Dang RV

After a month at home, it was time to say goodbye again. Off to Richland to see my son and his family. My son’s in-laws live near them and kindly offered the use of their driveway to stay in. They were smart enough to get with their next door neighbor and work out a deal to cement in the grassy area between them so both would have the use of larger driveways for RVing visitors, boats, etc. Very smart idea which makes both homes much more valuable in my opinion. They were able to provide electric which was all I really needed to be comfortable. Entertainment was provided by a squirrel scampering along their fence while he was also eating it.

Another good reason to stay at the in-laws is the food. Barb is a great cook! They threw one of their famous barbecues while I was there. Mmmmm! Mmmmm! There was also a birthday party for my daughter-in-law with excellent ice-cream cake.

My granddaughter has sure grown in the last year. My grandson was finally back for awhile with his father and is so tall now. He’s playing sports I hear. I got to see my newest granddaughter who was born while I was gone. My son is handsome as ever (when he tries) and his wife is looking really great too.

I got them geocaching. We went out for a day of fun and found a few. One night after dinner at their house, a geocache popped up on my gps screen as I was leaving and that led to some night caching fun for me. I skipped the one in the greenbelt next to the bank. Going after those at night tends to upset police for some silly reason. Snicker. I did nail the virtual at the high school though which would be easier at night. I found one in a mulberry tree that night as well that was interesting. You don’t look for the cache but rather a rope to pull the cache up out of the tree.

Had to go home finally after 2 years to check in with the family and friends. My old home actually since my current home is now on the road mostly and South Dakota is my homebase. Getting there from Utah is a bit weird since I had to drive through Idaho, through Montana, and back into Idaho to get there. I spent a couple nights at an RV park somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Montana. I got to cross the Continental Divide again. I noticed the $10,000 Silver Dollar Bar in Haugan, MT is now the $50,000 Silver Dollar Bar. That seemed like a precursor to other changes I might see back home. Lookout Pass seemed a lot easier to go over this time. Maybe 2 years of practice on the road has helped.

I stayed at the Blue Anchor RV Park in Osburn once again. The owner is very nice and friendly. The price is right. My site was great with full utilities, cable TV, and wifi. I really enjoy staying at this park when in the area and will continue to come back.

I made it home in time for Pig out in the Park in Spokane, WA. My friend, Bernie, took me over there with her for the yearly food fest in Riverfront Park. There’s lots of food to choose from and really make a pig of yourself. There were some booths selling other things but not nearly enough. We didn’t make it on to the gondola over the falls in time before the weather turned bad. It was nice to finally get to go to this festival but not something I would want to do every year I think.

Read the rest of this entry »

Salt Lake City happened to be on the way so I planned a stop there. Campgrounds really close in are a bit expensive but I found Circle L Mobile Home and RV Park in Layton, UT  at a reasonable price. It is right off the I15 north of Salt Lake. The entrance is pretty strange since it is right between Big O Tires and a dry cleaner/laundromat and does not look like a street but rather a small parking lot. Turn in though and you will see the entrance to the park. There is no pool or clubhouse or Wifi. No camp store or other amenities. It is just like living in a normal house neighborhood. The sites are very nice though with full utilities and lots of parking at each site. They do have an inexpensive laundry of their own which is great since the nearby laundromat is very expensive. Walmart and tons of restaurants are nearby including a Hometown Buffet. There is even a Camping World just down the road in Kaysville.

I found my missing brother living in Salt Lake City. It’s been a long, long time. We got to spend a lot of time together while I was there for a week and I had to promise to come back for the winter so we could help each other out with various things.

I went out to Antelope Island one lovely day. Another of those long drives out over water where you hope the road actually is intact all the way and there is something at the other end. Being a state park, you have to pay to go out there. It is an island in Salt Lake that is full of wildlife including bison and has bunches of camping sites though no utilities. I stopped at the Visitor’s Center to get oriented. The birds love the Visitor’s Center too. They flock all around it and it is covered in bird you-know-what. I got some great pics of the bison herds in the marsh and out on the beach flats. There is an old ranch there you can tour which was pretty interesting. I liked the cowboy wagon, the cold house with a spring that runs through it, the picnic area, and the outside bath that was added on to the house for ranch hands to use.

Read the rest of this entry »

I just could not pass by Moab, UT with not one but two national parks nearby and not stop. That would definitely have been an RVer sin. Sooo I found a campground just south of downtown Moab for a week. I stayed at Moab Rim Campark. Nothing fancy. No extras. Just a site with full utilities and that is all. Great view though and decent location. Passport America discount was nice.

Moab is another active spot for river rafting and ATVing. Don’t expect a lot of trees. It’s red rocks for as far as you can see and beautiful. I took a drive over to Arches National Park first. The first thing you learn there is to bring a bottle of two of water as there is none in the park except at the Visitor’s Center. You have no business being in the park without your own water on board. The other thing is to use the bathroom before you go because again bathrooms are in short supply. I suggest wearing hiking boots too if you have them as well as a hat and a walking stick or cane is nice to have. Don’t forget to bring your camera and extra batteries too because photo opportunities abound there. Since the park is huge and you can drive through quite a bit of it, be sure to fill up on gas before going in. There is a campground or two  in the park with no utilities which were pretty full.

Most of the arches are not visible from the road. You are going to have to get out and walk if you want to see them. However, there are plenty of other great natural formations to view along the road through the park.  Once upon a time, people did try ranching there and mining.  That’s all gone now. I did get out and walk a bit. They have some great trails and there were plenty of others on the trail at the same time even though it was very hot out. At one point I had walked too far for me and dearly wished there was a tank of oxygen at the lookout point. I was not alone in that thought. It is easy to get lost in the beauty and push your limits.

