I camped last night, and intend to camp again tonight (seeing as I’ve already paid), at Hinton Centre Campground.  This is an amenity provided by the city of Hinton.  The town stretches along a corridor defined by the Canadian National rail-line and the Yellowhead 16 Highway.  Kind of strip-mall, Canadian Tire, Wal-mart, the usual assortment of fast-food chains, Husky, Mohawk, Esso stations along the highway, with little clusters of residential and industrial development in the vales which lift up and fall away from either side of the main road.

The campground is centrally located along this long strip.  The campground is part of series of community/municipal buildings.  Starting on the lower side of the tracks is the campground, then a church, next a curling rink (station, court?), next a community center, library, skatepark, and some ballfields.  The campground has a lot of potential because of the central location and because it is still fairly heavily wooded (lending both privacy and a feeling of escape).  The facilities are dilapidated (broken fixtures and bathrooms which are reminiscent of the sort of ones populated by heroin users on Capitol Hill in Seattle).  But the city is in the process of constructing a set of sparkling new washrooms including showers.  The price is no bargain at CAN$20 per night.  (But in the grand scheme of things for Canada, this is okay.  It just busts my budget.  The cheapest legitimate campground I’ve found was CAN$14/night.  Seen a couple at CAN$17.  But most are CAN$20 or higher.  With national parks running at CAN$22.50/night and many places inexplicably trying to charge CAN$27 before tax for places of varying quality.)

So, this seems like a good enough deal to me.  I’ll plunk down here for two nights, take care of business, rest my now leathery bum, let the bruises which are my hands heal, shower at the Esso Travel Centre, and search for animal chin….um, internet connections.

I pay my money into a box, set up my encampment, and go out and about.  When I return, I am greeted by the camphosts (Ron and Jan).  ”Are you the guy traveling by bicycle?”  I am.  ”Do you have a lock for it?”

Apparently for about a week-and-a-half, some unidentified perps (thought to be teens, but unknown), have been stealing coolers of alcohol from the campground.  They come for a few nights in a row.  Then not at all.  Then back again.  Last night (the night before I camped there), they stole a cooler, slashed the tires on the camphost’s car, broke some windows in the community center, and stole a bicycle (which was later recovered a few blocks away).  At “stole a bicycle” my heart rises to my throat.  This is pretty much as bad in my book as making foie gras by force feeding human babies to kittens.  Granted, when I reach NYC, my bike will be a total loss…instantly parted out, stripped bare, and melted down in front of the first bottega I’m foolish enough/obliged to leave it.  But if I lose my bike now, my journey is pretty much over.  Maybe I can Greyhound or hitch the rest of the way (my shins raise themselves in praise at the thought), but the bike trip is over.

I spent the night with my bike locked up, tied to my tent, carefully laid trip-wires surrounding the site, infrared satellites scanning the campground, me awaking at any noise.  Meanwhile Ron, camphost, has designed his own snare.  I don’t want to give it away in case our quarry is reading this blog post.  (Don’t rule it out, they obviously have low tastes.)  Let’s just say it involves an ordinary cooler and a thick coating of sticky tar.

Needless to say.

It was.

Restful.

Tonight, I think, I’ll do it again.

So yeah, that’s a shame.  (That I’m not smart enough to move on when threatened.)  But the real shame here is these stoopid kids.  This town, in the axis between lumber, coal, petroleum, and strip-chain, has dint to broaden its horizons by offering itself a library, a community center, some productive areas for the youth to focus their energies, a nice campground…and these stoopid kids can’t but destroy it.  Unfortunate.