Trips

Trips and Campgrounds.

Why We Prefer Primitive Campsites in Anza Borrego Desert State Park

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Why We Prefer Primitive Campsites in Anza Borrego Desert State Park
January 25th – 28th, 2022 (3 nights)

Having already enjoyed this beautiful desert state park a couple times in the past, we thought it would be fun to come back and try out the primitive campground area within the Borrego Palm Canyon Campground.  We like this campground because it’s only a couple of hours drive from our home in San Diego and has a nice warm desert vibe.  There’s great hiking and biking as well, along with a cute town which can be reached by bike.  There are numerous good restaurants along with interesting shops.  We stayed at the hookup area on our previous two visits.  The hookup area campsites are relatively close together and offer direct connections to electric, water, and sewer.  Many “snowbird” campers staying a week or longer to escape miserable winters at home (and often with large motorhomes) are common visitors at these sites.

On our first visit a couple of years ago, we admired some of the more private and scenic campsites in the “primitive” area of the campground at the base of the mountains.  These “primitive” sites offer no hookups, but there are water spigots near the campsites and a central dump station at the campground entrance.  At that time, we walked the entire campground and wrote down in our travel log all of our favorite primitive campsites, hoping to try one on a future visit.

When we received a text from friends in Sept. 2021 saying they were going to Borrego Palm Canyon campground in January 2022, we immediately reserved site #108 (based on our best campsite notes from our log book).  At that time, “dry” sites like this one without hookups cost $25/night with a $7.99 online reservation fee.  The hookup sites were $35/night.  But, just recently, prices for both types of sites increased $10/night (now $35/night dry and $45/night hookups)!  Some of the nicest primitive campsites are located at the back of the campground adjacent to the entrance of the Borrego Palm Canyon Trail, a 2.9 mile trail that leads to the third largest palm oasis in California (with California’s only native species of palm, the Fan palm).  The desert pup fish pond is also near the entrance of the Borrego Palm Canyon Trail.  These tiny (about 2.5 inches in length) rare endangered fish are able to survive in environments of extreme salinity, pH, and temperature, and low oxygen content.  You may have to be patient, but if you walk around the pond you will likely see some darting about.

When we arrived on a late January afternoon at our primitive campsite (#108), it was warm (in the low 70s) but the campsite was already in deep shade as it is at the base of one of the tall mountains behind which the sun sets in midafternoon.  The first thing we noticed is how roomy and private the primitive campsites are compared to the hookup area.  There are water spigots throughout the primitive campground and there is one right next to site #108.  Since we had a water spigot and also set up our solar panels, we had no issues with water or power during our three night stay.  We did bring our “holy grail portable grey water tank solution”, but decided instead to use the free central dump station at the entrance to the park since we also wanted to dump our black tank.   It only took us about thirty minutes total to hitch up our Scamp, drive down to the central dump, dump, and then set the Scamp up again on a weekday morning.  The primitive sites are still within walking distance to the main campground, so we were able to visit friends by taking a 15 minute walk or riding our bikes down to their hookup campsites.

On our second day, we had fun touring the metal sculptures (over 130 of them) in Galleta Meadows on our bikes.  These large metal shaped sculptures of people, animals and fantasy creatures are spread out over miles of desert, but the terrain is on flat quiet paved back roads, making the bike ride easy.  The metal artworks were created by artist Ricardo Breceda for Dennis Avery (of Avery labels), owner of Galleta Meadows.  It took us several hours to see almost all the sculptures.  We started our ride in the morning and ended with a nice late lunch at Pablito’s Mexican Bar & Grill in town.  By the time we finally made it back to the campground, we were tired as the gentle grade down to town turns into a lengthy gradual climb on the way back!  The entire loop is around twelve miles, which isn’t too much when on a bike, especially given most of the ride is very flat.  We were really glad we brought our bikes on this trip because the roads are mostly wide open and flat and having bikes makes it really convenient to explore.  The bike trip into town is an easy 15 minute ride.

In addition to the privacy and space the primitive campground provides, we also found it to be quieter as well as darker at night.  We noticed that the population density of campers in the primitive campsite area to be significantly less than at the hookup area.  Probably as a result, the area seemed more peaceful without noticeable campground noise.  In addition, because RVs aren’t lined up close together in rows like at the hookup sites, some with outdoor lights on, the primitive area seemed much darker.  This is really important when enjoying the stars, which is particularly significant at this park.  Anza Borrego State Park achieved its International Dark Sky Park rating in 2018 and, as such, is recognized as a premier place for stargazing.  We experienced wonderful stargazing first hand during nights at the primitive campground.

A visit to Anza Borrego Desert State Park wouldn’t be complete without a stop at the Visitor’s Center.  This time, we walked the short flat paved trail from the campground to the center.  There are placards along the way with descriptions of the plants and animals seen in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park.  The center has a theater, gift, and book store filled with great things related to Anza Borrego Desert.  The staff in the store are also really helpful if one has questions about trails or anything else Anza Borrego related.  On this trip, we picked up one of the current season’s Anza Borrego t-shirt designs along with a warm knit beanie with a bighorn sheep logo.

Now that we’ve tried both the hookup and primitive campgrounds at Borrego Palm Canyon Campground in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park, we can certainly recommend staying in the primitive campground for the many reasons explained above.  Overall, we found the stay at the primitive campground to be many factors more peaceful than our previous stays at the hookup area.  To be clear, we enjoyed our previous stays, but the primitive campground takes the desert experience to a new level.  Some nights we even heard animals (likely bighorn sheep) right outside our Scamp!  The quiet, the space, the peacefulness, and the darker skies without bright RV lights, definitely elevate the camping experience.  In addition, it’s also nice that it’s $10/night cheaper (at the time of this writing)!  Of course, there would be times when staying at the hookup campground might be preferable.  If we were planning on staying for an extended period of time and didn’t want the hassle of having to haul water from the spigot and driving to the central dump every four or five days (or needed power to run an AC or other energy hungry devices), then having hookups certainly makes things easier.  But, for us, we generally only stay a few days, and our main goal is to be in nature as much as possible.  And, that’s why we prefer primitive campsites in Anza Borrego Desert State Park … with more chances to see bighorn sheep!

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly. 

Calico Ghost Town – Zion – Valley of Fire – Death Valley

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Calico Ghost Town – Zion – Valley of Fire – Death Valley
November 27th – December 6th, 2021 (9 nights)

Living in California not only offers access to world class campgrounds in the state, but also proximity to outstanding parks in adjacent states.  On this trip, we thought it would be epic fun to string together campgrounds in California, Utah, and Nevada, while at the same time keeping driving times reasonable.  It turns out that world-renown Zion National Park (UT), Valley of Fire State Park (NV), and Death Valley National Park (CA) are all less than three hour’s drive from another!  And, we discovered, this trifecta of park greatness is a must itinerary!  The key caveat here is to make reservations well in advance for both Watchman (Zion) and Furnace Creek (Death Valley) campgrounds since these national parks are very popular.  Additionally, plan on visiting Valley of Fire State Park (one of our top favorite campgrounds thus far) during the week and arrive in the morning before 10 a.m. because it’s first come first serve (no reservations).  Lastly, don’t go to these places in the summer due to extremely hot temperatures.

