Camping Washington: Keeping it fresh

Good news: There's a new printing of "Camping Washington" in store in coming weeks, with new books due on bookshelves soon. This isn't a new edition; it's merely an additional printing of the current book, managed by the excellent staff at The Mountaineers Books. But it's a good sign that the book, one of my favorite ongoing projects, is doing well.

I'm planning an all-new version of the book within the next several years, and all fellow Washington campers can help: If you happen upon a campground where something's changed significantly since I last visited to research this guide, please let me know. I can only be in so many places, and your input is invaluable. Already, I've been able to make a couple small changes for the new printing, noting the return of several campgrounds that had been closed due to road damage from winter storms in 2006.

Any feedback on the book can be sent to the email address on this page, or posted as a comment here. From my end, I'll try to post any updates I come across as we travel the state in our tent and tent trailer in coming months. I'll also be working hard to produce all-new photos for the next edition, and plan to post samples of those new pictures here from time to time.

Thanks in advance for this.

Good times in Glacier-less National Park

You want a piece of me, punk?

MJ took her maiden voyage into Glacier today and got to experience the Going to the Sun Highway a little more intimately than normal. They're rebuilding the upper stretches on both sides of Logan Pass, so you get a 10-15 minute break waiting for the flagger, which you can use to creep over to the edge, look down -- and get all vertigoed. It's a loooong way down.

Don't look now, but someone wants to ask you a question

In spite of that, we made it up to the pass in time to snag a parking space -- no small feat -- and hiked through the hordes up to Hidden Lake. Actually the hordes are only on the trail for the first mile or so. By the time you plummet down the scree slope to Hidden Lake, 95 percent of them have turned around.

Hidden Lake, Glacier National Park

So, nice day, spent with scores of hoary marmots, a gaggle of bighorn sheep, and countless mountain goats and their little kids, many right on the trail. We head toward home tomorrow, either all the way or most of the way. Passed the 6,000 mile mark on the entire roadtrip coming down from East Glacier this evening.

The marching hordes at Logan Pass.

Aaaaah, Montana

Big, Big Sky: Polson, MT

Back in my home turf. We crossed the line, officially, somewhere between Bozeman and Missoula. Namely, the spot where I saw my first Les Schwab billboard in two weeks. Something about knowing you can get your tire fixed under warranty, anywhere, anytime, makes a man feel worthy and welcome and just comfortable in his own truck skin.

Nice drive today from Bozeman, where we cheated last night and broke our perfect camping record by getting a hotel for one night after a long drive out of the lovely Black Hills of South Dakota, through the nothingness of Wyoming, and on into Polson, MT, where we are ensconced at the lovely Polson KOA. The drive was nice because A) it was cool enough to travel with no AC for the first time in weeks and B) we didn't have to break camp this morning -- just get in the truck and go.

At Polson, one of my favorite towns, since traveling here annually for a stretch more than a decade ago with various friends, things looked mostly the same.

Polson and the Mission Range: God's country

But not at the KOA, which is a very pretty, grassy site on a bluff overlooking Flathead Lake. The former tent area here is gone, replaced by one of the most amazing RV sites I've ever seen: Spacious, opulent, paved and slated and tiled spaces for mega diesel pushers now dominate the site.

You used to choose a site. Now you're issued a prospectus.

 These "camp" spots, which include outdoor kitchens, gas fireplaces, gazebos, landscaping, you name it, rent for the night (if you have to ask...) but also sell, as real estate, for $109,000 to $199,000 each. There, you sit with your other old, rich friends from Arizona and watch the sun set every night on the Mission Range. Good gig if you can get it, I guess. We were told some people spend as much "customizing" their site with all the fixings as they did buying it in the first place.

Oh yeah: There's also a monthly "association" dues assessment to keep the grass mowed.

Sadly, it's an iconic thing as well as just a business development. Some workers we talked to here said this "Phase I" development, wildly popular, is the first of three. Somewhere in between the next two phases, the existing KOA campground -- one of the nicest I've ever seen -- will be squeezed out. But, all those people in their half-million dollar diesel pushers on quarter-million dollar campsites probably won't miss us tent trailer types. So it goes. God Bless America.

But, we didn't let that spoil our evening in Polson, where a major T-storm blew through right around dinner time, allowing the skies to open up into the usual late-evening Big Sky splendor. We went out for a stroll up a local road, armed with my little Lumix point-and-shoot camera, which hasn't been used much. So I put it to the test with some tough-lighting scenes in Big Sky country, with decent results. Couple images below, plus more at this link on Picasa.

It's nice to have someone's undivided attention

Twilight, Montana

Day-tripping tomorrow into Glacier NP. Then it's westward bound for home on Wednesday. After 3,000 miles out on US 2 and more than 2600 miles back west from Lake Place via I-90, I close my personal big, oblong roadtrip loop tomorrow in West Glacier, where Elliott and I passed through on the journey East more than three weeks ago.

Over and out.

