Dang RV

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.

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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.

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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 or 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.

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.

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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.

Took off for Branson via Poplar Bluff and Camelot RV Campground. Nice place close to the highway for a one night stop. Hilly but my site was fairly level and very long. The drive there was easy and pretty.

Heading into Branson, be ready for steep hill driving. Even without the trailer attached, the hills of Branson make driving a challenge. Everything inside the car slides here and there. Per everyone I have spoken to who has been there, I avoided taking the trailer through downtown. It is no place for RVs. I stayed on the 65 past the Escapees park, Turkey Creek,  in Hollister then got off and came back up to it. Like all Escapees parks, I was met with hugs and how-do-you-dos. They gave me a great spot near the front so I was close to the wifi which is provided by Tengo for a charge. My new aircard I bought off Ebay to replace my dead card was to arrive the next day care of general delivery.  The park is right on a creek that runs into the nearby lake and has a boat ramp. In the clubhouse is tons of brochures on everything you could possibly want to see while there and the park gave me some free tickets and discount coupons for some shows. They served a nice pork chop dinner one night with the most excellent pudding and also got one of the Branson Mall entertainers to come in one night to sing the songs of Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Englebert Humperdink, etc. He was pretty good. The park also provides cable TV and a jam session one night a week.

The first thing I did after arriving and setting up camp, was run up the 76 through town to the Titanic museum. They gave me a boarding pass of someone who was on Titanic which included the name and background of that person. At the end of the tour we would find out if we lived or died. They have a big sheet of ice you can touch on the way in to set the mood. Inside they have lots of pictures of the building of the ship, original plans, items from the ship, and info on life aboard for the different classes. The ships bridge was well done and stepping out onto the deck you can feel the  cold of that night. Sit in the life boats and feel how large they were though most were launched half-empty and listen to the talk of the panicked crew and passengers. Many passengers refused to get in the boats because they honestly believed the hype that the ship was unsinkable and thought the captain was just being too cautious.  It was very cool standing on the grand staircase though they didn’t allow picture taking in the museum so no pictures of it. The outside of the museum is very well done and you can control a camera on the web to view it at http://www.titanicbranson.com/titanic_webcam.php . And good news! I was a first-class passenger who did survive.

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On to Kentucky to claim it on my state map. I drove through Nashville and on up to Cave City which is only 5 miles from Mammoth Cave National Park. I waited too long to book into the C2C rv park but happily found Singing Hills RV Park in the midst of bunches of tourist attractions. It is a Passport America park thus very inexpensive and the owners are wonderful and helpful. They understand that some of their sites are too short and happily let me park my large SUV in the small site next to mine. It is a very basic park with no pool or anything but none of that matters considering everything surrounding it. The wifi worked great. I would definitely stay here again when in the area.

I first drove back south to Bowling Green to see Lost River Cave by boat tour. I very much enjoyed the boat and ducking to slide the boat under the entrance. It was sooooo cool in the cave on a very hot day. Morgan’s Raiders used the cave to hide out during the Civil War and Jesse James may have also used it to hide out after a bank robbery. Locals have always used it to stay cool and party in it’s ballroom at the entrance. A walk along the paths outside past the blue holes and butterfly house is interesting. They even have some geocaches there and are kind enough to provide both information on geocaching and a Magellan Explorist 200 handheld gps device already programmed for the caches.  It was my first chance at using  a handheld since I use my car gps device for hunting normally. Maybe it’s a matter of familiarity but I still prefer my Garmin C330 car gps. I found 3 including a travel ingot/bug, a change purse, and a winner’s medal.

I ate at White Castle before heading back just to see what the big deal is with their hamburgers. The look of the bun and the small size did not appeal to me (Size matters, at least when it comes to hamburgers!) but the burger did taste very good. I still would not spend a whole night going through everything Harold and Kumar did to get one. Get a life!

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