Calico Ghost Town
In order to a avoid a long drive directly from our home in Carlsbad, California to Zion National Park, UT (about 8 hours), we decided to stay overnight at a San Bernardino County Regional Park called Calico Ghost Town.  It was a silver mining town in the 1880s and was abandoned in the mid 1890s when silver lost its value.  It’s now a campground and old west tourist attraction.  The buildings on main street have been restored to look as they did in the 1800s and are now operated as gift stores and restaurants.   The campground offers full hookup sites and many of the campsites are on dirt pads.  We had site AC3, which is a good full hookup site that is on the trail leading directly up to the town (about a 5 minute walk).  This park caters to families with young children (and people who like driving ATVs, dirt bikes, buggies and other vehicles, as there are off-roading trails here) and has a Knotts Berry Farm feel (and for good reason – Walter Knott purchased the town in 1951).  We walked the main street in the afternoon, browsed a few of the candy and gift stores, and listened to some live music in the early evening.  We enjoyed a movie in our Scamp before bed and left early the next morning.

Zion National Park, Utah
The trip from Calico Ghost Town to Zion National Park (Watchman Campground) passes through Las Vegas, NV and St. George Utah, and takes about 5 hours without stops.  Although we try to limit our drives to four hours or under, we find that if we do have to drive a bit longer, stopping for lunch to break up the ride into a couple of segments makes the trip easier.  On this segment, we stopped for lunch in our Scamp in Las Vegas and arrived at Watchman Campground in the afternoon.  Our campsite, B46 (electric only), is adjacent to the Virgin River with towering colorful mountains surrounding the entire campground.  There are water spigots in the campground and a free central dump station.  The water spigot near our campsite was very high pressure and our Water Bandit and Water Tank Filler Hose combination made it possible to easily fill our water jug without water spraying everywhere (see “How our Water Bandit Saved our Trip”).

Watchman Campground is within walking distance of the Visitor Center, some nice stores and restaurants, and trails (including one designated biking trail – Pa’rus Trail).  There are shuttle stops by the Visitor Center with two free shuttle routes:  (1) the Zion Canyon Line (park shuttle) which runs from the Visitor Center up the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive to destinations like the Zion Lodge and trailheads, including Emerald Pools, West Rim Trail, and Temple of Sinawava where hikers depart for Zion Narrows (about a 40 minute shuttle ride from the Visitors Center to this last stop), and (2) the Springdale Shuttle (town shuttle) that stops at nine locations in town and picks up and drops off visitors at the park’s pedestrian/bike entrance.  The shuttles were implemented by the park in 2000 as a response to extreme traffic congestion on Zion Canyon Scenic Drive.  The park service temporarily shut down all shuttles the day after we arrived (Nov. 29th – Dec. 22nd).  As a result, the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive became open to traffic and we were able to drive our car to hiking spots along the route (although some parking lots were full).

We spent three fabulous days enjoying the Watchman Campground and the nearby local Visitor Center and shops, hiking trails and bike path (as well as watching the stars at night).  Despite being relatively full, Watchman Campground was quiet and our site next to the river was very peaceful.  We saw deer everyday walking around the campground and they appeared accustomed to people.  We sometimes would walk right by one only noticing when just a few feet away.  There are signs warning of deer attacks posted within the campground, but we did not witness any such hostility.  The signs state that last year multiple visitors were injured by mothers protecting their young.  However, during our stay, the deer seemed content on grazing surrounding foliage and resting by the river.  As with all wild animals though, it’s always best to keep some distance and avoid approaching young ones because the parents are usually not too far away.

We drove up Zion Canyon Scenic Drive on our own since the shuttle service was not running.  On our second day, we hiked Emerald Pools and Grotto Trails (about 6 miles / 2 hours combined).  The Emerald Pools hike leads to three tiers of natural ponds (we combined the lower, middle, and upper pools in one hike). Scenery includes stunning mountains, red rocks, waterfalls over sheer rock faces, and emerald colored pools.  In the afternoon, we rode our bikes from the campground to Pa’rus trail which runs along the Virgin River (easy paved 3.5 mile round trip ).  The trail’s name is derived from Paiute (indigenous people language) and means “bubbling tumbling water”.  It’s a beautiful ride along the river and up the canyon and can be done within a half hour on bike (or much longer time if walking).  We enjoyed watching stars in the evening as Zion National Park is very dark and starry (it was officially named an International Dark Sky Park this year).

We were pleasantly surprised to find fast internet at Watchman Campground!  We made our mobile phone a hotspot and used our laptop.  An internet speed test showed quick speeds (40Mbps download / 7 Mbps upload)!  We were able to stream some news video (off our Sling TV), take care of email, catch up on Instagram, and do some internet browsing!  It turns out that the park allowed installation of a Verizon cellphone tower in a stealth building near the Visitor’s Center!  Having internet made it also possible for us to research future planned stops and check traffic heading to our next destination.

On our third day in Zion, we drove up to the last Shuttle stop (#9, Temple of Sinawava) and took the park’s most popular hike, Riverside Walk, which is an easy stroll.  The paved Riverside Walk, which follows the Virgin River upstream one mile through narrowing sandstone canyons ends at the Zion Narrows.  If you want to continue hiking up the Zion Narrows, it requires walking on the wet rocky riverbed.  Many people try to walk to Orderville Canyon, a two hour hike upstream, where the canyon is at its narrowest.  In order to make the riverbed hike more comfortable, it is recommended to rent neoprene insulated socks and hiking shoes which many of the area retail outlets offer.  Since we were there in December and the river water temperature was 47 degrees, shops were also recommending water proof dry pants.  A local shop gave us a quote of $50 per person per day to rent insulated socks, hiking shoes, and dry pants.  Because we wanted to explore other trails and also heard people say their feet were freezing despite the insulated apparel, we decided not to get wet.  Also, some people report foot/ankle swelling and pain after hiking for hours on the uneven river stones.

Our last hike before leaving Zion National Park was on the Watchman Trail.  This trail is an easy walk from the Watchman Campground and a fantastic way to see the entire Springdale Valley.  The trail itself climbs from the valley high above the park.  The trail climbs about 400 feet (but not to the height of the Watchman Spire itself) and is moderately easy and took us about two hours to complete round trip.  There are great views of the surrounding peaks and park below at the top of the trail!  After three days of exploring, we felt content that we had experienced some of the best of Zion National Park.  However, we could have easily spent a couple of more days which would have allowed a hike up to the top of the popular Angels Landing as well as potentially making a day of the Zion Narrows.  We met one camper who comes back every year and stays for ten to fourteen days and never leaves the campground (he’s happy to sit outside and read books and just absorb the views)!  Note – just recently, Zion National Park announced it will require a permit to hike Angels Landing starting next April (April 1, 2022).

