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I was recently camping at the amazing Blue Spring State Park near Orange City Florida. This park sits along the Blue Springs Run inlet of the St John’s River and is the home to hundreds of manatees during the winter months. I had to do some laundry and the laundry machines were a good distance from my campsite. The campground loop is rather large, and I had to pass the exit and re-loop, in order to get to the bathhouse where the laundry machines were. Before I made the left turn onto the one-way loop road, a truck pulled out going the wrong way and we almost collided. It was fairly obvious (and later confirmed) that he had a site near the entrance. He didn’t want to drive the one-way road and ½ mile all the way around the loop to the exit he was so close to. He took the short cut and wrong way out. Fortunately, we didn’t collide as I saw him last moment before I started my turn on the loop. He waved rather sheepishly and fortunately I withheld blasting the horn or using the Michigan salute.
This incident reminded me of a time a while ago where I made a similar mistake due to impatience. I was camped fairly close to the entrance of the campground and didn’t want to drive the 1/2-mile one-way loop to exit. I saw the coast was clear and I could high-tail it out without oncoming traffic. Unlike Blue Spring, when I did it, I could see the entire way that no one was on the road coming my way. What I totally forgot was the campsite marker. This particular campground had posts at the front of the driveway at each campsite with the campsite number on them.
The heavy and deeply planted 4×4 post was below door height of my truck. I turned right to short cut out of the site and boom, I hit the campsite marker with the back passenger side of the truck. The passenger side of a truck is a notoriously blind area and I pretty much made crunched metal out of the passenger side rear quarter panel. It wasn’t a trip-stopping wreck, and the truck drove fine, but it did mean the passenger step and quarter panel had to be replaced. It didn’t ruin the entire trip, but it did ruin the day for sure.
So, my obvious tip here is don’t yield to impatience and take the shortcut you know could have high risk. Remember you are camping and there really is no rush, including when exiting a campground.