hikers, we can stand it. 

The bathrooms were cleaned. In fact, i remember one woman not knowing about 
the prohibition about using the facilities during the posted cleaning hour. 
When she arrived, she saw them finishing up the women's bathroom and she 
politely asked if she could use the facility. They said yes. The next day she 
was buying something in the store and overheard the (frequent) complaining of 
the camp owners. This particular gripe was about the pushy hiker who 
obviously couldn't read the notice about bathrooms being closed during the 
cleaning hour. Hey folks, she asked politely and was granted permission by 
the same person who then spent the next day complaining.

The non-hiker cabin was rustic. Ok, i can deal with that. It also stunk of 
mildew, was roach infested and had grease coated pots and pans. 

Another friend of mine had stayed at another of the cabins the night before 
and had the same complaint. She told me she spent quite some time with the 
dishrag cleaning one of their pots to use to cook dinner. After she had left, 
the owners went out of their way telling other hikers about how this other 
hiker had cleaned her muddy gear with their dishrag. They used her name and 
were quite nasty about this hiker being representative of how so many of the 
hikers are "filthy pigs."

They want your money to shop in their store, stay in their hiker hovel or 
rent a cabin or space. But they really don't want you...the long distance 
hiker...there with our smell, our exuberance, our needs. 

I don't agree with all Bill Bryson said in his book, but he was pretty dead 
on accurate in similarity to my own firsthand experience. YMMV

Second Chance
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