South Dakota: Spectacularly wild

Great day on the road in the Black Hills today. First, a morning tour through Wind Cave National Park, home to a cave that's 132 miles and still counting (they haven't found an end to it yet). We didn't go into the cave, not being cave people so much. But we did tour through the park, which is a stunning combination of black hills pine forests and sweeping grasslands, home to all sorts of animoles, which were in fact out to be stumbled upon. It's really an amazing destination, one most people have never heard of. A lot like Yellowstone, sans geysers -- and crowds.

Wildlife highlight: A coyote stalking prairie dogs for breakfast. A guilty-pleasure highlight: The "Begging Burros" of Custer State Park, which need no further introduction. A couple pics below.

Clearly ticked at all the ink given to the meerkats

Here little prairie dog...

The sign pretty much covers it: Custer State Park, South Dakota

I know there's food in that thing. I know it. I know it. I know it.

Next: Off to Mount Rushmore, which was lousy -- and I mean it in its true context -- with Harley Riders, but still rather amazing, to someone who hadn't seen it since age 12. Have to say, the NPS has done a bang-up job of moving people through this place. The visitor center (underground) and parking garage (mostly underground) built since my last visit 35 years ago are impressive. And the mountain up close is just a completely different experience than through a lens. Nevertheless, some of my images below.

The boys

George from Presidential Trail

A side you don't normally see

George looking blue

Abe, ready for closeup

Afterward, at 95 degrees in Hot Springs, we got wet, MJ in the mineral pool in Hot Springs, me in the, uh, mineral pool at the KOA. Great day. Best on the trip yet.

Tomorrow: Wyoming (quick stop at Devil's Tower), then on to Montana, far as we can get toward Missoula.

More pics of all this are uploaded to Picasa at this address. That album includes my pictures yesterday from the Badlands. Such as they are.

OK: Before we close. By popular demand -- one more begging burro! Or several, in this case.

(For the record, I fed the burros, which prefer Cheet-o's, a protein/carb balanced breakfast bar, to better control their blood glucose levels. I'm always looking out for the wildlife. Look: We had to give them something, or they would not leave. These beasts are unbelievably savvy: They walk right out in front of your car to get you to stop, then mosey right over to the window and demand you roll it down. Everything but the window-washing shakedown. And I bet if you gave that one on the right a squeegee, he would use it. Evolution in progress. We should have Congressmen this smart.)

Hot Springs, SD

BAD, BAD LANDS

No, we likely won't be using them. But we're camped at a nice KOA on the outskirts of Hot Springs, which is south of Rapid City. Hot here today. Mid-90s, pushing 100. But right now, a fierce-looking thunderstorm is headed our way from the Black Hills, so we've battened down the hatches and hunkered in. All we need to get out for is to put the laundry in the dryer in about 15 minutes.

Nice day today on the road through South Dakota, a short day by our standards. We drove through Badlands National Park, stopping to illegally climb on some of the hills in a couple spots. Beautiful day. Some of MJ's pictures below and above.

Some early settlers crossed here. Imagine the chafing.

Oh: We're calling an audible on our schedule, probably dropping our planned trip to Banff from the itinerary. Just too much to do in too short of a time, and to do it all, we would have had to push, push, push every day, which we're tired of doing. So, we're probably spending a whole day here -- two nights in one place, first time on the whole trip for me -- to see the sights around the Black Hills tomorrow. That includes Wind Cave National Park, a couple local wildlife haunts, and of course Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument.

Once we cross the Missouri River, everything will get better. I KNOW it.

We accidentally arrived here in sort of the worst possible time, crowd-wise. The big annual Harley rally starts in Sturgis on Sunday. They're expecting 500,000 people. We've passed most of them on I-90, in line at the gas station, in line at the bathroom at Wall Drug, you name it. It's sort of chaos, and a surprising number of the Harley people come across, at least, as sort of loud and really stupid. Hate to generalize, but. It's so nice to be standing on a bluff in the Badlands, looking for wildlife in a huge, silent meadow, and have four dozen hawgs come blaring through, literally shaking the ground. So, word to the wise. If you're headed this way for the sights and not the beer and all-day concerts, don't come during early August.

Yes, that's a vehicle inside that vehicle in front of that other vehicle...

Also learned something interesting along the way. The average Harley freak does not, as I had always assumed, ride his/her Harley from points unknown down to Sturgis. The bikes -- or the rider's butts -- are too precious for that. I'd guess that a good 75 percent of the bikes that we've seen down here are cloistered away in trailers, being towed by massive motorhomes. They take them out at night to polish the gas tank and spin around the block, then put them back in. The guys camped across from us last night had a massive Class A diesel pusher RV pulling a trailer that carried a small SUV and four Harleys. It's all quite the monument to gas consumption. Sort of amazing. Makes me wonder how far most of these show-pony bikes even ever get ridden. Oh well. To each his own.

Too pretty to ride

The upshot is that all the tour stops down here -- including the NPS's new Minuteman Missile Silo tour, which is a bit eyebrow-raising, both in a cool and creepy way -- are completely overloaded. The street outside Wall Drug today looked like the bar scene from Star Wars, with biker guys lighting up enough cigs to leave a tobacco ring on the local water tower.

