20250430 Wednesday, April 30, 2025. Another Honest Dig. Campground News
Since we have been camping in a site adjacent to the bathroom and shower facility, we have noticed quite a few “unhoused” people making use of the State Park campground facilities here. There is no gate house or on-site rangers. A crew shows up in the morning to do maintenance and check for campsite registrations and payment, but for the most part, the campground is unsupervised.
Over the last 2 days, a minivan with a couple inside had spent most of both days parked in front of the bathroom, and yesterday, for hours, the man had unloaded the contents of the van in an enormous pile of plastic sacs, totes, and random piles all around the van while he cleaned it out. He also disappears into one of the toilets for more than 40 minutes at a time. His female partner sat in the passenger seat glued to her cellphone nearly the entire 2 days. He finally got it all repacked into the van as the sun set. They also had a yappy rat Terrier tied up in front of the bathroom barking for hours and hours while this was going on.
In the past, others would pull up in various cars, disappear into the toilet or shower for more than an hour before reemerging and leaving. Fortunately, we haven’t encountered any syringes, needles, or other unsavory items being left behind. While it sure is nice to have the free hot showers at these State Parks, there should be some effort to restrict access to park guests.
The rangers have been busy preparing the west half of the campground loop for opening. The flooding has largely receded, and they are moving picnic tables around with a tractor. We imagine it will open tomorrow.
We were on the beach at 8:15am and it didn’t rain overnight, so we were hopeful for an easier time finding the clams, but it was pretty much like yesterday. We got our limits but did have to work at it for a little over an hour.
Our doppelgänger neighbors had left the campground before we had even gotten up. We got our clams processed and then headed into Westport to hit the Shop’n Kart, which is their local independent grocery and goods store. Ben was looking for some solvent to get pine sap off the Bronco’s windshield, and Janet wanted to pick up some hot dogs for lunch and dinner. It’s interesting to wander through these stores that have a bit of everything. Ben did find some Goof-off, and Janet found a selection of tube steaks.
After indulging in some cheese and jalapeño brats for lunch, we hit the trails around Twin Harbors State Park again. The last time we did that, we encountered flooded-out trails that went nowhere. But the water table has dropped a lot, drying out all the trails and the back half of the campground loop. We were able to walk all the way from our campground loop to both the Bonge Street parking lot area and the one northwest of the campground loop where we have been hitching the Bronco and RV together because it is a big, level parking lot. We clocked 2.75 miles in about an hour.
The sun has been out most of the afternoon. We had run the generator while processing the clams, and that had charged up the batteries from 52% to 75%. With clear sky and full sun, the batteries were charging at 3-4A. By evening, they were up to over 85%.
Dinner tonight will be hot dogs with canned chili. Tomorrow will be the end of our razor clamming and free senior off-season pass camping season.