Adventures in Camping—Marble Creek
(Think CSI—Miami!)

Over the weekend, me and the kids went camping at Marble Creek in the Mark Twain National Forest. It is a BEAUTIFUL campground. There are some shut-ins right alongside the campsites. In case you don’t know, shut-ins are where a creek flows through big, smooth rocks, making little waterfalls and pools all over the place. Plus there used to be a mill there. It is gone, but the millpond is still there, making another FUN place to swim.

For some reason this campground doesn’t get crowded at all. That is probably because it has no electric, no water, and no trash service. Plus no park ranger on the premises. And it is 15 miles to the nearest town. (Ironton to the west, Fredericktown to the east) BUT the place is so gorgeous you would think people would go there anyway. Every single site in the whole place (there are about 30) is a good site. Each one has a nice fire pit with a grate, a lantern post, and a picnic table, not to mention huge trees and lots of nice places to set up tents.

So we were having a great time until the second night, when about half an hour after we went to bed, (about 10:30), a group of 7 young men set up camp two sites away from us. These people acted like psycho madmen from a Boys Gone Wild video, if there is such a thing. The first thing they did was play rap music real loud on their car stereos. Then they began yelling, “Fuck!” and “Fuck You!” and “Fuck you Motherfucker!” as loud as they could, and they all would laugh like maniacs. Although this was annoying, what can you do, they are just stupid kids. Then they began throwing firecrackers at each other. REALLY LOUD firecrackers. BANG BANG BANG!!! FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER!! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! BANG BANG BANG!! HA HA HA!!! Then they added bottle rockets. WHIZZZZZZZZ……BANG!!! FUCK!! YOU ALMOST HIT ME!!! HA HA HA HA!!

Believe it or not, this went on for a couple of hours. THEN….one of them turned on a loudspeaker and started talking on it. If I thought the fireworks and yelling were loud, they weren’t anything compared to the F-word over a loudspeaker. Then, believe it or not, they somehow turned on a siren over the loudspeaker. That was SO LOUD, you cannot even imagine it.

This was the point where I said the F-word, got my flashlight, got out of my tent, and walked over there. I figured they might kill me, but anything would be better than a slow death by F-bombs and fireworks. When I walked up, I was so surprised, because I was expecting hoosier guys with tattoos and no teeth. Instead, they looked for all the world like rich kids. They had nice clothes, nice hair, and nice teeth. Plus nice cars! (And they all looked about 15, although they had to be older than that.) So I very politely asked them to knock it off, and they apologized and promised they would. They even turned the radio off.

In a perfect world the story would end there, but even though they quit the loudspeaker and the radio, they couldn’t resist a few more firecrackers and a few hundred more fucks. So the next morning, after just a few hours of quiet, when I heard, drifting though the stately cedars and sycamores, the rallying cry of “WAKE UP YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!!!, I drove to town and called the sheriff’s department. (You can’t get a cell phone signal until you get to town.) Call me a narc, I don’t care. I was having fantasies of a shotgun and their heads in the same place.

Of course when the policeman got there later in the day the boys were gone on some adventure, but their stuff was still there so they were coming back. The deputy was PISSED when I told him what they had been doing. Evidently shooting fireworks in the national forest is a big no-no. (I think he was mostly pissed because they weren’t there and he felt like kicking some ass. And he could have done it, too, because he was a big, mean-looking guy!) So the cop farted around, hung out at their campsite, drove around the 8th of a mile campground loop about 10 times, talked to the few other campers, and then finally, after about an hour, he left the boys an involved, threatening note, (which I would have killed to read!) and left.

Needless to say, when they finally got back, I heard them say things like, “They can’t do blah blah blah!” “It’s not illegal to blah blah blah!” “There’s no WAY they can get my last name!” etc etc etc. Then they loaded up their fancy cars and drove away. And my weekend just got better from there.

The funny thing is, when I had gone to town to call the cops, I stopped at a store to get some stuff, and while I was there I picked up some free touristy brochures they had laying around. One of them was the “Arcadia Valley, MO 2005 Directory”. I was reading funny things in it like:

Fort Davidson Motel- We welcome you with mountain views and all the amenities including a pool, restaurant, and Jacuzzi suites. Located on a civil war battlefield.

And:
Arcadia Sporting Goods- A great selection for all your outdoor needs. 1900 guns.

That’s when I noticed under “Calendar of Events” for July they only had one event listed:

Arcadia Valley’s Firecracker Festival. Fort Davidson State Historic Site. All day event.

You can bet I’ll be there.