Donors who bailed out California state parks want their money back

San Jose Mercury News ^ | 07/26/2012 05:43:29 PM PDT | By Paul Rogers

[Syncro]

I went camping last week with about 35 other people, family and friends, just got back.

To a wilderness area in No Calif, a state park actually.

There were signs saying the park is not maintained, if you pack it in, pack it out.

Fine, no problem.

There are outhouses there too, and they don’t pump them either. Pretty dicey.

Funny, back in the day, there was a town there.

After a day or so, coming back from the beach to camp, I saw a ranger’s truck. They were at a campsite. I didn’t know what they were doing.

Found out soon enough. There was a sign when entering the park that there was a fee. Heh, never paid one in the past.

Soon the Rangers came to our camp, they were there to collect the fees.

25 bucks a day for the first vehicle, 8 a day for the rest.

We ended up paying about $250 after figuring out how may days each vehicle was going to be there.

What a ripoff, especially now that they “found” millions of dollars they could use to maintain the parks.

My son asked what they are charging the fee for, if they don’t do anyhing to keep the park up.

We figured it out.

The fees must go to their pay for coming and getting the money from us.

Other than that, we all had a great time. Surf fishing, fishing, boating, dirt bike riding and going in the ocean.

We had a great camp, over 20 tents.

Cooked surf fish over the campfire, and every area had someone cooking almost all the time.