[Stilor]

As a somewhat unrelated story: we (I, my wife and my daughter) have been camping this weekend at Pine Mountain Lake. The lake was great, but the overall experience has been ruined by many small nuisances.

1. Upon arrival, the rangers at the entrance gate direct you to the campground which is "about two miles down the road". The directions were right, but the turn to the campground is very easy to miss - sign for campground entrance is only visible from one direction, when you're going the other way from the main gate.

2. There is no one in charge on the campground itself. Once or twice a day, a ranger would drive by, and that's it. Given that they don't tell the campsite # when one makes a reservation, you have to stop at each and every campsite to check the signpost for a small "reserved" note. That was especially funny for people arriving after dark.

3. The campsite photos at the website for this park are lying. Only the small number of sites (sites 18-23) are large and flat as pictured. The rest of campsites is located on a steep cliff. With a 1-year old kid, we sure enjoyed watching her all the time so that she doesn't approach that cliff. They are also rather small; we had barely had enough space to park the Outback and set up the tent. Our neighbors were told by the phone that the site is surely large enough for two cars and two tents - they didn't fit and had to reserve one more site (fortunately, there was an unoccupied site next to them).

4. The restrooms are closed with a code lock. Of course, when we stopped at the main gate, nobody bothered to tell us access codes - we had to drive back to get them. Everybody arriving on the campground asked us about these codes - it seems that those rangers at the main gate keep forgetting to tell them to anybody.

5. Campground rules forbid washing dishes in restroom sinks. When asked where we could wash them, ranger pointed to RV hookup and suggested to use one of them. Since they are located on the campsites, water floods somebody's else campsite. Very nice. And what if all RV sites had RVs hooked up?

6. The parking on the largest beach, Marina, is restricted to homeowners on weekends. Other beaches, such as Dunn Court beach, are much smaller (with a swimming area of about 30' by 50') and the entrance is slippery and gooey clay, not sand. The rangers suggested to park along the street and walk to the beach. However, all the street has "No Parking" signs - I wouldn't be surprised if they disbursed parking tickets to turn extra profit. Did somebody tell us all that when we bought the beach parking permit on Friday? No.

7. Also, over the phone they quoted the price of this parking permit as $10, while they charged $15 upon arrival. When asked, they unapologetically said that "somebody has misinformed us". We saw them answering the phone about reservations, though, so this mysterious "somebody" was actually one of these rangers.

Now you'd ask why this rant gets into this thread. The reason is, Pine Mountain Lake campground is owned and operated by a private company, not by National Park Service, not by CA park authority. We have camped at many NPS and state operated parks and haven't encountered such level of ignorance.

Most if not all these gripes could have been addressed with little to no money: having campsite descriptions on website, telling the # of the reserved campsite while making a reservation, providing clear and specific directions at the main gate, etc. It looks, though, that the company is not interested in providing a decent service - all it tries to do is to get the money through deception and misrepresentation.

Now, could anyone from those vigorously opposing public health insurance option tell my why a private company has failed so miserably in comparison with government-operated campgrounds? If government-backed option worked so much better with campgrounds, why it can't work with health insurance?