We left Zion early in the morning so we could arrive at Valley of Fire State Park early as it is first come first serve (no reservations).  Because we didn’t know what to expect at our next destination, we filled up our Fresh water tank at our Watchman campsite (from our water jug / filled from a spigot) before leaving.  We also dumped our Black and Grey tanks on the way out of Zion at the free central dump.

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada
We arrived at Valley of Fire State Park, the oldest and largest state park in Nevada, at around 9:15 a.m. after a 2 ½ hour drive from Zion.  Our goal was to arrive before 9:30 a.m. as the campground does not accept reservations and we wanted to stay inside this popular park.  There are two campgrounds within Valley of Fire State Park:  (1) Atlatl Rock Campground (has water and electric hookups) and (2) Arch Rock Campground (water spigots only).  Both campgrounds are a short distance from each other and there is a shared free central Dump Station right outside the campgrounds.  We targeted Arch Rock Campground because the campsites are a bit more private and scenically placed within the rocks compared to Atlatl Rock Campground.  We found water spigots at each campsite at Arch Rock Campground (and some have threads which may allow the connection of a fresh water hose).  We didn’t have any cell phone coverage (Verizon) at the campsite but found good coverage at the top of the stairs at Atlatl Rock as well as several parking lots on White Domes Road above the Visitors Center.

We drove into Valley of Fire State Park on a Wednesday morning in December and headed past the Visitor Center straight toward the campgrounds.  The first thing we noticed was the out of this world landscape of crazy, huge, bright red Aztec sandstone rocks.  It certainly made sense why scenes from Star Trek Generations were filmed within Valley of Fire State Park!  We passed Atlatl Rock Campground and turned into the entrance of Arch Rock Campground.  Upon entry, we immediately noticed many open campsites in the lower, more open, part of the campground.  Since there was no one behind us on the road, we decided to drive around the entire campground loop to see if we could get a really cherry spot.  As it turned out, we found a beautiful campsite in site #29, the last site on the loop and surrounded by towering red rocks!  The site has its own picnic area as well as a dedicated threaded water spigot and plenty of sunshine for solar panels.  We set up our Scamp 13’ at the campsite and then drove back down to the entrance of Arch Rock Campground to pay the “Iron Ranger” (metal fee collection box).  This involved placing our campsite fees of $25 per night cash (non-Nevada vehicle fee) into the metal lock box and taking the receipt back to our campsite and displaying it on the post (note: hookup sites are $10 more per night).  It appeared that the “Iron Ranger” here only takes cash or check.  We only brought $50 cash with us on our trip and no checks, so we just covered our campsite fees for two nights!  (Note to self – bring more cash on future trips).

There’s plenty to explore at Valley of Fire State Park, so a minimum of two nights at the campground will allow a good visit.  This is one park where it really pays to have a trailer or motor home because there aren’t really many places to stay nearby.  Many people visit for the day, driving in from Las Vegas (about an hour away), but miss much of the park’s greatness (e.g. starry nights, big horn sheep walking through the campground in the early morning, fantastic sunrises and sunsets ….).  Stop by the Visitor’s Center to get a park map (and see the park film and exhibit).  Then, drive White Domes Road above the Visitor Center to take a number of scenic hikes.  We chose White Domes for our first hike – the highlight is a really spectacular slot canyon.  Closer to the campgrounds, make sure to see Arch Rock and climb the stairs of Atlatl Rock (seen in Star Trek Generations) to view the petroglyphs dating back more than 2,000 years at the top of the platform (and grab some internet while on the top of the platform!).

Two large bighorn sheep walked right past our Scamp 13’ on our first morning!  We watched one of them ram one of the water spigots to get it to turn on.  Then, the other came down off a large steep rock and both drank fresh water at the spigot!  They also put on a show by ramming their horns together, making a tremendous crashing noise.  We saw this pair at other times during our stay as well as many other bighorn sheep families on our hikes.  It was an amazing experience being so close to these beautiful magnificent animals.

The Fire Wave hike (Parking Lot #3) is one of the park’s most popular.  The rainbow colored rock formations are incredible and the hike takes about an hour.  After hiking Fire Wave, make sure to hike Rainbow Vista Canyon which ends in an otherworldly view of a landscape that looks to be from another planet.  We saw 9 bighorn sheep during this colorful easy canyon hike.  We followed these two hikes up by walking Mouse’s Tank where petroglyphs are on display.  If you have more time, there are some other interesting sites to see like Elephant Rock, Petrified Logs, and Beehives Rock Formations.

We could have stayed a couple of more days at Valley of Fire State Park as we enjoyed it so much, but we had reservations made six months in advance for Furnace Creek (Death Valley National Park).  So, the next morning, after sharing the free Central Dump station at Valley of Fire State Park with a mob of bighorn sheep (enjoying fresh water from the spigot), we retraced our ride back through Las Vegas and then onto Death Valley.

Death Valley National Park, California

We passed Creech Air Force Base on the way to Furnace Creek Campground and watched Predator / Reaper drones taking off and landing.  We also stopped at the Area 51 Alien Travel Center, close by Area 51, refueled our tow vehicle and purchased an alien t-shirt.  We arrived at Furnace Creek Campground in the afternoon with almost a full tank of fuel and found our site #55 (no hookups).  Furnace Creek Campground is a paved parking lot on flat ground in the desert with mountains in the distance.  When we arrived, we were told the central Dump Station was closed in the campground (although we could use another one down the road toward the Visitor Center).  After walking around the entire campground, I didn’t see any water spigots to fill our 6 gallon water jug (just metal sinks for washing dishes).  I’m glad we filled our Fresh tank and dumped our Black and Grey tanks before leaving Valley of Fire State Park!  We ended up filling our water jug at an empty neighboring campsite’s spigot.

Furnace Creek Campground offers an incredible location for exploring Death Valley.  There are a couple of luxury resort hotels close by (Oasis Hotels:  The Inn at Death Valley and The Ranch at Death Valley).  Be forewarned however, prices in the area are very high.  During our visit at The Inn at Death Valley we browsed the menu and found Caesar salad priced at $19 and chicken breast at $43.  We stopped by The Ranch at Death Valley, just down the road from Furnace Creek Campground, to purchase some supplies to make s’mores with our new camping friends, Holly and Bill, at their evening campfire.  They have been staying at Furnace Creek Campground for the past forty years!  At checkout, without any prompting, the sales person at the register unexpectedly apologized for the store’s high prices when the bag of marshmallows, box of graham crackers, and four small Hershey’s bars rang up to $24!  Winter rates at the Inn at Death Valley aren’t cheap either, ranging between $500 to $600 per night for a single room.  We found the only gas station in town selling Regular gas for $6.70 / gallon.  Given that our campsite fee was only $22/night (non-hookup site), we felt like we could splurge on making s’mores!  We were also happy we had all our food and drinks with us and were able to cook all our meals in our Scamp!

