Well, have you ever met someone who had clearly made the decision to be a miserable cur for their entire existence? We did! Drew warned us because he had the unfortunate experience of having to deal with her in multiple capacities in the past. When he realized the property adjacent to the site was hers he did his due diligence to make sure it was public property before returning. She did not agree with his assessment.
When Mango and I returned to our cars we were greeted by her speeding up to us and wailing. It's an interesting sight to see a morbidly obese woman shouting angrily over the windshield of a subcompact car.
she interrogated us on what we were doing, told us she wrote down our license plates, insinuated we were probably in the woods doing heroin, but then admitted she knew exactly what we were there for and assumed Drew had been with us. I told her that, according to the GIS the property was public and our cars were parked on a public road and she raved, "well I'm going to call the town and they will tell you otherwise!" I said, "The GIS is the towns database....it's what they will check when you ask them."
She went apoplectic and said,"no, that's different!"
Then another guy shows up (she called him) and his version of who owns which property is completely different from hers. He admits where we were was public but claims that the area at the road is private and we can't cross it. Then he claims he was "involved in law enforcement" (total lie) and threatens to shoot us if we go onto his property. I explained to him that both telling someone you would shoot them and shooting them because they are on your property are illegal in this state and he tried changing the parameters of the situation to show how, if we were vandalizing his car, then he could shoot us. I explained that it was still illegal and he spouted nonsense about "being with law enforcement" again. When he asked us what we were doing and I told him he put his head down and laughed a little. It was clear that he had been mislead by the crazy woman. Still, though, he kept up his charade...just with less gusto. He explained that they had some problems with troublemakers using that area for nefarious purposes. I said, "do I look like a heroin addict to you?"
he also claimed that state police were on their way. When we didn't rush out he stopped playing that card. All in all it was one red-faced, nasty woman and a redneck who she called trying to scare us off. I felt confident in Drew's research and didn't fear.
you know what they say about arguing with stupid people.....
I did my best to be civil and not take the bait. I figured that, although we were in the right, being a cretin would spoil Drew's site for the future. It sure would have been fun to use the Socratic method on them though. Gotta get something out of my philosophy degree!