No Playing in the Recreation Area

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room."

Dr. Strangelove

We spent last weekend camping on the Olympic Peninsula with a bunch of friends (and kids).  One of the jewels of the Peninsula is the Dungeness Spit, a 5.5 mile long finger of stand poking into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  It is the longest sand spit in the United States and an easy half-mile hike from the parking lot.

So, we packed up the kids and headed out.  Being a bunch of aging ultimate Frisbee players we couldn't leave the cars without bringing a disc.  When we got to the sand, with the sun shining and the breeze blowing, the only logical thing to do was to throw the disc for a bit.

We didn't know we were in a No-Playing zone.

A park ranger came buzzing up to us on her all-terrain vehicle: "You can't play here."

"We can't play here?"

"No.  This isn't a recreation area."

Funny.  I thought it was called the Dungeness Recreation Area, but who's quibbling.  We looked around at the kids climbing on driftwood, throwing rocks in the ocean, playing tag.

"The kids can play in the sand," she said as she buzzed away.

That's good.  She had her eye on canceling Christmas next.