On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 03:22:27 GMT, akheel
wrote:

I had a great time at Lake Mojave this 4th of July weekend, but it ended on
a sour note. We "camp" on the lake during the day and pull the boat each
night and stay in a nice air conditioned hotel in nearby Laughlin.
Thousands of others do the same. As is the custom, we left our gear at our
site overnight, covered with the tarps from our awnings. We've never had a
problem before, and felt relatively safe, since the site is only accessible
by boat.

We left about 7pm on the 4th to see the fireworks over the river outside of
the hotel. We got back late the next day at around 1pm. Well, for the
first time in 10 years, someone had ripped us off. A few hundred dollars
worth, but that's not the point. The kids had looked forward to playing on
the floating island we had. We looked forward to sitting on the beach on
chairs. The took everything and obviously spent some time. The only thing
left were our awnings (thank G-d, at least we had shade) and oddly enough,
our barbeque. This was odd, because believe it our not, they took the
half-bag of charcoal we had left. They took my daughter's water shoes (what
the hell are they gonna do with that?) and my favorite land anchor with the
built in slide hammer. They took my buddy's jet ski anchor, which is just a
bag full of rocks and a rope.

Anyway, when I see boat sales are up 21% I don't necessaryily think that's
a good thing. Obviously, based on my experience, any jerk can buy a boat.
Just another carefree activity that is less so now. Thanks to whomever.

Let's see, you left your stuff out in the open in the middle of the
lake for almost 16 hours on 4th of July weekend and now you're mad it
got stolen. Well, WTF did you think was going to happen? I don't know
of any place in the nation you can leave anything of any value for 16
hours and expect it to still be there when you get back. This ain't
the 70's anymore. Even then you couldn't count on people being honest.
After all, they DID make locks back then for a reason. I worry about
leaving my worn-out and beat-up POS truck at the launch while I'm
fishing, or leaving my lawn service equipment outside the Lowe's
whilst I purchase a bale of pine straw. It only takes a second for
people to steal from you. Chalk this up to a lesson in common sense
and move on. Those who put their trust in the integrity of others are
invariably disappointed.