Camping and Campgrounds

You are at your kitchen table perhaps drinking coffee. Is it still winter for you? Are you ready for summer? It's on the way! What is the family doing for vacation?.

Fortunately, camping is still an affordable way to relax.

However, the way camping is done is changing. Who wants a mosquito buzzing in your ear all night? More people are preferring the comforts of home in the form of recreational vehicles, but there are places to pitch a tent. There's nothing like waking up in the morning and crawling out of a sleeping bag. For now, you can still enjoy the song of a mockingbird and cuss a squirrel for stealing food. Camp out overnight on a river float and sleep on a gravel bar under millions of stars. Crickets and tree frogs can lull you to sleep instead of the person in the lot next to you blaring their radio or CD player. Enjoy it while you can.

Unfortunately, the Ozarks has seen it's share of campgrounds funded by the government shutting down. This is bad news for local people who reap the benefits of these places. Southwestern Missouri is seeing it's share of shut downs too. In an eighty mile radius, there are a half dozen campgrounds that have gone by the wayside due to lack of funding. The land is prime property but it sits there and rots. I've seen weeds growing up between the picnic tables and squirrels storing nuts for the winter in unused restrooms. In the Ozarks, snakes are abundant and I'm sure enjoy these man-made nests too.

The Ozarks offers a wide variety of places to camp, boat and swim. We have more and more people coming into the area each year. This year and perhaps for years to come we Americans will tighten the financial belt. But you gotta get away from the rat race! The remote campgrounds and boat launches are disappearing. It's slow, but it's reality.

I hate going somewhere and seeing trash not picked up, people leaving a campsite in a mess. There's talk of a local boat launching area shutting down because of this abuse. But it's the State's fault for not taking proper care. No funds. Tourism for this area is its bread and butter though. People want to come here for our vistas and float the rivers. My no-more-further-commercial-development side even agrees with this.

What about a program that could adopt these abandoned areas much like they do with highways? Some of the millions of dollars coming to us from the stimulus package be set up in a fund to aid the program. Local businesses and private citizens could adopt that particular campground and one or two days a week go out and maintain them. All the fund would do is initiate the program and keep a person/family there during the height of the season from Memorial Weekend to Labor Day. It could be set up like automated toll booths; the person simply inserts their money into a device similar to a dollar changing machine in the off season.
This is still a rural area some would argue. Who is going to patrol these places to avoid vandalism? The State and counties are low on funding for law enforcement, they patrol only what is necessary because they can't afford the manpower. Again, this could be done on a volunteer basis, much like the Neighborhood Watch Program.
The good news is a couple of these places have been refurbished. The bad news? Convention centers, high-end resorts, RV parks, and water slides now dominate. While I suppose it helps promote tourism, who wants to go somewhere crowded and noisy? There are plenty who don't care, but there are those who do.

Allow and initiate a program for volunteers through adoption restore these places. Are there any states who have this type of program? Google volunteer, state funding, campgrounds and it gives a whole list of sites and PDF files to pour through. It could be accomplished.

Here are some web sites you can access regarding information about what to do in the Ozarks
www.adventurestateparks.com
www.lovelycitizen.com
www.bluespringheritage.com
www.m-bike.org/library/dnr