Campgrounds see booking rush

Washington: With hotel rooms booking up fast, visitors who want to witness President-elect Barack Obama's historic inauguration are snapping up spots at campgrounds in Washington's suburbs and as far away as West Virginia, reserving unheated cabins, renting recreational vehicles (RVs) and inquiring whether it would be feasible to camp in a tent.

"They said, 'How cold's it going to be?'" said Everett Lovell, who owns the Aquia Pines Camp Resort in Stafford County, Virginia, which has five cabins but only two that can be used in winter. "We were just inundated with calls about our cabins. One lady wanted to come in a pop-up," an uninsulated trailer that unfolds into a primitive camper.

Lovell, 51, said he has never seen such interest for a presidential inauguration. The only thing to compare it to, he said, was back in the days when the Grateful Dead was touring and followed by thousands of die-hard fans. "There's just a wild amount of interest," Lovell said. "It's just like a euphoria."

Closer to Washington, the Fairfax County Park Authority, which has only one year-round camping area, received so many inquiries that officials considered opening Burke Lake Park, just for the month of January, when the temperature dips into the 20s at night around inauguration time. For now, they have decided to wait and see whether all 136 spots fill up at Lake Fairfax, spokeswoman Judith Pedersen said.

Dale Brechlin, general manager of the Harper's Ferry campground resort, said his phone began ringing last week with inquiries about space for the inauguration. By Wednesday, six reservations in cabins and lodges had been booked. "Historically, that weekend I have zero," he said.

The Harper's Ferry campsite has 43 cabins or lodges starting at $65 a night. If you want to shower, you don flip-flops and head to the bathhouse. "It's not quite a Woodstock issue, where you pull up a tarp," Brechlin said.

The lodges are a little swankier: They have kitchens and baths and go for $130 a night. Linens are not included.

Brechlin said a lot of the calls were spillover from a campsite closer to Washington that cannot accommodate winter visitors. "Our DC operation has been overwhelmed," he said.

That would b e Capitol KOA in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. The site's general manager, Brian Goddard, said about one of every four calls last week was related to the inauguration. But Goddard, whose campground was built 35 years ago, must close for the winter because the camp's water is not operative in cold weather.

Up for grabs

At Bull Run Regional Park in Fairfax County, however, six cabins were up for grabs, said Shelly Kees, a volunteer at the park. "I just rented the last one."

Donna Nelson, 42, of Sellersburg, Indiana, said she has never rented an RV, but she plunked down $675 for a model that sleeps up to eight people. She called to reserve a cabin at Aquia Pines, about 50 miles from the capital, but the place was booked, so she decided to rent the RV.

"I want to be able to be part of the story," Nelson said in a telephone interview. Besides her husband and son, Nelson's brother and sister-in-law have signed on. They are working on her parents.

Nelson, who works with a credit card company, said Obama's inauguration is especially meaningful for her and her African American family. Her grandparents migrated in the 1950s from a life picking cotton for pennies in the Deep South to the hope of better future near the manufacturing plants and cities farther north. Her five-year-old son, Drew, came home from school last week, saw Obama on the cover of a magazine, and said, "He's brown like me."