Tourist season

[starmac]

Well it is on full swing. You can't shoot them, but it is legal to scare the bejeepers out of them.

I slowed down to a crawl today because there were three motorhomes parked on one side and four on the other of the road, some what in the road only leaving enough lane for one way traffic. This was right at the railroad tracks on a busy highway (the parks). There were several cars throwed in the mix, so I'm thinking ACCIDENT, but nope everybody was standing around taking pictures of a moose that was feeding between the road and the treeline. One motor home decided to pull out as I was coming into this cluster, and realised it was just a bunch of idiots, so I got on it and layed on the air horn. lol
I am not sure who jumped the quickest or farthest, the tourist (all of them) or the moose, but the tourist bounced off of cars and motorhomes. lol

[contender1]

I feel your pain. I live in a tourist area with ONLY a 2 lane road through the middle. If it gets blocked,, we are screwed. We get what my father called "creepin jesuses!" And we are in the heart of Nascar country.
I was thinking as I was travelling a few days ago about posting a few "Rules of the road" for tourists.
Here goes.
(1) Lead, Follow, or get the heck out of the way.
(2) No, we are not all toursits here, we live & work here & if you want us to work for you, we have to get to work first. GET OUT OF OUR WAY!
(3) We are in the mountains. The roads are curvy. The posted speed limit is a safe speed for everyone. If you can't get close to the posted limit, get out of the way for those of us who can drive the limit.
(4) Stopping in the middle of the road to get out to take a picture is NOT acceptable.
(5) We don't mind bicycles, but if you can't do the speed limit on our narrow, winding mountain roads, do not be surprised when you get run over. (A bicycle rider going less than 5 mph in a 45 zone up a mountain in the middle of the lane of a two lane road may be legally there. But that doesn't mean you'll win the battle with the local who is late for work as he comes around that blind curve.)
(6) As a tourist you drive a LOT slower than the posted limit on two-lane roads, yet the very moment you get on a straight stretch or gosh forbid, a 4 lane, you gun it & try & outrun everybody. Keep on travelling as slow as you were to allow all of us who have followed you for the last 10 miles a chance to get past you.
(7) If you are the type to speed, (going above the posted speed limit) while on the interstate, DO THE SAME THING ON THE TWO LANE ROADS. Be consistant.
(8) No need to speed excessively. The tourist attraction will still be there when you get there. That mountain has been there for centuries. We do not move them around. The motel has your reservation. The theme park will be open all summer. DRIVE SAFELY & don't do stupid stuff to kill us locals. (Yes, you missed your turn off. Go down the road another 1/8 of a mile & turn around. That road or whatever will still be there in 5 more minutes.

These are just a few things I could come up with off the top of my head. Y'all feel free to add any you wish!

[JeffinNZ]

As long as they stay on the correct side of the road. One of the most horrifying sights I have ever seen was a guy wearing a 10 gallon hat driving on the right hand side of the road heading towards the crest in the hill. On on coming car only just managed to swerve and avoid a head on.

[bayjoe]

RV's and bicycles in the mountains tests my patients. Luckily it's only from May to September

[Dean D.]

Wasn't me Jeff! I only wear a 5 gal. hat and only got to try driving in Australia, not NZ. I sure scared some blokes over there though!!!!!

[reloader28]

If you want to see tourists, come to Cody Wyo in the summer. Whewee its terrible. I only go to town maybe twice a summer.
We have fun when we go to Yellowstone. Pull over and just start looking off into the trees. In about 3 minutes you'll have 25 carloads of tourists and everyone of them is looking for something. We just drive off and laugh to ourselves while more cars keep stopping. You can go down the road a few miles and do it again. Its great fun.

[waksupi]

Another tip if you are a tourist, particularly in an RV. Don't travel during the "rush hour" periods of the day. People DO have to get to work, and rubber necking causes accidents. If you are from a city, our rush hour may not look like yours, but some in the west have to commute long distances to get to the job sites.

[Baja_Traveler]

I can't get anywhere near the beach from May through September unless I head out at 6am. Luckily that's one of the best times to launch the kayak to go fish, but landing later in the day can be a challenge. Tourists - we got em by the thousands....


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[starmac]

We have them come and set up camp in the wallmart parking lot, some of them will stay right there all summer. I just could never understand the idea of driving 4000 miles to get the wallmart experience, except probably most of them in the lower 48 doesn't have elictrical hookups in the parking lot. lol

The other night I was bobtailing home and stopped at wallmart. I started inside but had to go back and get my wallet. I saw a camper guy from michigan heading my way like something was on his mind. He wanted to know where I lived, when I said here he started away, but I asked him what was on his mind, and he said a guy had parked in amoungst the campers the night before and let his rig run all night and had them all pretty chapped, my motor was dead, but I couldn't help reminding him he was camped in a WALLMART and not a KOA. lol

[JeffinNZ]

Wasn't me Jeff! I only wear a 5 gal. hat and only got to try driving in Australia, not NZ. I sure scared some blokes over there though!!!!!

