Tuesday when we arrived at the campground the check in booth was closed. The sign told us to get set up in our site if reserved or any open non-reserved site and then return at 4:00 to register. We had site 25 reserved for Wednesday through Saturday nights and I had checked the on-line registration page before we left Chanute and found that it was still unreserved for Tuesday so therefore it was available and we then backed in and set up camp.
A lot of State and Federal campgrounds use "work campers" for a lot of campground functions and they are usually retired RV folks that get a campsite for free in exchange for some part time service.
At 4:00 I went back to the booth and a Jed Clampet type character came to help me get registered. They had only one reservation that they were expecting for Tuesday night and that was for site 20. He assumed when I walked up that #20 was what I was going to be checking in for and even when I told him who I was and what I wanted (to slide my four night registration ahead one day to end on Friday night) he still was trying to sign me up for #20. I retold my story and assured him that I wasn't his #20 so he said that he needed to get his expert with the computer to handle my check-in. He went to their trailer sitting right behind the booth and out came his wife, Mrs. Clampet, and she sat down at the computer and punched a few keys. I told my story again and she said that they would probably have to get a park ranger to handle that move of a reservation and cancel our Saturday night but it would take some time to have one there. I told her that I would just pay for Tuesday night as a walk-in and then would be good for five nights instead of four. He said, "if you have the old farts card you can have #20 for only $10." I told them again that I was in #25 and yes I did have the Golden Age Passport which allowed me to make our advanced reservation for that price per night and if they wanted to see it I could get it out of my wallet. Mrs. Clampet then said that she now found me registered for #25 and there was my Passport number so all was good. I gave them $10 and was finally legal for five nights.
I shouldn't have tried to make fun of our camp hosts but thought it was a funny story.
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