John James Audubon State Park — Attraction in Henderson

Wonderful place to rest and relax among the trees, especially if you’re a pair of gig workers mainly operating at night. The main issue for me and mine is that they close at a time that’s always conveniently fluctuating according to what the park staff want.

Yesterday for instance. Dusk according to Google in Henderson, KY was at 6:33pm. Wifey and I were finishing a YouTube video in a glare-free environment before heading out to start a shift. Here comes the law enforcement car blaring something about the park being closed (not that we heard that, because the volume was turned up, but it’s always approximately the same line). Started putting shoes back on and taking window coverings down, checked the time, and technically there was almost half an hour left until “official dusk.”

Then, the individual drove back up and whooped their siren at us because we weren’t moving fast enough or something. While they were almost certainly able to see that we were still taking down the window coverings (those mean we don’t have to worry about kids accidentally seeing what we watch).

It’s like… we understand what it’s like to just want the work day to be over and stuff. And sure, it probably takes a few to chase everybody out so the gates can be fully closed. It’s even preferable that they yell at us and whoop at us from a distance instead of coming up for a window knock and possibly overhearing us talk about adult stuff or whatever.

But the kicking out process yesterday felt particularly antagonistic, discriminatory, and rude.

Our car isn’t the best-maintained or cleanest and when we aren’t watching and listening to videos on site, we’re probably resting because it’s so beautifully quiet. We live within a few miles and it’s a handy midpoint between the cheapest gas stations and our work. By now the park staff might even consider us regulars - something we never thought bothered anybody before yesterday.

We always clean up after ourselves and we park away from high-demand areas when we plan to spend significant time here. The worst thing we’ve gotten up to is occupying a power outlet at one of the shelters, charging and using our handheld devices and overtaking the Pokemon Go gyms. Never while they’re reserved!

I just wish the park had some kind of digital or other signage at the entrance informing people that come in what time they’ll be expected to clear out. At the very least correct it to say “sundown” - which is far more accurate (since the time were told to leave so rarely seems to parallel the official “dusk” shown on Google).

We never plan to overstay, though judging by the number of times we’ve been told the park is already closed by the law enforcement car, we tend to do it anyhow; getting ourselves or anyone else in trouble sure isn’t the goal.

But leaving in a hurry, earlier than the existent signage implied as needful, doesn’t feel...

Great space for hiking and cooking out within our limited means, except that charging a cell phone or other handhelds at the shelters is (fairly suddenly) unbelievably slow or downright impossible due to the power outlets.

Used to work fine, literally earlier this week (end of June through fifth of July).

We can’t afford the rewiring repair our car requires in order to charge our devices in it or that would always and forever be moot for us. We don’t ever occupy shelters that are reserved, and we haven’t been asked to turn down or change the music we play on the occasions we do, so if it’s as personal as it feels, that’s pretty hurtful.

Sure, we could go to a library to charge, but then we can’t have regular conversation; under normative circumstances I would say “sure, we could go home to charge” but after the gig work dried up, affording such a space is even more out of reach than rewiring the car lighter port. We still can’t swing a primitive camping spot.

If Audubon Park wants to initiate an entrance fee to cover the pittance of electricity used by current and former taxpayers, please do THAT.

But I beg of y’all not to wholly leap on the wagon of inventing ways to disincentivize people in humbled circumstances from utilizing plug-in spots, if that is indeed happening. Public plug-ins are not exactly easily found, especially in the shade, even more so with seating, and most improbably of all with...

Nonstop bicycles and barking small dogs even late into the night. We have two labs so we have dogs also. We spend time with the so no barking and they are tought not to bark. Park shuts down at 11.00 pm. No quite time till 12.00 am. People with 10' screen tvs turned up loud. Tried playing music to drown them out, gave up went inside. Still heard the movie inside. Went to main office found the Park Ranger watching TV. Explained the problem to him only to get harrassed by a cocky JERK who started questioning me and rasied his voice( WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?) Try doing you job. Left only to get followed back to my campsite and he left again. This Job is perfect for him .NO supervision and you dont do anything but watch TV. ( WE WILL NEVER GO BACK) As far as the rest of the park the swimming area and boat rental and some cabins are closed for ever and left to rot away. Look a like a Ghost Town around the lake. Tall weeds in swimming area nice area for snakes...