The first thing to do after setting up at Furnace Creek Campground in Death Valley is to go to the Visitors Center next door (within walking distance of the campground).  The Visitor Center has a nice amphitheater which shows movies about Death Valley and informative displays (and a great gift shop in front).  There are also an information desk and a board listing the times and locations of various free Ranger programs offered.  We attended an interesting evening star program at the Harmony Borax Works (just down the street from Furnace Creek Campground), where the Ranger spoke about the Cosmos in near darkness under thousands of stars.  Death Valley is a certified International Dark Sky Park.

There is one main bike path in Furance Creek which starts at the Furnace Creek Visitors Center and ends a mile down the road at the Harmony Borax Works.  It’s a quick easy ride on mostly flat terrain on a paved path separate from the main road (people also walk on this path).  Borax (a white mineral) was found in the Furnace Creek area in 1881 and the Harmony plant began processing the mineral in 1883.    The ore’s best known use is as a cleaner for laundry.  Twenty mule team wagons transported borax 165 miles from Death Valley to Mojave.  The Harmony plant shut down after only five years in operation due to the financial collapse of its owner.  Now, visitors can walk a loop and see examples of a 20 mule wagon and homes the Chinese laborers used while mining for borax.  Another short bike ride from Furnace Creek Campground is down Airport Road (behind the Visitors Center) to the Furnace Creek Airport.  The airport is usually very quiet with occasional private airplane traffic.

Many of the main sites in Death Valley are located down Badwater Road.  It’s a 16 mile drive from Furnace Creek Campground to the farthest popular stop, Badwater Basin.  Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America (282 ft. below sea level).  During the cooler months it’s possible to walk out onto the large salt flat.  Large salt formations (salt polygons) seem to span the basin for miles.  The first quarter mile has been flattened like hard packed sand, so it’s easy to walk on.  On the way back to the campground, we also drove Artists Drive (the most popular scenic drive in Death Valley), a 9 mile windy road through colorful rainbow hills formed by volcanic deposits (most vibrant in the afternoon).  If you are feeling energetic and it’s not hot, try the colorful Golden Canyon to Red Cathedral hike (3 miles) through multihued hills.  We added the Gower Gulch loop (additional 1 mile) which climbs up a dramatic mountain with steep drop offs on one side (we saw an older couple turning around, saying it was too scary).  The combined hike took us about two hours to complete.  These hikes are moderate / strenuous and should only be done in cool weather (preferably morning) with a partner and carrying plenty of water.

We didn’t have time for a halfway overnight stop to break up our drive on our way home to San Diego, so we left Furnace Creek early the next morning for the 6 hour drive.  We left the campground at about 5:30 a.m. and stopped at the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes on the way out of the valley to witness the dunes at sunrise.  The dunes have a nice golden hue at first light and it’s special walking out on them (and climbing up and running down the hills of sand).  We ate breakfast in the Scamp before leaving Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes and then fueled up our tow vehicle in Stovepipe Wells (gas was about $2/gallon cheaper than at the Furnace Creek gas station) before crossing the vast expanse of the Panamint Valley to connect to the 395 highway.

Some of the strategies we normally follow helped us tremendously for this trip.  The first thing we always do in trip planning is to schedule trips for the appropriate time of year (e.g. mountains in summer and deserts in spring, fall, and winter).  For this trip, we chose December as our travel month, which usually is perfect weather for these desert climates which tend to be deadly hot (130 degrees) during summer months.  We also normally pack enough food and water for the entire trip, which for this trip provided some safety in case we had a break down in a remote area in the desert (as well as saving on the expense of buying food in pricey tourist areas).  We always make sure to fill up our gas tank before crossing large remote areas, which on this trip there are many stretches of remote desert without any service stations.  Lastly, we always make sure to carry water (or cans of sparkling flavored water) when hiking.  So, when planning your next trip, keep these strategies in mind and also see if you can link several regal national and state parks on your itinerary for a perfect royal flush!

Note:  The “America the Beautiful National Park Pass” is currently $80 and provides for unlimited visits for one year for all national parks for everyone in the car (up to 4 adults)!  Considering many national parks charge $35 per car, it’s a great value if visiting three or more national parks per year.

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly. 

Anza Borrego and Julian California

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Anza Borrego and Julian California
November 8th – 14th, 2021 (6 nights)

After recently returning from cool Oregon, we thought it might be nice to take a warm sunny trip to the California desert followed by a visit to a local mountain town.  Since we really enjoyed the Borrego Palm Canyon Campground in Anza Borrego State Park a couple of years ago (our very first Scamping trip), we scheduled a return visit.  The campground is only a couple of hours drive from our home in San Diego and offers some great hiking and biking as well as a cute desert town (Borrego Springs) with its fun shops and tasty restaurants.  When we arrived in the late afternoon to our full hookup site (#A26), it was warm (in the low 80s) and the sun was casting a red glow on the desert sand.  Surrounded by cactus and wide open space, there is a unique kind of vibe in the desert which one feels as soon as stepping outside.  Tall mountains serve as a dramatic backdrop to the Borrego Palm Canyon Campground whose campsites are nestled right up to rocky mountain’s edges.  After setting up our Scamp 13’, we took a long walk around the campground before watching a movie and going to sleep.

The next morning our goal was to hike the Borrego Palm Canyon Trail, a 2.9 mile trail that leads to the third largest palm oasis in California (with California’s only native species of palm, the Fan palm).  The trail was closed when we were at the park our first time a couple of years ago due to recovery from a fire, so we were looking forward to seeing the oasis.  We left early to avoid the heat and followed the trail up to a v-shaped gorge where we glimpsed the palm grove (note: the waterfall wasn’t visible when we visited).   Along the way, we kept our eyes open for bighorn sheep on the mountain ledges above us, but these elusive animals remained out of our sight during our hike.  When we reached the oasis we spent a few minutes appreciating the spectacle of the huge grove of tall palm trees in the middle of the desert.  A handful of other hikers were also enjoying the same experience at the viewpoint.  We didn’t spend too long at the top because it was starting to get hot and we still had about an hour hike back to the campground.  Returning to the campground was easier than reaching the palm oasis because it was mostly hiking back down the mountain to the desert floor.  Note:  always hike with a partner and bring plenty of water if attempting this hike because it can get very hot here and there is no cell phone reception on this desert/mountain trail.

