I have more information on what happened at Rock Hall this year for camping and I hope that as a club, we can respond in some way. Bay Shore Camping is not accepting additional reservations. I called them today looking for camping and they turned me away. They did not provide me with any help in finding alternatives. Athletes are simply out of luck as there are no hotel reservations available in town and the only ones remotely close cost several hundred dollars. This is messed up in so many ways because Bay Shore Camping is apparently the reason why the Rock Hall Lodging Association was not allowed to provide campsites to athletes this year.
What happened is that Bay Shore Campgrounds went to the town and complained that the Lodging Association was taking away their business by offering camping adjacent to the race. They assured the town that they never turned away people (I know that not to be true because they just turned me away). This is a terrible deal for the triathletes. Not only did we have access to a single night of camping (Bay Shore requires two nights), Bay Shore is several miles away whereas the Lodging Association provided camping adjacent to the race site, but they do not have enough space to accommodate the crowds. As a club, we should be complaining about this and I hope that we can send some type of communication to the Rock Hall town and to USA Triathlon that Rock Hall cannot support the race if camping is limited to Bay Shores and that the Lodging Association should be allowed to provide camping again. From my understanding, the Lodging Association had plans for portable showers and all kinds of other services for the triathletes to make our race experience even better this year, but that all those plans were cancelled when Bay Shores complained.
