Campsites – Page 8 – The Destinators

Canyonlands National Park, Part 2 – Needles

Our friend Kat, who works for the National Park Service, told us that she believes Squaw Flats Campground in the Needles District of Canyonlands NP is the most beautiful campground. Apparently, others think so too – it’s typically booked solid 6 months in advance. As non-planners, advance reservations don’t work too well for us, but we’re becoming skilled at snagging cancellations. We scored big! While waiting for our site to open up we got to explore an unplanned, interesting loop back from Capitol Reef – I called it the ‘space between‘ – then we were able to spend a weekend at Squaw Flats. And we agree with Kat – best campground views yet!

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The space between

One of our goals was to explore the space between – between the National Parks. Toward that end, we stopped by a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office and made one ranger’s day. We asked about maps, roads and campsites in the area between the NPs, mostly managed by the BLM. She was beaming! She went on to tell us all of her favorite places, potential road closures, and where campsites are plentiful or scarce.

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Albert the Bull

If we ever had any inclination to refer to the midwest as ‘flyover states’ (we didn’t), our travels last summer would have changed that. We thoroughly enjoyed exploring the northern midwest, finding the region surprisingly beautiful. (If you have any doubt, check our blog posts from summer 2016.) We were glad that our ‘straight line’ to Utah this year would include a different path through the middle of the midwest.

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Spring, friends, family

An interesting phenomenon happens when you drive from Warren, VT to Pittsburgh, PA in 3 days – spring gets compressed. We left home with snow on the ground, noticed budding blossoms upstate NY and found color exploding – Bang! Screaming yellow forsythia! – over every hill crest and around every bend throughout north central PA. By the time we got to OH, the colorful part of spring was behind us, and farmers were busy readying their fields.

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The last leg

We accepted the trade off… Memphis jam and extra time in the south with friends and family would mean fewer, longer driving days to get back to VT before (or between) snow storms. Doug summarized his anticipated feelings for this last leg of the trip: ‘It’ll be like driving home late from the airport after a vacation.’

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Land Between the Lakes

It was time for a different kind of adventure for us – chill. In the past month alone, we’d been awed and inspired by the beauty of Roosevelt, Badlands and Rocky Mountain National Parks as well as the Black Hills of SD and high peaks area of CO. We’re still giggling about our serendipitous and crazy visits to Carhenge and The City Museum in St Louis. We thoroughly enjoyed visits with old and new friends and family in SD, CO and MO. We were thrilled to join two jam sessions in CO. And we were acutely aware that a major, 3-day jam in Memphis was just 2 weeks away. We needed to take a short break from adventuring and take some practice time.

Drawing a line on the (virtual) map from St Louis to Nashville, where we planned to visit Doug’s cousins, we saw a major splotch of green – the Land Between the Lakes (LBL) National Recreation Area. Sounds nice. And the old man (Doug) gets a senior discount! We laid a course.

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Kansas

29810249946_24fd6d5090_k — Eternal sorghum fields

Kansas would be different. We don’t know anyone in Kansas. There are no National Parks. State Parks are all about fishing. It’s mostly flat farm country. Still, our memories of traveling through Kansas in 1984 is that every town has a town campground and that the locals are curious, fun to chat with, and friendly. We planned to drive back roads, reminisce and cross the state in whatever time it took, then visit family in Missouri.

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Xscapers SoCo Convergence

The Xscapers SoCo Convergence was amazing!

2016-09-20_09-48-09 — Full moon campfire

First, a little background… Continue reading “Xscapers SoCo Convergence”

Rocky Mountain National Park

Based on a limited sample of 5, our impression is that our National Parks are located in gorgeous places worthy of a visit, well operated and maintained, and extremely popular. As we approached Rocky Mountain National Park (known by locals as Rocky Park) after the kiddos had gone back to school, we expected diminished crowds and lots of options. Ha! A few days before we expected to arrive, we checked the on-line reservation system and found that of the 3 campgrounds remaining open in September, there was exactly 1 site available, at Moraine Park. We booked it, not expecting much. Turns out… it may have been the most beautiful campsite in the park!

The last available campsite... — The last available campsite…

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Four states in two days

You can’t make this stuff up, unless you make it up as you go along…

As I’ve mentioned before, we don’t have much of a plan – we’re letting this adventure unfold as we go along. After our visits and sightseeing in SD, we had a chance to arrange a visit near Boulder, CO. The folks we were meeting were only available on the weekend, and somewhere in there we needed a day or so to take care of a few things on our own. That was tight (at least for us, given our typical travel habits), but it appeared that, yes, we could be there with a little bit of hustling.

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