{"id":453,"date":"2022-07-04T07:43:37","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T14:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/?p=453"},"modified":"2022-12-23T12:11:20","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T19:11:20","slug":"2022-summer-camping-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/2022\/07\/04\/2022-summer-camping-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"2022 Summer Camping Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Mesa Verde Morefield Campground<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s Summer Camping Trip was the first big one coming off the heals of COVID-19. COVID didn\u2019t stop us from the last couple years but it certainly had an impact on where we could or couldn\u2019t go. I think the highest gas prices we saw were $5.56\/gallon, but generally hovered around $5\/gallon. It certainly could\u2019ve been worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, the fires and droughts ended up being the big impacters preventing us from hitting a couple of the National Forests we had intended on spending a night or two in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As usual, we didn\u2019t need to fire up the generator one time. I always bring a little WEN 2000k inverter generator just in case. The trip I don\u2019t bring it will be the one where my solar breaks down and I wish I had brought my genny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first leg of the camping trip was supposed to be at Bluewater Lake State Park, New Mexico, but that plan was scrapped when a couple car wrecks along the I-40 between Albuquerque and Grants caused an over-26-mile line of dead-stopped traffic. People exited their vehicles and began tailgating. We decided to head east instead and spent the night at the Route 66 Casino RV Resort. That line of stopped traffic ended up lasting over 5 hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Route 66 RV Resort<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

2nd stop we were back on schedule at the Navajo National Monument. Navajo Nation still has high concentrations of COVID so not all of the park is back open. In the meantime, the Sunset View campground is free to stay at. There are over 30 sites to choose from. With a 24 foot trailer, we had several options to choose from. Anything over 24 feet and your options were limited to around a couple sites. There was a 28 foot limit, but there was one site where a 40 foot motorhome was able to back in and just fit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sunset View Campground, Navajo National Monument<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

3rd stop took us back to one of our favorites parks – Bryce Canyon National Park. The campground sucks. If you know me at all, I prefer to park in a forest away from other people. But if you want easy access to all of Bryce\u2019s natural beauty, you put up with a lot of people. Spent several days on several hikes. I will say this, for a crowded campground, the park hosts do a phenomenal job in maintaining the thin line between order and chaos. Kudos to those hosts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Just another gorgeous view of Bryce Canyon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, when I planned this trip back in January, I had planned a 1-night stop in between Bryce and the next big stop, Mesa Verde National Park. Between January and now, I forgot. I usually plan about 250 miles in between stops. When we left Bryce and plugged in the coordinates to Mesa Verde, I saw we had 396 miles. I gaped at that and said, \u201cOK, let\u2019s do this.\u201d Once we arrived at Mesa Verde and checked in, the campground office informed me that my reservation was for the following day. They were able to accommodate the extra night. Mesa Verde is one our National Parks that is contracted out to resort companies. They handle the job well. I especially like how they give you a slip of paper with your check out date on it, and you find the site you want and claim it. With almost 300 sites, they rarely run full. Sites are well placed with plenty of room between most to trick you into thinking that you\u2019re by yourself. We spent 5 days here and could have easily spent a few more. We did the longer hikes and visited most of the ruins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Park services are amongst the best. Trash dumpsters are strategically placed and are numerous. The trash truck comes around every day to collect. We stayed in the dry camping loop. There are 2 dump stations with dumps each for a total of 4 choices. 1 fresh water source is available at each dump station. Many national parks could take lessons from the management of this campground. I\u2019m looking at you Guadalupe National Park. The Campground General Store is amazing. Many shirts to choose from. Lots of camping groceries, ice, even liquor to keep you from having to go into the nearest town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s Summer Camping Trip was the first big one coming off the heals of COVID-19. COVID didn\u2019t stop us from the last couple years but it certainly had an impact on where we could or couldn\u2019t go. I think the highest gas prices we saw were $5.56\/gallon, but generally hovered around $5\/gallon. It certainly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[189],"tags":[226,225,224],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camping","tag-bryce-canyon-national-park","tag-mesa-verde-national-park","tag-navajo-national-monument"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_1168.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":508,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}