Winchester Bay (Umpqua Lighthouse)

Umpqua Lighthouse State Park campground is a relatively small campground. Indeed, I was blocked for a good ten minutes from registering for my site because an older man in one of those mammoth RVs (the size of a Greyhound bus) decided to park it in the middle of the only road in the campground to detach the medium-sized SUV he was towing and the car behind him did not want to get their tires dirty on their shiny black lexus so they would not drive around him. I wonder how I get by with everything I could possibly need in my small Saturn. I decide to see if the rain would slow down a little before I set up my tent. No sense letting it set out int the rain any lnger than it has to. I tied my tarp to the picnic table and some trees hoping to keep a spot relatively dry for tent. I donned my $4.96 rain pocnho I bought in Cottage Grove in case I needed it for my bike rides and headed down the only hiking trail in the camp looking like the dork that I am. The trail lead around a small lake called Lake Marie ending at the road leading to the parks namesake. The lighthouse was pretty eerie in the dark rain shining through nearby Dougals fir trees. I took some good video and pictures and headed back to camp. I am still getting used to my camera, it appears it adjusts the shutter speed for the appropriate amount of light. That is why all my pictures of the lighthouse came out grainy and a little blurred. The rain had been reduced to a trickle and I immediately set up the tent. As I did this a family of four pulled in across the way and set up their tent in what sounded like a military drill with the father barking out orders and everyone carrying them out post-haste with good cheer. As I was retiring a single male pulled into the site next to mine. He used a lantern but no fire or tent. He apparently slept in his car (something I would have opted for had my back seat not been full already). The next morning we arose around the same time. I made a pass by the lighthouse aain before leaving and found him taking pictures of it. It suddenly occurred to me that I had been camped next to myself in a parallel or time-separated universe. I used to sleep in my car when I first started camping because I had this great fear someone would come by with an axe and start chopping and I would have no defense. Who else camps alone and takes as M used to say "another BS picture" of landamarks with no reference to their meaning to the people that took the picture of them. I thought about it a little more and I realized that all the complaints I have had about my camping neighbors have been complaints about sins I have committed in the past. I know for a fact that "loudmouth" and "drunken chatter" have been used to refer to me while camping in the past. I'll bet I did not always pick a site that was empty on both sides also. Without getting too psychological, maybe this is a part of my figurative death and rebirth (which, I don't know) or maybe I am just a jerk. I do know that up to this point I had been seeking solitude and was not achieving it. I wondered if moving inland would help me achieve my goal and if so would I accept it.

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