Well when you get to NZ I will do the driving alright! :-)

[**oneshot**]

During Summer here our population goes from 4000 to 40000 every weekend. Those may not be exact but man it sure feels that way. We go on a summer schedule of pre-weekend shopping, early dinners out if we go out, allow twice the drive time across town, and avoid the lake at all costs on the weekend.
I live off the beaten path so no real traffic on my road, but once I hit the main drags it's mayhem!

[btroj]

Is it wrong to mention how nice it is to live far from any real tourist attraction?

We get 10 days of idiots for the college World Series but they do there own thing and are easy to avoid.

You guys can keep em, we don't want em back.

[Wal']

Would it also be wrong to remind many, that without these tourists coming to town or wherever, these areas would cease to exist without the money the tourists leave behind.
Where I am, the income for the local towns & ski resorts over the next 4 mths will support the locals throughout the coming year.
Also must mention that I hate them as well :-) .............oh well ;-)

[gmsharps]

Tourist as many hate them but they pump up your economy. Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good.

gmsharps

[Junior1942]

I once spent most of springs and summers camping in various Louisiana and Mississippi parks. It was a hoot to watch some guy too old to drive a small car try to back a huge RV into a campsite. I'm talking scraped trees, knocked over hookup poles, broken off hose bibs, and trash cans knocked over several times and even run over. And then the RV winds up parked semi-sideways on the tarmac. I helped many of them park, but I was told to "mind my own GD business I know how to drive" so often I started just sitting and watching.

[starmac]

Yea they do bring in bucks, but even that is not a perfect world. Take Denali, a total tourist town, only open in the tourist season. probably 90% or better is owned by non alaskan companies, employees non US citizens, so a good percentage of that money does not stay here. lol

The state does allow them to have two traffic lights on the highway. (also only on during tourist season) That allows us to stop on a hill and then get 150,000 pounds moving again, just so these folks can walk across the road with out having to wait. lol

[flounderman]

Friend of mine ran a small boat-outboard motor- fishing supply shop close to the state line. He was at a meeting seeking input about I believe making the out of state people by a non resident license. Someone said, we can't do that, those people bring a lot of money in. Yeah, Ralph said and they take it all back with them, too. They buy all their bait, beer and gas before they come here.

[contender1]

Tourists do add to the economy.
However, in my area we have them come here, buy up the houses or build new ones. Create gated communities, and then start changing the laws to suit them. (Make it like it was where they came from.) It used to be that folks were born, raised & worked here. You could make a decent living if you did that & during the off season you got a break. Nowadays, everyone wants a huge house, on the mountain or by the water & then restrict anybody else from enjoying "their" mountain or stream. (Do you know the definition of an environmentalist? It's the idiot who already has a house on the mountain or by the creek & doesn't want any neighbors for 10 miles around him.)
My hometown used to be where we all lived & worked here. The vacation homes were owned by folks usually within 50 miles of here & used them on the weekends. I grew up knowing a lot of summer residents who were good folks. Now it's gated communities, houses built & bought with the express idea of using them as "an investment, where we rent them as a Vacation Rental and it pays their mortgage. Many others come here, buy a business, jack up the prices, make it work for a few years & re-sell the business, After THEY'VE CHANGED THE LAWS TO ACCOMIDATE THEIR BUSINESS.
I personally would like to see it go back to where people actually lived, worked & died here as families. Not a retirement community with a dozen golf courses & blue-haired, near dead, condo commando, geritol sucking arses who just want things to be their way without regards to the locals. (I once shut down a woman protesting a new development that had clear-cut a side of a mountain. She complained that it was destroying the beauty of the mountains & her views of an unspoiled mountainside. I politely asked her what about the folks who had to put up with her side of the mountain being clear-cut & her house being built? I asked her what about the golf course that she lived on that was built in some prime wildlife habitat?
I asked her why she did that to the mountains? Plus, I told her that if somebody clear-cut a piece of property, and didn't do a single thing to it, that Mother Nature would repair it by growing all kinds of plants & such creating a wildlife habitat. I told her that that isn't true where the golf course sits or where all the condos were built. You don't get wildlife habitat in concrete or asphalt.
But, back to the main issue, the drivers.
(9) Vehicles are well built to do a lot of things. You will not break an arm if you turn the steering wheel more than 4 degrees left or right while traveling in excess of 5 mph.
(10) You do not need to come to a complete stop to make a right turn off the road.
(11) Turn signals work all the time. It's the lever on your steering column, USE THE THINGS!

Y'all can add more,,!

[Dale in Louisiana]

Would it also be wrong to remind many, that without these tourists coming to town or wherever, these areas would cease to exist without the money the tourists leave behind.
Where I am, the income for the local towns & ski resorts over the next 4 mths will support the locals throughout the coming year.
Also must mention that I hate them as well :-) .............oh well ;-)

The tourism bunch around here and over in New Orleans act the same way, but in our case, the truth is that those nasty ol' heavy industries pump a whole lot more into the economy.

