I thought I would share a recent experience I had while camping with my boys on a Father and Son's trip. A few weekends back, I took my pre-teen boys camping while my wife was away. The morning after our first night, I got up early to watch the sun rise. There were a handful of people doing the same thing in the same area. As usual, everyone was respecting each other's reflection time. Finally, a fellow camper made a comment on how nice of a sunrise it was. I responded in confirmation. Then, this fellow camper continued the conversation with me. I expected this to be a few minutes conversation, but he continued to talk. I was polite but ended the conversation when it became clear he would talk indefinitely and returned to my campsite to make breakfast for me and my children. Roughly thirty to sixty minutes later, while eating our meal outside, this individual showed up to our campsite and wished to strike up a conversation. I was annoyed for the obvious reasons (in the middle of eating), but more surprised this person went through the trouble to find my site, and then was bold enough to interrupt what I expect would be an obvious time of privacy to most people. Against my better judgement, I chose politeness and spoke to him for a few minutes before letting him know we needed to get back to eating. He left and made a comment about maybe seeing us later. At this time, I should mention this person was middle aged, by himself, and other than seeking attention, wasn't giving off signs of trouble. In the early afternoon of that same day, my older son and I were about to depart to the playground, and my younger son decided to stay inside. As we start to ride our bikes away, this camper pulls up in his truck. His face is red, as if he had been drinking. Now I am getting bothered and slightly concerned. He begins to unload firewood as if we are all going to have a fire together. Now is when I decide I must become firm with this individual. I let him know we appreciate the offer but we are here to enjoy time together and need our time to do that. He seemed slightly offended, left the firewood, and wished us all a good time. We returned the well wishes and he departed the site. My older son and I decided it best not to leave my younger son alone, even if he was locked inside. Needless to say, the rest of our stay we were constantly looking over our shoulder for him to come back to our site. Luckily, the weather turned and everyone at the park was forced inside. I never felt as if this person was dangerous, but his indifference or ignorance to social norms was disturbing. My personal opinion was that he was seeking conversation to be engaged socially. However, how could I know what was really going on? I considered leaving the park that evening, but with the weather so bad, and us being safely inside our coach, I felt the risk was low to stay. We left the next morning without further incident. We've been camping a long time in all levels of parks (slightly shady overnights enroute to a final destination to restrictive Class A only parks) and have never encountered something like this, so I was not prepared. In the future, sadly, I will have to be much more careful on who I talk to, when, and where. It will also probably influence where we camp. This is all very unfortunate, but it was so strange I feel I need to put measures in place to avoid something similar.
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