Camping with a Nasty Neighbor (A Peeping-Tom)

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Before you read this - just know my sister and I have camped together with our children for over 40 years. We have had ONLY TWO scary experiences in all those years. The first year it was bears becasue NY closed the dumps and this story from several years later... When our children were small, at night after the kids were in bed Elaine and I would stay up and play games and talk by the fire. We still do that. This particular year Elaine and I were spooked in the dark with twigs breaking and rocks making strange noises against each other in the river... We noticed during the day the rocks never made a sound. They clunked when the kids and adults played with them in the river but the river was not strong enough to move rocks on its own. The noises went on nightly. We knew it had to be someone trying to scare us so we tried not to react anymore. We were told there was a lunar eclipse and everyone was going to be on the bridge to watch it. At dusk we walked to the bridge. It was full of happy campers looking for a show. We found a spot for the 8 of us and sat down and visited with neighbors. I noticed the single guy who was camped above us on the hill was talking with the ranger. Strange I thought, the neighbor was wearing hip waders and a dark Australian oiled duster-riding coat. My brain went into overtime and I knew immediately he was the rock mover and twig snapper. I asked my sister quietly "Why would a man wear hip waders and that coat while camping" and her response was “maybe because he liked the feel of rubber”. That made us both laugh out loud but she knew what I meant. He likes to walk in water and scare women in the dark. After the eclipse we headed back to our site. The hip waders guy caught up with us and started a conversation. He was pleasant, working somewhere nearby on a short-term job and sleeping in a tent a night. When we headed down the hill to our campsite he said, "Not too many years ago I saw a bear run down that road". Not so nice, I thought, he really is trying to scare us (and our kids)! I glared at him and told him not too many years ago we had the last site on the campground and had bears in our site every night. We haven't seen or heard one since then. He looked surprised and asked if we were “Camp Insanity”. I said yes, he laughed and said he remembered us. The rock thumping and twig snapping stopped. We think he knew he couldn't scare us anymore because his outfit, his cover, was blown. We keep a journal yearly so we can remember these stories. Do you keep a journal of the interesting things you do? The photo is our beautiful river on a foggy day.