Where are you headed this year?

[Joesjunk]

My wife and I plan a cross country trip from mid July through September. We will visit Yellowstone NP, Glacier NP, Lake Louise, Vancouver, Seattle, Creater NP, and all points in between and then back to North Carolina. I'll post the schedule and planned stops when we are closer to the final version.
A rough guess is about 10,000 miles and 70 days. Hope to see some of you along the way.

In an earlier post I gave a vague list of our plans for the summer. Our plans are pretty firm now with reservations made and groups formed. Almost all are weekends or 3 day weekends and close to the front range of Colorado.

April - the last weekend we take our "shakedown" trip to Cheyenne Mtn SP just outside of Colorado Springs. It is a new park and was intended to be a showcase for the state parks system. Unfortunately they ran out of money and have scaled back. But, the campsites are finally open and they are all concrete pads, full hookups, views of the city and plains, a very nice camper services building with laundry, showers and flush toilets. It is close to town so any problems can be resolved with a trip to the dealer, Camping World, or WalMart!

May - Mother's Day - our camping group from church will be at Mountaindale RV park south of Colo Spgs. Full hookups, wifi, and again close to town. Close enough that I will drive in to work on Friday so we can get an extra night away.

June - 2nd weekend we host the Mile High Trailblazers at Mountaindale RV park. A trip to the Antique Capital of Colorado will be on the agenda.
3rd weekend our church group goes to Golden Gate Canyon SP. Iris's will be in bloom.

July - 2nd weekend our church group goes to Mueller SP - our favorite. The Mile High Trailblazers will be there also, so we'll be doing double duty!
July 31st/Aug 1 we go to Grand Lake to Elk Creek campground. We'll take in a broadway play at the Rocky Mountain Repertory Theater.

Labor day weekend - this is the biggie of the year. We'll do 5 nights at One Mile campground on the Taylor River near Gunnison. A trip to Crested Butte and some 4-wheeling may be in order.

We'll probably add a trip in September or October (or both) depending on when our 3rd grandchild comes. The 2nd one is coming in August which is why there are no campouts in August! Grandma has to be ready to travel!

Lots of weekends but not much driving. Other than One Mile, the farthest we travel will be 2 1/2 hours to Grand Lake.

Just recently, like a month ago, I bought a 2009 3023 and I love it. Picked it up at the dealer and went drycamping! Boy, did I learn a lot in that trip. Next weekend we're heading to Pismo Beach in California and staying in our first RV park, not sure about that I think I am more of a boondock camper.

I am glad I found this thread and it is giving me a lot of good ideas. We plan on a week long trip to Arizonia in April to visit my brother and probably another weeklong in the fall. Of course, there will be several long weekend trips scattered in between.

[B_and_D]

Originally Posted by O2BOutside

Just recently, like a month ago, I bought a 2009 3023 and I love it. Picked it up at the dealer and went drycamping! Boy, did I learn a lot in that trip. Next weekend we're heading to Pismo Beach in California and staying in our first RV park, not sure about that I think I am more of a boondock camper.

I am glad I found this thread and it is giving me a lot of good ideas. We plan on a week long trip to Arizonia in April to visit my brother and probably another weeklong in the fall. Of course, there will be several long weekend trips scattered in between.

Which RV park are you going to in Pismo? We've been looking to an alternative to Pismo Coast Village. We always stay there when we're passing through. It's a very nice park, great location, nice, new, clean bathrooms etc. but we'd like to find something a little more low-key.

A friend recommended Pismo Sands RV Park because it is low key. Not much into the party scene anymore. Here is the link http://www.pismosands.com

[B_and_D]

Thanks for the link. I'd like to stay there next time to try it out. Please let us know what you think of it when you get back from your camping trip. Low noise levels are what we're looking for; we like our peace and quiet.

Have fun!

D

Here is my report on Pismo Sands RV park in Oceano, CA. This was my first RV park. I liked that it had a pull through at each site. I noticed I had the smallest RV in the place and felt dwarfed by some very BIG rigs. I found the people at the check-in to be helpful and friendly. Bathrooms and showers were clean and smelled nice. Had full hookups which was a relief. I dreaded the thought of having to go to a dump station since I had never been to one. So, learning about how to handle that aspect of RVing at the site was nice. Quite a crowd gathered and they speculated about how the Trailmanor would set up. I think they were quite surprised by how quick it was. So overall it was a pleasant experience. The park was not within walking distance to the beach. I actually found a better and cheaper place to stay at the next time we go to the coast. I like to geocache and had a cache on the beach. I parked at Oceano State Park to go find this cache. Low and behold it had hookups! Nice sized trees, spaces were a good size and it was cheaper. There were also showers at the site.

We'll be heading out to the western states in about 3 weeks. We plan to take about 3-4 weeks and take a good look. We just returned from a month in Sebring, FL in Feb. In July we'll be going up into Ohio for family reunions, then into Michigan, Illinios, Wisc, Minnesota, and then we'll head back south to NC.

I can't help but giggle every time I see someone sya they are going out west, but will be no where near California.

Sorta like me, in California, saying I'm going back to to Utah for vacation.

From my perspective, the west starts at the continental divide That is what determines if the creek flows west to the Pacific or east to the Atlantic/gulf.

Have a great trip out here.

[B_and_D]

Thanks for the trip report, I think we may check that RV park out. Oceano (like the other CA state parks on the beach) gets pretty full during the summer and on weekends, so if you are planning on staying there it would be best to get reservations. They have water and electricity, but no sewer hookups. We've stayed there before, once in our cabover camper and once in a tent. It's so foggy down there sometimes that it makes tent camping pretty unappealing! You go outside in the morning and everything is dripping wet. We took our son there when he was about 1 1/2 and he got into the firepit the instant we turned our backs on him (we had not had a fire the night before) and made quite a wet, sooty mess out of himself. I don't think they had showers back then so it was off to the beach to clean him off. He was not a happy camper !

We like that area of the central coast, it's so different from here.