Once rested after our morning hike, we decided to ride our bikes into town and have lunch at Carmelita’s (Mexican food).  We were really glad we brought our bikes along because the roads are mostly wide open and flat and having bikes makes it really convenient to explore.  We even road our mountain bikes across portions of desert sand and it was really fun.  The bike trip into town was an easy 15 minute ride.  We sat with our bikes at Carmelitas on their outside patio and enjoyed a fantastic lunch (chips and salsa followed by excellent chicken mole enchiladas).  After lunch, we browsed items at the Borrego Outfitters shop next door (two years ago we purchased really interesting metal interlocking canteens and UV sun sleeves here).  Then, we biked to the Anza Borrego State Park Visitor’s Center on the West end of the park and purchased some t-shirts.  After all the day’s excitement, we enjoyed watching the stars in the evening.  Anza Borrego State Park achieved its International Dark Sky Park rating in 2018 and, as such, is recognized as a premier place for stargazing.  We retired in the Scamp after a long and fun day and watched a movie before bed.

We asked one of the park rangers if it would be OK to delay checkout from Noon until around 12:45 p.m. and we were told that was fine.  We wanted to eat lunch before stopping off at Bike Borrego (a local ebike tour company) to pick up a new bike lock (the one we recently purchased had failed).  The owner could only meet us at 1 p.m. to sell us one of his locks (and there are no other bike stores in town).  After purchasing our new bike lock, we drove an hour and a half to our next destination, the Salton Sea.  Unfortunately, conditions were not pleasant at the Salton Sea.  It was 88 degrees with many small flying insects and the air smelled of rotten eggs.  The Salton Sea, California’s largest lake, was formed from runoff of the Colorado River in the early 1900s.  In the 1950’s and 60’s it became a resort destination.  Bird watching was also popular as the wetlands were a major resting stop on the Pacific Flyway.  In the 1980s, contamination from farm runoff promoted the outbreak and spread of diseases.  Massive numbers of birds and fish died.  During this time, large amounts of water evaporated which resulted in very high salinity, further destroying fish and other wildlife.  What remains is a toxic wasteland.  It’s not recommended to go into or touch the water and the air often smells.  The air smell is caused by elevated levels of hydrogen sulfide gas coming from the Salton Sea (it’s a highly toxic gas created by organic decay in the absence of oxygen at the bottom of the Salton Sea).  Needless to say, we left the Salton Sea Mecca Beach Campground after only about 5 minutes.  We called ahead to our next planned stop in Julian, William Heise County Park, and fortunately were told we could arrive a couple of days early as our campsite was open!

We arrived at William Heise campground in the charming mountain town of Julian right around sunset after a two hour drive from the Salton Sea.  We usually like arriving to campgrounds earlier in the day as it’s easier to see the campsite, locate a good pad position for the Scamp, and set everything up.  However, this was an unusual circumstance and we didn’t have much of a choice on timing.  Fortunately, we were able to quickly find our campsite (#41) and get everything in order because as soon as we finished setting up, it became extremely dark.  We chose a non-hookup site because the hookup sites at this campground are only partial (water & electric) and generally not as spaced out as the non-hookup sites.  There are water spigots located throughout the campground which we used to fill our Fresh Water tank daily.  And, we used our solar panel briefcase and Jackery 500 lithium battery to supply all the power we needed.  There is also a free central dump at this campground (which we used in combination with our Holy Grail Portable Grey Water Tank Solution to avoid having to move our Scamp).  The weather was nice and cool in the afternoon and evening (a relief from the 88 degree temperatures we left a couple of hours earlier).  Daytime temperatures, in the 70’s, were also much cooler than the desert as Julian is located at over 4,000 feet elevation.

Julian is an old gold mining town where the gold rush happened in the 1850s.  Since then, apples and tourism have become the town’s new gold, and pie and gift shops line main street.  Julian is a very popular day trip destination for people who live in San Diego and Los Angeles because it’s only a two or three hour drive respectively.   People come here for the day to visit the apple orchards in the early Fall and throughout the year to eat apple, apple berry, and other varieties of pies.  Downtown Julian is about a 12-minute drive from William Heise County Park, which we found was good because downtown was very busy when we visited!  We did venture downtown a few times for the mandatory sampling of some of the different types of apple pies at both the Julian Pie Co. and the Julian Café and Bakery!  But, we mostly enjoyed staying in the campground and hiking the numerous trails (e.g. Cedar Creek Trail, Canyon Oak Trail, Desert View/Glen’s View Trail).  The Desert View Trail with a hike up to the Glen’s View outlook is notable because at the peak one can see both Anza Borrego and the Salton Sea on one side and San Diego and the ocean on the other.  Because we arrived two days early, we had ample amount of time to explore Julian and the William Heise County Park.  One interesting stop before leaving on our last day was the Julian Wolf Center.  We were able to observe a couple of wolf packs on our one hour wolf conservation tour ($30/each).  The center seeks to breed wolves and release wolf pups back into the wild. We found the wolf center to be an interesting experience.

This relatively short trip reinforced a couple of our Scamp travel principles.  First, travel to locations which have favorable weather conditions for a more comfortable trip.  We did find both Anza Borrego and Julian to have very favorable weather conditions this time of year (Fall).  Second, be open-minded and flexible if you don’t feel comfortable at the campsite to which you pull up.  And, have your usernames and passwords with you for all your campground reservation websites in case you need to cancel your reservation, make a change, or make a new reservation.  If you do need to cancel at the last minute because you don’t want to stay at the campsite (like in our case with the Salton Sea), you will likely forfeit at least a day’s campsite fee (which usually isn’t much), but it will be worth an overall more enjoyable trip!

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly. 

Central and Northeastern Oregon

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Central and Northeastern Oregon
October 1st– 18th, 2021 (17 nights)

Fall is one of our favorite times of year for Scamp travel as campgrounds and small towns tend to quiet after the busy summer months.  As long as one doesn’t go too late into the fall, the weather can be very nice and the fall colors spectacular.  We had a great coastal trip to Oregon in Fall 2020, so this October we decided on central and northeastern Oregon.  We left earlier in October this time to minimize the chance for bad weather.  And, as a hedge against costly last minute cancellations due to weather or fire smoke (which is very common this time of year), we booked most of our stays through Boondockers Welcome and Harvest Hosts (no charge for stay overs other than annual membership and easy to cancel plans last minute).  Because we had a lot of one night stops on our previous Oregon trip, which at times became tiring, we made sure to schedule two night stay overs every few days to break up continuous travelling. In turn, this was our longest trip in our Scamp 13’ to date.

