Camping it up in Russian River

This weekend, we went camping in Guerneville with some good friends. Now, I do like camping. I'm not one of these wusses that needs running water and electricity to survive through the weekend. My favorite kind of trip is isolation camping--—hiking into the woods far enough that there'’s not only no other humans with you, but there'’s no sign that any other human has been there before. You pack everything in that you need, and you pack it all out save what you buried in a hole a few dozen yards from your tent.

The trip we experienced had all the discomforts of camping without any of the joys of getting away from it all. Isolation was not the name of the game. Our tent was situated approximately 8 inches away from one of several tents belonging to a four-family contingent from an unidentified eastern European country. About a dozen children ran amok all day long. I now know what it would be like to be held captive for two days at the Moscow Chuck E. Cheeslowski. We didn'’t share a common tongue, except for the universal language of the plaintive scream. Imagine all the guests at your average Circus Circus hotel separated not by two layers of drywall but by a thin layer of nylon fabric.

A bathroom with indoor plumbing was located 200 yards away, while we had two Porto-potties 50 yards from our campsite. Apparently, portable toilets have a capacity equal to what 12 families (including four of eastern European descent) can produce in 36 hours. Tragically, we were there for 48 hours.

Somehow, the children actually slept through most of the night--—perhaps their parents spiked their sippy cups with Stoli--but the adults jabbered into the night. I kept dreaming over and over that I was an extra in a sequel to The Hunt for Red October. But then, I kept dreaming of going to the bathroom. When going to the bathroom involves squirming out of a sleeping bag, rolling off the air mattress (inevitably waking up your boyfriend), feeling around for a flashlight, unzipping the tent, only to stumble through a makeshift Chechnyan village to get to a maxed-out fiberglass shitter, one tries his hardest to sleep through the night even with a full bladder.

So, I kept dreaming about peeing, over and over again. I dreamt this morning that I was back in high school and could barely make it to the bathroom and then I was having a terrible time aiming for the urinal. Fortunately, I woke up before I started dreaming about sitting in a warm hot tub.

This was all particularly disappointing because we had believed we were staying at a gay camping resort. That'’s what The Willows used to be, but now has, as the owner told us upon check in, a very diverse crowd. It'’s a sad thing that they've gone mainstream. It was equally distressing to see that the once-famous Fife's Resort had become a shadow of its formal self, now catering to an upscale clientele, its legendary T-parties a faint memory. To give you an idea of how it would feel, imagine that you took a family trip to Disneyland, only to find out that it had been bought out by Wal-Mart. You go in and you're greeted by an old man in mouse ears huffing "Welcome to the happiest retail space on Earth!" Your kid groans when you insist on braving the line for the "Haunted Housewares" ride.

Outside of the "accommodations," we had a great time. Our friend Keith whipped up a gourmet dinner of capellini with prawns sauteed in a garlic lime sauce. Jack brought homemade cheesecake. We saw one of the comedians from our Atlantis cruise, Shann Carr, perform on Saturday night at Triple R Resort. We bypassed the $10 cover charge without even realizing it. On Sunday, we canoed up the Russian River with a picnic lunch, followed by some fun in the pool at the Triple R. One of our other companions, Greg, helped us appreciate all the birds (and bats) in the area--—ospreys, sparrows, blue jays, killdeers, turkey vultures, herons, king fishers and a bunch of others I can'’t remember.

Guerneville, as a well-known gay getaway, still has its appeal. But The Willows campsites are for the birds.