Travel Never Stops Teaching

Pitching a tent over a half an hour drive from the city was the only option for a budget traveler with four pets attending a conference in Las Vegas. Returning to camp after dark is always inconvenient but coming back to a tattered tent in a violent wind storm at Lake Mead Recreation Area was extra bothersome. The dog crates and parrot t-stand were all that was left holding up the tent in the seventy five mile an hour gusts whipping through the desert campground. It was very late, there were still three dogs and a cockatoo to feed and settle for an unexpected night of sleep in the van. At last as comfortable as possible for my sleep in the reclined drivers seat, the hanging lamp accidentally left lit in the tent swing wildly in the tumultuous storm caught my eye and a voice came from outside. Rolling a crack in the van window, a man could be heard at the tent door asking “are you alright in there?” Responding “I’m in here,” the man came to the van, inquiring if I needed anything. Gratefully explaining we were finally settled, he informed me “I am camped just over there if you need help.” Until that moment, my belief was that he was a park ranger. He was simply a very kind campground neighbor. Wow! However, my plan to ignore that violently swinging light in the tent had failed. Venturing back out into the fierce wind to extinguish the lamp, my miniature dachshund peered out the lit driver side window. Suddenly a clunk sound echoed in the wind and the panicked realization that his paw was on the lock button swept over me. The keys were inside. The rental van had not come with a spare. My four traveling pets were in locked in a van with my phone at Boulder Beach Campground in the middle of the night during a wind storm. Now there was something that kind man could do for me. Struggling through the dusty gusts to the lit trailer nearby, I knocked softly. The very sleepy man who answered was not the man who offered help in my campsite just a short while ago. Mortified, my most apologetic voice meekly asked for a phone. The drowsy man graciously found his phone and handed it to me, a stranger in a dark, stormy campground who had randomly disturbed his slumber. For a trifecta of kindness, the on-duty park ranger left his post at 2:30AM to escort the lost locksmith to my campsite. What should have been the worst travel experience of my life, turned into the night that taught me the clichéd phrase “people make the place” is a key characteristic of Lake Mead, Nevada.