Whoopie, It's the Weekend!

Beautiful Lake Sylvia

It’s the start of the weekend and it’s training day – what a combination. We’re full again this weekend so nearly every site needed to be cleaned and prepared for new campers. Top that off with a staff BBQ (which was delicious), training and a staff meeting and you have a busy day. I worked through the morning and finished all the sites except those occupied by late departures. One o’clock PM is checkout time, but we had to meet at 12:30 PM to travel to Ocean City State Park for the training, so a handful of sites had to wait until later.
 
By the time we returned from the BBQ and meetings at 5:00 PM, the campsites were full, people were demanding firewood, one campsite appeared to be double-booked and another campsite had too many people for the site. There’s a limit of eight people per campsite unless they rent the larger group campsite.
 
For an hour or so, I was running around like a crazy man. (The staff here will probably say that that’s my normal state and my wife will probably agree.) Regardless, we took care of everyone who needed firewood and the ranger worked out a compromise with the group that was too large for the site.
 
The “double-booked” site turned out to be a mistake on the part of the party that arrived at the site first. They had booked a “primitive” site with a similar number to the “popular or premium” site. One was site P3 the other was site 3 with a P classification. The result? The first party had to break camp and relocate. The second party to arrive moved in without further problems. Everyone seemed satisfied with the outcome and they were even in good humors at the end.
 
I’d like to take a moment to comment that I think the staff at Lake Sylvia State Park work very well together. They respond immediately to problems and deficiencies. Further, they make a sincere effort to ensure that problems don’t arise.
 
Here’s a thought. Why do people use the word utilize rather than use? They are synonyms. Use is shorter and it has only one syllable instead of three. Is it because the speaker needs the extra time provided by the extra syllables to think of what they are saying or is it because the speaker uses utilize to appear more intelligent? My bet is on the latter.
 
It’s now 8:00 PM and I’ve just started to eat. People are still coming to my door for firewood. I need to clean up and go to bed, so goodbye for now.

---