Z-z-z-z-z-z

June 11, 2005

By Bump Diamond
Man About Town

    I know that’s not a real snappy headline, but what the heck?
    The thing is, I woke up this morning with tourists on my mind, figuring that I'd maybe see tourists gawking at all the snappy volunteer town-cleaner-uppers, but all I saw were the Vols, with their appropriately orange trash bags (Get it? Orange? Vols?) walking up and down the roads, picking up after the slobbo general contractors around here.
    Nobody gawked because there’s NOBODY here to gawk.
    Laurie Medov, bless her heart, probably could hand count the number of tourists and visitors for her report this week, which shows these dismal visitor occupancy numbers:

    Friday night 6/10/05 - Saturday night 6/11/05 = 28%
    Sunday night 6/12/05 - Thursday night 6/16/05 = 23%

    This means that the Convict Lake Trout Derby, which ends Sunday, didn’t exactly bring ‘em in. Neither did the Free Fishing Day (today).
    Next weekend, however, is the beginning of the Mammoth Motocross, so no sweat. Town’ll be full and nobody’ll be using the backcountry because they're all vroom-vroom-vrooming over at the track.
    That’s a pretty boss combo if yer askin’ the Bumper.
    And it does remind me that the Method Film Festival people *could* be here next year at this time to save the day, if you think these quiet, relaxin’  days need saving, that is.