Author: danleeth

Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, Texas

I’ve discovered something I never thought I would ever find again. Free camping in a National Park-administered site.

Amarillo was about the right distance for the first day’s drive on our trip to Belton, Texas. Camping choices around there included a commercial RV park in town, Palo Duro Canyon State Park south of town or the Lake Meredith National Recreation Area north of town.

Commercial campgrounds have less appeal to me than bunking with relatives and Palo Duro is a place where one needs to spend multiple days. That left Lake Meredith.

Now, Lake Meredith is not a lake, it’s a reservoir, and the land around it is administered by the National Park Service. They’ve built several campgrounds, the largest of which is a 51-site loop atop the canyon rim with a good view of the earthen dam. Each site has one or two new picnic tables shaded by canopies.

There’s a trailer dump station with fresh water. The restroom building features four individual, any gender you want to be private units with flush toilets and free showers. They were clean and well stocked with toilet paper.

Fortunately, it wasn’t crowded during our visit. Fifty-one camping families sharing four toilets with showers could lead to some soiled situations.

So, there we were, drinking wine while watching the sun set over the reservoir and realizing that we were getting all this for simply the money we pay in taxes.

Belton Lake, Texas

I hate wind. I especially hate it when A-frame camping.

A stiff breeze, they say, can catch a half-opened roof panel and like the spinnaker on a sailboat, send it flying. Now, we’ve never had that happen to us, but according to the folks who sell aftermarket wind kits, it could.

The breeze wasn’t that bad when we packed up after a pleasant stay at our Chickasaw National Recreation Area campsite. We collapsed the roof and headed on our way south toward Belton Lake, halfway between Waco and Austin, Texas.

Rule number one of wind on the road. It will always be a headwind, or more correctly, a slightly angled wind blowing from both the front and side. The trailer towed like a duckling imprinted on its mother while the Xterra got belted around like a woozy prize fighter in the tenth round.

“Not much shade in campsite #1,” the gate agent advised us as we checked into the Live Oak Ridge Campground. Not only was there not much shade, there was nary a tree, bush or tall blade of grass to block the wind.

“This is going to be fun,” Dianne suggested as we set about setting up the trailer.

“No, it’s not,” I corrected her.

We leveled the trailer and prepared to open it up. About then, the wind relented and like a Viagra user before hour number four, the stiff breeze went limp. We got the trailer up without the roof blowing back to Dallas.

We tightened down our aftermarket wind kit and celebrated our feat the way all good campers do. With a beer.

We’re not in Kansas anymore

Have you ever been asked to provide your complete Social Security number to reserve a campsite?

Next month, Dianne and I are heading to Texas for an a-frame trailer tech school. We hope to learn how to fix any and all problems we may experience on our four-month escapade across Canada.

On the way back, we plan to swing through Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas, and have reserved state park campgrounds along the route. All worked well until we got to Kansas. I selected a park, picked a site and clicked the “Book’em Danno” button. That’s when I got this:

“Your Social Security Number is required to make this reservation according to Title 42 of the United States Code, Section 666 (a) (13), requirement of statutorily prescribed procedures to improve effectiveness of child support enforcement.”

Bull turkey!

No other state park or national park with which I’ve made reservations has ever asked for that information. The reservations are made through ReserveAmerica, a private company site, and there is no way I’m going to give out my complete Social Security number to them. No other park, including Colorado and Oregon state parks (who also use ReserveAmerica) ask for that.

Kansas has now earned top billing on my camping brown list. Instead of staying in the Sunflower State, we booked another couple of nights in a Missouri state park, and we’re seriously thinking of returning home through Nebraska.

Sorry Kansas, but I hope your teams get blown out early in the upcoming NCAA basketball tournament.

Where’s the soap?

 What’s so difficult about equipping a flush-toilet bathroom?

There are four key components for a decent campground restroom, the most obvious of which is that it needs clean, usable toilets/urinals. Beyond that,there should be a sink or two for washing hands, a soap dispenser for cleaning them and either paper towels or a blow dryer for drying them off.

We’re camping in a string of Mid-America state and national parks, paying $25-35 a night partially for the privilege of having flush-toilet restrooms. At Hot Springs National Park (Arkansas) and Lake Bistineau State Park (Louisiana) there were no soap dispensers. At Petit Jean State Park (Arkansas) we found soap but nary a towel dispenser nor blow dryer.

I was thrilled to find that Table Rock State Park (Missouri) seemingly got it right. The men’s side had twin toilets, urinals and sinks with a soap dispenser. I happily used the facilities, washed my hands with foamy soap and walked over to the blow dryer.

I pushed the button. Nothing happened. It was broken.

Harlan Lake Campground, Nebraska

I’m sure all of you Eastern RV campers know about these, but for those of us who have always camped in the West, Corps of Engineer (COE) campgrounds are a pleasant discovery.

