Well, back from a fun weekend camping and hiking with friends. This was Audrey’s second camping trip, and she loved it! We spent two days (supposed to be three) at Hickory Hollow Campground in Utica (and never again), and also went hiking at Starved Rock state park. The first night was fun, and hiking all day Saturday was a blast. However, on Saturday night Hickory Hollow had some nut case driving around on a golf cart constantly, at night with lights on too, asking campers questions, checking regulations, etc… it was very intruding and irritating. Our camping trip ended later that night, around midnight, when Gomer (which I’ll call him since he wouldn’t give his name or show ID) the “I’m security” guard popped out of a dark corner of the woods and started swearing at us because my buddy was taking a leak in the woods before going to bed. Now keep in mind he was not in sight of any other people, and the place he was going was wooded and had nothing but farmland behind it (no other sites). Gomer jumps out, no professionalism, no being civil, no warning, just a “I don’t need this sh$*, give me one reason I shouldn’t tell you to pack your sh$% and leave”… all this because one of the six of us sitting around a fire, all tired and about to go to bed, was peeing in the woods… After requests to not curse and talk quieter because my 2 year old was sleeping in the tent 10 feet away only caused the guy to get angrier and louder, I got up and asked him for ID and his name, which he didn’t provide. Instead, he backed away and called the camp owner, since he was apparently unable to hold a conversation… And no, I didn’t leave anything out… I figured that surely when the camp owner Sandy got there, she’d see we weren’t causing problems and we’d carry on… boy was I wrong. Sandy got there and I could see where Gomer got his training from… she laid right into us, yelling, no joke. I tried talking to her first, so she got in my face and started yelling “so you think you can just piss all over the place?”, then my buddy said “no it was me…”, and before he could apologize, she starting yelling at him. That’s when Cathy, my 5′3″ two months pregnant wife sitting in a chair, asked politely for her to not yell because we have a two year old daughter sleeping in a tent right next to us(which they both knew from the beginning). That’s when Sandy hovered over Cathy yelling in her face ”I don’t care what you got!”. My tolerance ended at that point. A couple of us tried one last time to try to reason with these people, but this time she could see we were down right angry and offended now, so she flustered off and said she’ll just call the police. The cops got there a little later, and Sandy blatantly lied to them, saying “their being loud, vulgar, and pissing all over the place”… really? REALLY? So at this point I guess we’ve gone from one guy peeing in the woods and us sitting around a fire, to us all running around and peeing on things and screaming and swearing for fun… yep… that was her story and she’s sticking to it… Well, the police being police, and actually having good judgement (unlike Sandy and Gomer), took about 30 seconds to realize that 1) all of us were completely sober, and 2) we were actually decent, polite people. But they said that since it’s private property, there’s nothing they can do but follow the request of the owner for us to leave. So in the middle of the night, the police provided us some light, and we broke down three campsites and packed up, also having to wake up my little Audrey and drive us all 1.5 hours home. The Utica police officers were all cool though, and while helping us break down, were just as baffled as us as to how it got to this point. Needless to say, we’re filling complaints with BBB and others… no one should be treated the way we were, and no “business” should have the right to do what they did, either.
