Two more incidents that have "made the book" down here:
The park has crushed granite 15' by 15' patio areas, nicely kept and bordered. We're under a fire ban here because of the drought, in addition to the park rule that no open fires are allowed at any time, fire ban or not. Saturday evening on our park rounds, we discovered some campers had a fire built directly on the granite patio, right next to the concrete table and benches. After we got it put out, a damaged area about 3' in diameter was left on the granite and the table had black marks where the fire was hitting it. They'd also dumped hot coals at one point in the grass bordering the patio, so we have another burned area there.
In August, one of the RVs in the park caught on fire during the night. Luckily, a dog in that rig awoke the owners in time for them to get out of the camper and extinguish the fire before it did too much damage. The cause of the fire? Mosquitoes had been very bad, and since they love swarming out from under the rigs here, these campers had put a citronella candle on top of an Igloo ice chest and shoved the whole thing under their rig, thinking that the metal container for the candle would prevent the flame from getting too wide or tall. They went to bed, forgetting about the candle. Eventually, the candle melted the area where it was sitting, and when it fell through the lid, it started a fire in the ice chest. Before long, the whole chest went up in flames. The fire scorched some of the undercarriage of the rig as well as the outside wall nearest where the candle had been placed. Good thing the campers had a dog that awakened them before a full-blown disaster had occurred.
Carolyn
PS: I have enough material for a book, I'm sure. Part of it will be a section of photographs of nothing but sewer hoses and their positions between the rig and the sewer connection--on the ground, in knots, propped up by 6-packs of beer, you name it.