What do you want , $10 and hour serving food or $100k a year as a craftsman in a chemical plant? $20k a year guiding fishermen on vacation or $120k working on an offshore oil platform?

Next question: Guess who gets the most votes.

dale in Louisiana

[DHurtig]

This is the height of our tourist season. Sturgis in August.

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e69/c_latrans/Sturgis09-1.jpg (http://s37.photobucket.com/user/c_latrans/media/Sturgis09-1.jpg.html)

[blackthorn]

Quote: "(Do you know the definition of an environmentalist? It's the idiot who already has a house on the mountain or by the creek & doesn't want any neighbors for 10 miles around him.)"

Around here we call them "Cadillac Socialists"! Then there is the "other" kind of enviro-nut, You know--the one who sits on welfare, smokes pot (or worse), spend its time protesting everything and wont work. I often wonder what that lot would do if they ever really got what they asked for as there would be no money to supply their welfare cheque!

[nhrifle]

We got em here too. The track in Loudon draws crowds, and bike week brings folks from all over. Then we have the ultimate tourist -- the leaf peeper. If anything on this planet can reduce the IQ level of a driver more than a leaf, I have not yet seen it. Most folks are courteous enough, but there are quite a few who should not be on the road. They are known locally as "ijits" and make driving here every fall both miserable and treacherous. After having built up a wagon train of 30 or 40 cars behind them after driving well under the posted speed limit, a tree in full bloom will catch their eye and they will STOP. Right there, no warning.

[1Shirt]

Ya, I remember Fairbanks in the summer and the Airstreams, and Winnies etc. Not as bad as the snowbirds in Az however.
1Shirt!

[longranger]

I will say this for tourists and some of the smaller lesser known towns/attractions here in WY. The local folks are some of the kindest most generous people on earth.Salt of the earth folks,who will open their hardware stores on a Sunday to help a young couple fix a broken hitch on their U-Haul.Bring the kids and the wife into their home and warm and feed them. That was me in 1973 moving to Great Falls MT Most folks understand the "tourist" is their livelihood albeit occasionally irritating.
If you can't drive the speed limit, get off the road when 5 or more vehicles are behind you or just be kind at the first opportunity let those behind you go around.
I would not trade life in WY for anything,I meet some of the worlds finest people in Buffalo WY,Russia,France,Germany,England,Scotland,Italy,Ja pan and South Carolina. I feel special that I live in a part of the world that people enjoy,but remote and rural enough to have many quiet days with just us citizens.

[dagger dog]

RV parks are fun to watch, but boat ramps are WAY better. I've seen a whole rig boat trailer and truck, make the river. I got a boat ramp 1/2 mile from where I work, I go there and use the picnic table at lunch it's always good for a laugh!

[scottiemom]

how about the snowbirds in Boca Raton,FL come November thru April? they are old. they drive slow. they cannot see over the steering wheel and if you are behind them, it looks like the car is driving itself as you cannot see granny because the headrest is taller than she is and the left hand turn blinker never goes off.

[Ed Barrett]

Years ago I worked in Lebanon and lived 30 miles south Wright county. Missouri 5 is a 55 mile an hour road with lots of curves and hills and only one passing zone in 25 miles. I worked odd hours and if I was in a hurry to get home it always seemed like I would get some one in front of me that was from the flatland of Illinois or Iowa. He retired of Monday, Bought a 69 foot motorhome on Tuesday, and was in front of me today doing 30 miles per hour and slowing down on the curves and it's all curves. I wished a lot of bad things on those people. The area where I lived in didn't have any tourism to speak of, The tourists were all going to one of the lakes or Branson and just passing through.

[contender1]

Due to their size, any & all driving type motorhomes should be required to have a special endorsement on their license. It is SCARY how BAD some of the old fogies are at trying to drive one.

[10-x]

contender,
I feel your pain, used to go to Lake Lure back in the 60's-70's to my uncle's place. I'm sure I would not know the place now. As for all these "outsiders" moving in and changing the laws, you are right, so right. Down here there is a gated community that runs the whole county. Mayor and most council members live there or are their lackies. They left the NE because of how screwed up it was, what did they do? Come down here and screw this place up with high taxes, to fund stupid money wasting programs and hire a big $$ lawyer to protect their stupidity. I need some of the bumper stickers that say, "If you love New York, take I-95 North".......BTW......I know, I know not everyone up there is like that, just the ones that come down here.......

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

No tourist season here in Glencoe (south-central MN).
BUT, we have Veggie canning plants, that bring in seasonal workers for 2 to 3 months in the summer. I live one block away from a Seneca owned sweetcorn and Peas canning plant, it use to be owned by Green Giant. I'm not sure if it still holds true, but when I moved here in '93, I was told it's the Largest veggie canning plant in the world.
BTW, I'm not complaining one bit, I love to see those migrant workers come and go. It breathes fresh life into Glencoe's economy, and the entertainment of these Migrants heading back home to Tex-Mex with trucks and trailers loaded like the beverly hillbillies with all our garage sale items.