When going north, we have a couple of usual stops we like to make to see family.  The first is my cousin Jon’s house to see him and his family in Santa Barbara (about a 4-hour drive from our home in Carlsbad, California) followed by a stay with my sister and her family in Oakland (6-hour drive from Santa Barbara).  This trip was no different and we enjoyed seeing my cousin and his family briefly before heading up to Oakland the next day.   We had a nice fajitas lunch with my sister and her family and did some walking along the canals.  There was a very loud party behind our Scamp (parked in my sister’s driveway) at night, so we listened to white noise of water and animals in our earphones to block out the party and go to sleep.  The next morning we had time to hike in one of the many forests in Oakland before heading to our next stop, Lake Siskiyou.

We arrived at the private Lake Siskiyou Camp Resort on Lake Siskiyou at around 4 p.m. (after a 6-hour drive from Oakland).  This would be our last California stop before heading into Oregon.  Lake Siskiyou is near Mt. Shasta and is a beautiful lake with hiking, biking, fishing, and boating.  Although we usually stay at State campgrounds, there really wasn’t much else around and this private resort looked nice (although more expensive than State campgrounds).  We had a great campsite (REC2) with full hookups adjacent to the lake.  The campground wasn’t busy as their season was pretty much ending, although the weather was in the 80’s and they were still serving soft serve ice-cream in their general store when we arrived!  The highlight of our stay here was riding our bikes around the 7-mile Lake Siskiyou Trail Loop.  The lake and pines make a beautiful location to bike.  We had so much fun stopping and exploring on the ride that we lost track of time and had to rush to make the 11 a.m. checkout time to avoid getting charged for another day!  We set an all-time record in how fast we were able to get our Scamp set up to leave (less than 20 minutes)!  Since we left before lunch, we set up camp on the side of the road outside of the campground to eat (and even captured some drone images of Lake Siskiyou and Mt. Shasta!).

Our first stop into central Oregon was the town of La Pine (about a 3-hour drive north from Lake Siskiyou); the town is very close to Bend, Oregon and is in the valley of the Little Deschutes River.  The main road, the 97, which runs all the way to the top of Oregon, also runs north-south through the entire city.  We were fortunate to be able to stay at Red Oak Farms Alpacas, a Harvest Hosts location.  The farm is run by a husband and wife team and has a small number of Alpacas.  When we arrived, Ken showed us their alpaca fiber and explained the ways and economics of alpaca farming (the fiber currently sells for $4/ounce).  Ken’s wife, Nancy Lee, let us be amongst some of the alpacas and pet and walk a few.  Being at over 4,200 feet elevation, the weather was noticeably colder in La Pine, with morning temperatures around 30 degrees.  We parked our Scamp on one of their fields.  Fortunately, the Scamp’s furnace kept us warm all night.   After a quick overnight, we headed a bit north to Bend, Oregon (only a 30-minute drive away).

After a short drive from La Pine, we set our Scamp up in the driveway of a nice home in Bend, Oregon (a Boondocker’s Welcome location).  The hosts were away travelling but instructed us to park in their pull through driveway.  The weather was sunny and we set up our solar panels since we didn’t have any hookups here.  After lunch in our Scamp, we drove over to the Old Mill District close by and walked the Deschutes River Trail (while one of our bikes was being serviced at REI).  The area is very scenic and well developed with nice paths and parks along the water.  We also walked from the Old Mill District to Drake Park and then up to downtown Old Bend where there are plenty of fun shops and restaurants.   Bend has grown rapidly over recent years due to its attraction as a retirement destination and gateway for outdoor sports.

After spending the night in Bend, we continued north for 3 hours to the top of central Oregon and stopped at the Deschutes River State Recreation Area Campground.  The location is where the Columbia and Deschutes rivers join on the borders of Oregon and Washington State.  The site (A05) we stayed at has water and electric hookups.  Other than hiking and fishing, this location is pretty remote with not too much going on.  It was cold at night in the 20’s and the furnace came in handy again!  The deal breaker for us about this campground is that trains run all night long close by the campground and blow their loud train horns at all hours!  We did a long hike in the morning along the river and up on some of hill trails with scenic views over the entire area.  We saw another couple with a Scamp 16’ from Boulder, Colorado who we talked to a while, as well as seeing some other fiberglass trailers.  It’s the first time we’ve seen another Scamp in a campground.  After lunch, we were ready to move on.

Following the 84 Freeway east along the Columbia River and Oregon-Washington border, we made our way to Pendleton, Oregon (a small city best known for its major annual rodeo called The Pendleton Round Up).  We were headed to 5H Ranch, a 20 acre farm (Boondockers Welcome location) right outside the city.  The hosts offered us a great parking spot next to their blue barn with both water and electric hookups at no charge!  After setting up, we spent the afternoon walking around the farm and country roads.  The next morning, we set out and explored the small historic downtown of Pendleton.  The historic area has some nice Queen Anne Victorian homes built in the 1800s.  In addition, we learned about the Pendleton Underground – a vast network of tunnels that was once a hidden city underneath Pendleton built in the late 1800s by Chinese immigrants to provide safety from persecution.

We reached our main destination on this trip, Joseph, Oregon, a few hours after leaving Pendleton and spent four nights here.  Our campsite was at the Wallowa Lake State Park campground (site C55).  Wallowa Lake is a short drive from the quaint little town of Joseph and is in an area known as “The Little Switzerland” of Oregon.  Snowcapped tall mountains surround the lake, making it a uniquely picturesque destination.  Our campsite had full hookups, but since nights were forecasted to be below freezing, we didn’t hook up the fresh water hose (instead we relied on our interior fresh water tank).  We also poured RV antifreeze into our shower drain to protect the pump and left our hot water heater on at night.  Additionally, we kept our furnace set to 58 degrees each night so everything inside the Scamp (including ourselves) would stay warm.  In the morning, when getting ready for the day, we usually let the furnace pump hot air for a while to make the Scamp nice and toasty inside.  We took a pedal rail car tour on our first full day in Joseph at Joseph Branch Railriders!  The tour goes from Joseph to Enterprise and returns passing through farmland with stunning views of the mountains along the way.  The entire journey takes about 2 hours and is 11 miles round trip.  The pedal rail cars have electric pedal assist, so travelling back up hill to Joseph was an easy pedal (I even flew my drone and took pictures while we pedaled back!).  On the days following, we enjoyed hikes in the hills above the lake and walks through the campground and lakeside.  We did our laundry one morning at a coin-op in downtown Joseph and shopped along the tree lined streets until our clothes were washed and dried!  The tree leaves were mostly bright red as Fall had decisively set in up in this mountain town.  We even enjoyed some snow flurries a couple of the nights in our Scamp!  Joseph was our favorite stop on the trip because of its natural beauty and scenic town center.

