[RockyMtnRay]

Windbreaker, Gregg...

Actually I think you guys are both confirming what I said about the diffferences between the intermountain west and the rest of the country...including most of California. IMO, the intermountain west does not include anything in California, Oregon or Washington that's west of the Sierras or the Cascades. It definitely does not include Portland or any other coastal region. Nor does it include anything in Arizona south of Flagstaff. So we're not talking Anaheim or Phoenix or Monterey or, for that matter, any metro area whatsoever other than Salt Lake or Denver. There are almost no outlet malls (other than around Salt Lake or Denver), few crafts-centers, etc. With the exception of I15, I70, I80, and I90 there are no Interstate highways either....and those are each separated by hundreds of miles. Think only interior Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and perhaps eastern Oregon and eastern Washington. In other words, the big empty where the major attraction is the wilderness itself, the forests, and the national parks therein. People journey to the Colorado mountains...and Utah...and Idaho...and Montana primarily for the scenery...not the shopping or the museums or the crafts stores.

If our TM allowed us to spend 3 nights to two weeks in the boonies there would be a lot more of us staying in government owned camps. Most women require the pot a lot more than do men, we (like dogs) have trees.

Windbreaker, I think you have a point here...without an in-campground dump station (and blueboy tote), yeah, about 2 to 3 days is the TM's waste water limit...even if you travel solo as I usually do. OTOH, 6 days is the longest I've ever wanted to stay in one place anyway.

And since I use my TM's toilet strictly for urine, I can usually extend my black water dump periods to as much as 6 to 10 days. Reading between the lines, I'm gathering this might not be so easy to make happen with some wives, eh?

If I didn't take a daily shower, I could make the grey water last a lot longer too....but being able to take a shower inside was one of the primary reasons I got a TM instead of an A-Liner or Coleman popup...and after a day of climbing mountains a shower is absolutely necessary.

To answer some of your questions, in my case, we opt for RV campgrounds when we're travelling and trying to get someplace. It's just easier.

We take two week trips down to Arizona and California. It's easier to stay in RV parks, and quite often, there aren't BLM or NFS campgrounds near some of the more urban area's and interstates here in the west.

I gotta admit I tend to forget that getting to anyplace I want to go to is usually less than a day's travel time (often a matter of only 2 or 3 hours)....versus the multiple days many of you are on the road to get to your vacation destination. Yeah, if I ever start having multiple day journeys just to get to my destination (say, for instance into northern Montana), I too might think about using commercial RV Parks.

In fact, we needed full hookups to run the A/C due to the heat where we were, and we never missed not being in a BLM or NFS campground.

Another issue with two ways to approach it. Certainly, if you're going to go to a hot place, then A/C is necessary, and full hookups are needed (or a generator with attendant hassles). Me...I simply don't go to hot places. If it's hot where I am, I simply go north and/or to the higher lands cause it's never hot at 10,000. When I bought my TM, my dealer really tried to convince me to get it equipped with A/C. He kept saying "you'll need it if you go anywhere to the east or south in the summer". My response: I'll never, ever go east or south in the summer. Hence my TM doesn't have A/C and most likely will never have A/C.

Don't forget that most of the parks you folks enjoy today were built by us older types, 50 plus years ago.

Er....according to the ages in our profiles, you're only 3 years older than I am.