We stayed 10 nights at Belton Lake, a COE site in Texas, where we had 120-volt power and a city water hookup along with flush toilets and free hot showers. It only cost $11 a night with our government geezer pass.

Tonight on our way home, we’re at Harlan County Lake, a COE campsite in Nebraska (we’re boycotting Kansas). Because it’s low season, an electric-water site is only $5 for us geezers with free hot showers and flush toilets.

Of course, there’s no soap in the restrooms.

My first RV

While we now travel in an A-frame trailer, my first recreational vehicle was a motorhome.

In the summer of 1975, my step-dog, her owner and I were planning a seven-month camping odyssey across the western US and we wanted to do it in style. With that in mind, I bought a 1965 (or so) Volkswagen camper van that had all the amenities one associates with luxury travel – a closet, a sink with water that could be hand-pumped from a built-in water tank, a built-in ice chest with a drain pipe for the meltwater and a fold-down bed big enough for two humans and one canine. Best of all, it had room for all the stuff that we motorhomers like to bring.

What it didn’t have was a furnace. Early in the trip, we were camped at the Mather Campground in the Grand Canyon. Temperatures plunged, snow fell and we found ourselves facing a three-dog night with only one dog between us. Worst of all, over the sound of our chattering teeth I could hear the built-in furnace of the camper next door kicking on and off. I swore that my next RV would have one of those.

It does.

Packing

I hate packing.  You’d think that someone who’s made his living as a travel journalist for the past 22+ years would have totally mastered packing.  But I haven’t.

Sure, I’ve got packing lists, several of them.  I’ve got one for general travel and another for trailer travel.  I’ve got a list for day hiking and another for backpacking.  I’ve got a camera packing list, a computer/briefcase packing list and a ski trip packing list.  As long as I pack from the list, I seldom forget anything.

What to take is not the issue.  What not to take is the issue.

Packing requires going through the list(s) and deciding what won’t be needed.  Some things are easy.  For example, on a recent, month-long trip to Devil’s Tower and the Dakotas I realized I probably wouldn’t need my snorkel, mask and fins.

But do I bring a down parka or can I get by with just a down sweater?  And how many left-over motel shampoo bottles will I need for a month of campground showers?

Of course, not forgetting anything brings up another problem.  I bring too much.

Take footwear for example.  My combined packing lists for a typical trailer trip include no fewer than six forms of footwear including slippers, Tevas, flip-flops, camp shoes, tennie-runners and hiking boots.

I figure I might want the slippers for inside the trailer, the flip-flops for the shower, the hiking boots for hiking and the camp shoes for around camp.  The Tevas allow me to work on a Teva-straps foot tan, and although I haven’t run since my last knee surgery two years ago, I’ll bring the tennie-runners just in case.

Packing for the Dakotas took three days, but somehow it all got packed.  The trailer got loaded, as did the Xterra tow vehicle.  The packing is over and now I get to sit back and enjoy the adventure.

I just hope I didn’t forget anything.

Don’t camp too close to others

There are certain ethical rules campers in public campgrounds are expected to follow. One of them is to respect the privacy of fellow campers and not pitch your tent right next to your neighbor’s picnic table.

We arrived at Catalina State Park near Tucson last week and parked our trailer in our assigned campsite. We chose that particular site because it was bordered on both sides by privacy-providing mesquite trees.

Our first neighbor, a couple in a trailer, left after a few days. New neighbors arrived while we were out hiking. When we returned, we found their tent pitched beside the trees, less than ten feet from our picnic table. Legally they were on their space, but ethically they were in ours.

Revenge is sweet. We’re camping here with two other couples, each in our own separate site. Every night, the six of us gather around our propane campfire for wine and stories. The campfire sets right next to the picnic table.

We’re not purposely rude and we disperse before quiet hour begins.  But alcohol-amplified voices can carry in the quiet desert night. And our tent-camping intruders go to bed early.

We’re off to a spring training ballgame in Scottsdale today. We can only hope that when we return, they will have moved their tent to the center of their site. If not, they will no doubt get an alcohol-amplified account of the game.

Wind

I hate wind, especially when camping. And that’s one reason we now own a trailer.

Several years ago, Dianne and I were planning to tent camp at Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. When we got there, the sky was black and the wind was howling. Putting up a tent would have been a four-letter challenge and cooking in those conditions would have resulted in a sand-salted mess. So we ended up stuck in a cheap motel in Torrey.

Now we’re camped in Kartchner Caverns State Park in Arizona. The sky is black and the wind howling, but the trailer is firmly planted. Dianne is about to prepare a batch of chipotle shrimp for dinner, which we will enjoy with Chardonnay chilling in the refrigerator. This time we’re pulling our escape motel behind us.

Sharing our site are friends who have their tent pitched behind the trailer. I suspect it won’t be long before they, too, start looking at other camping options.