"Your Life Starts When You Get One," say the Harley T-shirts. Or sometime much later.

Speaking of Wall Drug: Bizarre moment as we were wading through those fifteen rooms of tacky gifts. I lost track of MJ completely and couldn't find here. She couldn't find me, either. One display stand for cheap jewelry had mirrors on it -- which I could see her in, and she could see me in, but we couldn't find each other in person. Fun House hilarity at its finest here in South Dakota.

So, we're having a nice evening here in Hot Springs. MJ reading the Rapid City Journal, which she says is a nice paper, me blogging and laundering and wondering what would happen if the metal roof of our tent trailer gets struck by lightning. (If you see this post, it probably didn't.) Big, hair-raising, stomach-pit fluttering thunderstorm cell just descended on us. A major gully washer. Awesome. We're cozy and dry in the trailer, AC running, glad we're not in a tent. Really glad. So, this trailer might have been a decent idea, after all. In spite of the fact I have threatened to park it and sell it at least four times.

Neglected to mention that yesterday's post left out another good development: We stopped at a Toyota dealership in Sioux Falls -- the second such detour on this trip -- to see if they could help identify why the truck was not sending 12 volts back to charge the trailer battery and run the fridge while driving. They worked us in with no notice and found a blown fuse -- one I thought for sure I had already checked, and replaced it for little charge. So, that's nice to have that fixed. I think, at least hope, it's the last bit of damage from that fateful Whitefiish KOA incident where the trailer slipped off the hitch and pulled some wiring out of the harness. Sheez. Pilot error strikes again.

The up/down of the trailer is pretty fast, and MJ is a whiz at it, so we have it down to something of a science. But it's still a lot to remember day-in, day out when you're road weary and doing it twice a day. So we'll enjoy the luxury of having an entire day tomorrow with no up-down drills. And we can run around SD with just the truck. Nice!

The road ahead: Sunday morning we will set out for Wyoming and Devil's Tower. Then on across 90 to Missoula and up the Flathead Valley to Polson/Whitefish. We'll likely spend a day or two in Glacier, which MJ has never seen, then head across Hwy 2 -- I miss Hwy 2! -- to Spokane for the last night, then home, probably via Hwy 20, by next Tues/Wed.

That's unless we just get pissed at tired and drive all the way home one of these nights. Not likely, but you never know!

MJ says Hi to everyone and we can't wait to see most of you again soon.

P.S.: Note to explain cryptic "dry"comment on South Dakota pic below: We spent three nights in high-humidity hell in the Midwest. Humidity and i mix like Sarah Palin and deep thought. It was not pretty. I'll take 100 and skin-crackin' dry any day. But I'd prefer Bellingham weather to all of it.

Some random road pictures follow. Cheers.

We are both ashamed to have camped here. But sometimes you get desperate.

Mid-afternoon in the Badlands, the truck thermometer called it quits

Our Midwest road experience. At least it's not corn. There's a lot of corn. Did we mention corn?

Note the traditional Sioux indoor/outdoor carpeting, made from the rare Green Plains Bison.

--30--

Related articles by Zemanta

• OZZY OSBOURNE To Play Sturgis Motorcycle Rally (bravewords.com)
• Fly Fishers Returning to a Wetter South Dakota (midcurrent.com)
• World Wide Wade Goes West - Episode VI: Wall, South Dakota (xconomy.com)

South Dakota. Hot but thank God dry.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Somewhere in Indiana

Now I see how the other half lives.

Driving across the U.S. on Hwy 2 was lonesome and frustrating at times. But it was Interstate Nirvana compared to the alternative -- crowded multi-lane, multi-headache affairs such as Interstate 90, which we've followed now from upstate New York on to Indiana.

About half of the "thruway" through New York and Pennsylvania is under construction. As in, one lane, total cow trail. And the traffic is off and on heavy. Sort of a comedown after having the road all to yourself on the way out. And total culture shock, when we pull into those roadside "service areas" complete with gas station and four food outlets run by inattentive minions.

The one saving grace today: Tim Horton's in a couple of them. Nothing like a few fresh Timbits to get you going down the road.

Oh: Did I mention we're paying a toll every 55 yards or so? We are.

Tonight the rig is in a, and I unfortunately am not kidding, Yogi-bear themed campground -- one with 600-odd sites -- that was hand-selected by MJ. It's not a bad place, but it is completely, absolutely, unequivocally Out of Control. Tomorrow we plan to skirt around Chicago, like an orbiter slingshotting around the moon, and head out West onto the Great Plain, sticking to 90 and hoping it gets better.

The only other big news: it's hot. It's sticky. It's the Midwest. I HATE the Midwest. Not sure how anyone can live here, or why. The big bad AC unit on the Coleman saved us last night, and again tonight. Even MJ, the Heat Queen, has blessed its presence.

Life is good.

More to come.