Another day, I went to Canyonlands National Park. The formations are a bit different than the Arches so don’t skip either. Both drives are fairly easy with lots of turnouts and picnic spots. Again, take plenty of water. One thing I noticed about both parks was the accents of the visitors. There was a little French, a little Japanese, and a whole lot of German.

For more pics click here.

Heading off to Utah, I followed I50 across. The huge mountain I had to go over was a bit of a surprise. That was the steepest climb I had ever done with my trailer in tow and I almost pulled over at one point to cool off the transmission which was hot but not in the red zone yet. Happily my SUV did very well and made it over with the trailer still attached.Whew! Let’s not do too many of those again.

I needed a place to stay for the night and stumbled on Blue Mesa Recreational Ranch in Gunnison, CO. Very lucky for me I noticed in the office it was a member park in one of the other discount camping clubs which had just become re-affiliated with my Coast to Coast group. They had no problem with me just showing up without a reservation and happily provided me a nice space cheap for the night.

The campground is built on a hillside overlooking a lake. My site was still level and the tiered spaces let everyone have a great view of the lake which is very popular for boating and fishing. The park has one outdoor pool and one indoor pool with a hot tub. There is a hall to gather in and eat. They do have wifi. I wish I had more time to stay there. Will definitely have to go back some time.

Time to visit another cousin I haven’t seen in a very long time. I headed out west on US 50 bound for Colorado. I stopped  for one night in the middle of nowhere ( Lamar, CO) when it started getting pretty hot for my cat and trailer tires. It was rather sparse and desert-like at Country Acres Motel and RV Park but they have a very nice little oasis in front and it was quiet for sleeping.

The next day I moved on to my cousin’s place in Westcliffe, CO. Cousins Pam and George have a 35 acre spread with a beautiful western theme house there in a gated community. You had better know the magic password before you get to the gate as there is no cell phone coverage outside of town and happily I had thought of that.  Having previously run a campground themselves, she and her husband put in 2 RV sites with full utilities on their property for family and friends to stay with them and the price to stay is really good (free)! While I was there, we added wifi as well since my aircard did not work there either.  I had only planned on staying one week but we hadn’t seen each other in so long and were having so much fun that I stayed another week.

I introduced cousin Pam to geocaching right off. My aunt and other cousin had already told her about our exploits in search of hidden treasures worth nothing and she was excited to learn. Westcliffe only had one geocache in the city at the time which we found easily and it appears to be quite popular. I am hoping she can convince others to add many more since it is a great place for it and geocaches can bring in business to establishments with caches on their property such as the hot dog shack with unique wooden furniture and delicious hotdogs that fill the air with temptation all around it. We placed a new geocache ourselves before I left.  There are many other caches in the surrounding areas and mountains. We did have fun going after those. One we had to give up on because it requires a jeep to get there as do many others there. I finally ran into other geocachers while in search of one near a castle and joined forces to find it. The minute I saw them way up there on the hill I knew what they were up to and told my cousin to follow the humans. LOL I got them searching in the right spot with my GPS while one of them managed to walk by it at the right angle to spot it.

Read the rest of this entry »

The drive to Dodge City was easy and flat through some lovely countryside and rock formations in places. Watch out for the toll road they sneak in near Wichita. Unfortunately, just 5 miles to Dodge another trailer tire blew. It was one of my newer ones too which made for a grumpy arrival. No chance of saving the tire even though I heard it blow and stopped immediately. I decided to change it myself and while I was working on it, a very nice young officer arrived. It was nice to have some company and a police car to scare other drivers away from the lane next to me.

I happened to get lucky again and arrived during the annual Dodge City Days celebration. I was able to find a site at Watersports Campground which is right in the heart of Dodge. While not particularly pretty or probably as nice as the other park I looked at, it was reasonably priced and has the best location. It is right on a small lake and has a beach though you can’t put a boat or kayak in there. They do have quite a few permanent residents and the sites are not large. With a little maneuvering around a tree, I got my satellite dish to work. My aircard worked fine there. The staff were nice. This campground is not one I would go to play in but is certainly good enough as a base for touring.

I headed to the visitor’s center first thing. They have tons of brochures on both Dodge and Kansas. They also sell the Dodge Days pin needed to get into some events and get into the big drawing for cash prizes. I met Marshal Matt Dillon there and got my picture taken with him. From there, you can also catch a tour bus of Dodge which I definitely recommend. The tour shows you Boothill, the local sights, the fort nearby, the Santa Fe Trail, the stockyards, the giant steer monument, the Wyatt Earp statue, etc. You may even get held up by bandits.

Read the rest of this entry »

Headed on west. To pick up Oklahoma for my state map, I chose a slightly longer route dipping down through the top of Oklahoma. I got to drive a small part of the old Route 66 to earn my patch for that. I stopped at my first Corps of Engineers campground near Ponca City on Kaw Lake. There are many of these parks, often near dams and lakes,  and I have a book which shows them all with descriptions.  Pick up a copy of  “Camping with the Corps of Engineers” from any Camping World or online at RVBookstore. Their parks can be very nice and very inexpensive. Theses parks do honor National Access and Golden Age passes for half off the already cheap price.

I was very surprised at how nice Osage Cove Campground is. It is right on Kaw Lake and has excellent sites that are very long, have BBQs, prep tables as well as picnic tables, firepits, and electric. I was able to find a site in the clear for my satellite dish. A dump station and water are nearby. Swimming is available at a beach. This is a great park and I have heard many of these are just as nice. I would definitely stay there again and in other such parks.