To make up some time after the long stay in Joseph, we headed directly to Madras which took about six hours as we retraced our steps back along the 84 and then down through central Oregon on the 97.  Madras is a small city about an hour north of Bend and home to the Erickson Aircraft Collection, a privately owned collection of airworthy vintage aircraft.  This is a fantastic aviation museum located on the tarmac of the Madras municipal airport.  This airport used to be the home of a B17 bomber base during WWII.  We had the great fortune of being able to stay on the tarmac at this airfield and tour the museum (Harvest Hosts location)!  There are some notable WWII airplanes, including a B17, P38 Lightning and Corsair, among many others in the hangar – most of them kept in flying condition.  When we were there, the hangar was open and planes were being moved out onto the airfield so one plane could be taken out for flying.  The museum also has a great shop with some really awesome aviation related t-shirts.  There was only one other RV staying overnight so we each had plenty of space in the large lot adjacent to the runway.  After the sun set, air traffic stopped and it was very quiet all night.  We really enjoyed our stay at this historic stop.

The next day we drove only ten minutes to stay on a farm in Culver, Oregon (Boondockers Welcome location).  The area is extremely flat with wide open plains and mountains in the distance.  The owners of the 100-acre working potato farm put us up at the side of their barn and supplied us water and electricity at no charge.  We launched our drone and took some aerial images of the farm which we shared with our hosts (who later requested additional images).  In the wee hours of the next morning it became very cold inside the Scamp; the furnace had stopped because we ran out of propane in tank 1 (it was in the 20’s at night).  Fortunately, a quick flip of the propane tank selector and we were on tank 2 and getting warm air again!  An important point is to never travel on long trips in cold climates without two full propane tanks.  We enjoyed going for a walk in the fields the next morning with one of the owners, Karen, and her dog Zeke.  She told us about what life is like on the potato farm and gave us a tour of her home and garden.  Life on the farm sounds like a lot of hard work!

Our next stop was Train Mountain Railroad Museum in Chiloquin, Oregon (about a 3-hour drive south from Culver, between Crater Lake National Park to the north and Klamath Falls to the south).  This is the largest miniature railroad in the world!  The trains are small, but still can pull carts carrying people!  There are over four miles of tracks that weave through the surrounding pine covered hillsides.  The longest loop takes over four hours round trip!  On top of a fantastic location with a nice outdoor full scale train exhibit (you can go inside most of the trains on your own self-guided tour), Train Mountain has several great campgrounds.  We stayed at the free campground provided to Harvest Hosts members.  Although there are no hookups, we did find a water spigot.  We enjoyed the fun self-guided train tour the afternoon we arrived, the highlight being the mega beast radial snowplow train.  The next morning, we were lucky enough to be offered a free tour ride by a member volunteer.  We spent about half an hour on the train touring some of the park and hearing about how these little trains work and the hobbyists who run them.  This is a must stop for anyone with even a remote interest in trains!

After travelling over two weeks and a couple of thousand miles, this fantastic journey was finally coming to an end.  We made our way through Klamath Falls and then into California.  We could tell we entered California on our 4 ½ hour drive from Chiloquin, Oregon to our next stop in Corning, California when we noticed the price of gas jump over one dollar per gallon!  We stayed in the driveway of someone’s ranch home (Boondockers Welcome location) in the small city of Corning, a farming community with many olive tree farms (known as the Olive City, with an olive festival every Fall).  We had a nice walk down a flat farm road at sunset and a quiet overnight stay.  The next morning we continued to head south for three hours to Oakland and stayed over once again at my sister’s house.  This time we had a nice lunch at one of our favorite eateries, A+ Burger.  Now, with the 31st only a couple of weeks away, many homes in Alameda were spookified for Halloween.  We had a nice evening walk with my sister and nephew viewing some of these scary displays.  The next morning, we headed out early and arrived in Santa Barbara in the afternoon and set up once again in my cousin’s driveway.  We enjoyed vegan Chinese take-out that night with my cousin Jon.  We arrived home early the next day and washed our Scamp 13’ inside and out along with our tow vehicle to be fully prepped for our next upcoming adventure!

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly. 

San Clemente State Beach Campground

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San Clemente State Beach Campground
September 12th– 14th, 2021 (2 nights)

Just an hour drive north from our home in Carlsbad, San Clemente SB Campground sits high on bluffs above the beach.  San Clemente is a small beach community (southernmost city in Orange County) which is located roughly halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles (just north of Camp Pendleton Marine Corps training base).

San Clemente State Beach Campground is very popular, especially in the summer months, but we found it quite easy to get reservations during the week (spots usually open up last minute).  The campground has full hookup along with dry camping sites.  We chose a dry camping site because these sites are more spaced apart (they are also less expensive and easier sites to reserve).  At the time we were there, the central Dump station was available for free.  However, staying just a couple of nights, we didn’t need it or even need to use our Holy Grail Portable Grey Water Tank Solution!  Our site, #122, had shade but also plenty of sunshine for our solar panels to keep our batteries fully charged each day.  There are spectacular ocean views from the hard to reserve sites closer to the edge of the bluffs, but also some smaller ocean views even from sites farther back (like our site).

When we drove into the campground, we noticed lots of white chalk type circles on the ground at each site (similar to a marked crime scene).  We later found out the purpose of these markings when our Scamp kitchen was invaded by ants the next morning!  The ranger told us that the entire campground is basically sitting atop a giant ant hill and they recommend campers purchase diatomaceous earth from the camp host ($10 a bag).  The white powder is supposed to be sprinkled around each tire and any other trailer part that touches the ground.  They said ants won’t cross the powder lines.  We found out the next morning after applying the powder that it doesn’t really work in the short run (as we had ants on the second morning) and witnessed them walking across the powder!

The beach is a short walk down a steep trail.  There is a small tunnel that leads under the railroad tracks onto the sand.  It’s a nice beach, but when the tide is high there isn’t much sand left between the water and the bluffs.  We saw a wave create a water surge that unexpectedly overran one sunbather and her blanket (forcing her to pick up all her belongings and move farther back to the bluff)!  We were seated much closer to the bluffs while flying our new kite, but took that as a warning as a time to head back to the campground!

There’s a really nice beach trail, the San Clemente Beach Trail, that runs parallel to the railroad tracks and goes about 2.3 miles from the campground all the way to the San Clemente Pier and beyond.  People walk, run, and bicycle on the trail while appreciating gorgeous ocean views along the way.  We did it early in the morning and it was very foggy.  We walked all the way out to the end of the San Clemente Pier and couldn’t even see land when we looked back!  There are a lot of nice restaurants and shops in town.  We ended up walking about 6 miles doing a loop from the campground along the San Clemente Beach Trail and then up Avenida Del Mar (past a lot of downtown stores and restaurants) and back via El Camino Real (which runs close to the 5 Freeway).

