Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 17:08:43 -0600
Reply-To: Tom Buese <tombuese@COMCAST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Tom Buese <tombuese@COMCAST.NET>
Subject: NVC-Re: Ninja Camping (was Wal-Mart parking lots)Now
Pre-Enviromental Awareness
In-Reply-To: <5a099d980805211546j4116f51bwbb139f0792823ed3@mail.gmail.com>
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Good points- reminds moi when I was a small kidlet growing up on
Maalaea Bay on Maui, Hawaii, & we had a septic tank as there were no
sewer lines or leech fields in the 50's as far as I know, & the tank
would fill, My dad would call the "honey wagon" & it would come & dig
up our tank opening, & pump the effluent out into the ocean in front
of our house! We would also run behind the mosquito truck as it
sprayed to kill the bugs breathing in the white fumes. Behind our
house were sugar cane fields, & about every 2-3 years, they would set
the fields on fire to burn off the leaves before they harvested the
cane, & we would have to evacuate our neighborhood to avoid the
smoke, not to mention the rats, wild cats, mongooses, etc. that came
out of the fields & into our yard! We also had fun watching the US
Navy do live practice bombing runs onto the island of Kaho'olawe in
the middle of our bay, which would occasionally break our windows,
crack our walls, etc.
VW content-wish we still had the 58 VW that we drove then.
Now those were the bad old days!
Mr. Bz
On May 21, 2008, at 4:46 PM, Neil2 wrote:
> I've been thinking as I read these posts about the differences/
> comparisons.
> Often it is just time/culture. I remember driving thru upstate NY
> early one
> morning with a load of college chums We weren't in a Vanagon
> (CONTENT) but
> a similar valuable vehicle for adventures: a Subaru (their engines
> make good
> donors for vanagons/CONTENT!) and a friend from a country which is
> lagging
> far behind western countries in litter cognizance, simply rolled
> down the
> glass and tossed his bah'ul (there you go Mister de villers!) out. No
> thought required! At first we were all aghast. Then slowly, it
> dawned on
> me that I used to do the same as a child in a state which was
> lagging far
> behind more progressive states in litter cognizance. Same thing a
> few years
> ago whilst behind a hardware store in Moscow, Idaho, I saw a truck
> spraying
> oil on the dusty gravel road 'to keep down the dust'! Whilst me
> father in
> law in NH was in the midst of a $5k cleanup job on his 30 yo
> heating oil
> xfer site (his new driver spilled 5g of oil), gasp! It's all
> context. Last
> year China nixed their aging satellite and increased the space junk
> by 10%
> and didn't think twice about their great grandchildren who may be
> cleaning
> up some stellar campsite in years hence whilst cruising in their VW
> Type 6
> VanaStar (CONTENT).
>
> Often it's just time/culture. Education is the key many times.
> Heck, I
> don't even get overheated now when I see PackIn/PackOut signs. I
> got used
> to them in the last 12 years. If I'm in me Westy tho' you can be
> sure I'll
> be looking for cig butts and leftover sandwhiches in the weeds
> before I
> depart. Better to clean up after someone less experienced in life
> than lose
> a camping privilege permanently.
>
>
> On 5/21/08, Peter Young <pyjme@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> I used to work for the Forest Service patrolling these "ninja
>> sites" as you
>> call them.
>>
>>
>> We called them dispersed sites, as in not consolidated into a
>> single area.
>> They are
>>
>> perfectly legal to use, and will likely still be legal way into
>> the future,
>> but you're right
>>
>> Keith - we need to keep these places clean. I can't tell you how many
>> people would
>>
>> tell me (lie to my face) that they would clean up their site when
>> they left
>> and then leave
>>
>> ALL of their trash, refuse, etc, behind. I even gave these people
>> a large
>> garbage bag to
>>
>> put all their trash in! If I was lucky they would use the bag so
>> that at
>> least all I had to
>>
>> pick up was the bag, but usually I had to clean up dispersed
>> garbage in the
>> dispersed
>>
>> site (see the picture of my engine with a day's haul of garbage here:
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/25976111@N02/2511550297/ )
>>
>> On the other hand, however, there were people who cleaned up the
>> garbage
>> left by
>> others in the sites they were staying in. I once came across a
>> retired
>> couple who
>> had cleaned up the worst site on the forest, filling the entire
>> bed of
>> their pickup truck.
>> We sent them an official certificate of appreciation for their
>> effort. I
>> also had a group
>> of young adults (18-20) ask me for extra garbage bags so they
>> could clean
>> up more
>> trash - and they did this before they knew I was handing them out!
>> These
>> people
>> helped me maintain my faith in humanity, and kept me from
>> automatically
>> assuming
>> that everyone in the forest was an a**hole out to ruin everything
>> that I
>> liked about the
>> area.
>>
>> Peter
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Neil
> '82 Diesel Westy
> Peace of
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