Another scenic trail is the Sea Summit Trail.  This trail is not too close to the campground, so it’s better to drive and park (we parked in a neighborhood adjacent to one of the trail openings, but there is also parking at the San Clemente Outlet Center).  The trails here are meticulously maintained and more like groomed walking paths than actual nature trails.  The paths are on top of the bluffs and provide stunning views of the ocean (and sunsets).  There are stairs that lead down to the beach.

Overall, we had a great time at San Clemente State Beach Campground.  The campground itself is very pleasant with the dry camping spots nicely spaced out.  There are fantastic views of the ocean and plenty of walking trails to enjoy.  Also, being so close to the sea, there are nice breezes that blow through the campground and keep things cool.  Be prepared for possible ants and remember that this campground is close to Camp Pendleton so it is common to hear booms from artillery units conducting training (we did hear booms until 10:30 p.m. while at the campground).  Spectacular sunsets can be enjoyed from the campground while looking out over the bluffs and watching the sun dip into the sea.  So, if you are in need of a little rest and relaxation and like the idea of being near the ocean and getting fresh air, reserve a spot at San Clemente State Beach Campground (just don’t forget to bring along your ant repellant!).  Itching to go back!

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly. 

Central California  

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Central California  
August 22nd – August 29th, 2021 (7 nights)

This adventure was put together at the last minute after plans for our Mammoth Lakes trip were scrapped due to poor air quality (as a result of summer fires in California).  The locations were chosen based on towns showing good air quality on the AQI air quality map, the amount of time we had available for travel (7 days), and campsite availability.  We also had just purchased new bikes and a bike carrier for our Scamp 13’ and wanted to go places where we would be able to ride.

Santa Barbara
Whenever we head north, we make it a point to stay over a night in Santa Barbara (a 3 ½ hour drive from our home in San Diego).  Not only is it a fantastic location with great scenery and plenty to do, but our cousin Jon lives here and he lets us camp in his driveway!  This trip was a little different though.  When we arrived, we discovered a car in his driveway.  Jon’s son, Melvin, was in Italy and his car keys were nowhere to be found!  What to do with the Scamp?!!!  Fortunately, my cousin’s next door neighbor saw us and realized what had happened.  He generously offered to let us stay on his property (and even provided electric and water hookups)!  Phew!

On this trip, we visited the Old Santa Barbara Mission and walked around downtown Santa Barbara to eat lunch at our favorite Mexican food restaurant, Taco Pipeye.  We also rode our new bikes from my cousin’s house all the way down to the Goleta bike path, past the end of the runway of Santa Barbara airport, and toured UC Santa Barbara!  We also had a great dinner with my vegan cousin Jon and enjoyed his ocean view while we ate on his balcony.  Overall, we had a very enjoyable and busy 24 hours in Santa Barbara.

Pismo Beach
Just about an hour and a half north of Santa Barbara lies Pismo Beach.  Campsites in this beautiful beach town are very difficult to get.  However, we got lucky and two of the best possible sites at Pismo State Beach North Beach Campground just happened to show available when I was looking (likely last minute cancellations)!   In order to stay 3 nights though, we had to move from site #27 after the first night to site #29 for the remaining 2 nights.  Both of these sites are premium sites and right next to each other and directly in front of the beach.  The only downside with splitting the reservation is paying the reservation fee ($7.99) twice and being required to completely leave the campground between Noon to 2 p.m. the day the next reservation begins (for campsite maintenance).  “Rules are rules” is what we were told by one of the camp hosts!  So, we packed up after our first night and headed to a nearby horse lot where we ate lunch before returning to check in for our second campsite at 2 p.m.  On our way back to the campground, one of our tail lights on our Scamp 13’ blew out (our tow vehicle gave a warning on the dashboard showing short circuit).  Fortunately, there are two fully equipped RV supply stores right across the street from the campground and had the bulb we needed for less than 3 dollars a pair!

Pismo State Beach North Beach Campground is fantastic.  The campsites are very spread out and the beach is just over a little hill adjacent to the campground.  There are no hookups, but there are water spigots and a central dump ($10 at this time).  We had no problem staying 3 nights (even with the two of us taking a shower each night) by using our solar panel briefcase to recharge our batteries during the day and our “Holy Grail Portable Grey Water Tank Solution” to drain our Grey water tank after a couple of days.  The beach in front of the campground is very wide and beautiful with a glorious view north of the Pismo pier.  There are some nice walking paths that are on the perimeter of the campground.  One goes south above the beach toward Oceano.  Another leads into the Pismo Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove.  This site hosts over 10,000 butterflies annually.  The Monarch Butterflies flock to Pismo Beach from late October through February, seeking shelter from freezing northern winters.  The butterflies cluster in the limbs of the large Eucalyptus trees that tower over the grove.  Although we saw Monarch butterflies on this trip, we did not see even one at the Grove (not the right time of year)!

Walking over the sand dunes from the campground onto the beach and taking long walks is a favorite activity for many campers here.  We enjoyed walking the sand from the campground to the pier and strolling out to the end of the pier.  Exploring  the town of Pismo Beach is also entertaining. There are a lot of shops and restaurants and plenty to see.   For example, we enjoyed perusing the toys and kites at “The Sky’s The Limit” on Dolliver Street.

Bringing bikes to North Beach Campground is definitely recommended.  We had a blast riding our mountain bikes up the coast along streets, bike paths, and dirt trails.  We pedaled almost all the way to Avila Beach (stopping right before the steep drop into town) – about 8 ½ miles each way.  We used Google Maps for directions and selected “Walking” so we would be off the main roads whenever possible.  Every day, we enjoyed cool ocean breezes and sounds of the waves from inside our Scamp 13’ so much that it was hard to leave after just a few nights.  We met one nice couple in an Airstream that reserves a spot here every summer for 2 weeks at a time as an affordable family yearly gathering spot!

Solvang
After using the central Dump on our way out of the Pismo Beach North Beach Campground, we drove about an hour south and inland to the quaint Danish town of Solvang.  We stayed at a Boondockers Welcome location, a home just a couple of miles from the center of town.  Our host location was part of a parcel that was once a large farm.  We stayed in their large driveway and the hosts provided us electricity and water ($5/night).  Our hosts were very friendly and gave us fruits and vegetables from their farm as well as shared bicycling tips for good routes throughout this wine country.  The only noise we heard in the evenings was the loud chirping of crickets!

The days were hot (90 degrees) but the mornings and evenings cooled down considerably (high 50’s).  We rode bikes in the early morning and late afternoon and relaxed during the day to avoid the heat.  The quiet country back roads of the Santa Ynez Valley are magical and we cycled passed beautiful vineyards and farms.  If you are in this area, we recommend these neighborhood streets to bike on:  Calzada, Samantha, Robler, and Baseline, with the winery called Bridlewood being the caketopper highlight (on Baseline).  We also had a chance to explore the Danish town of Solvang with its Old Mission Santa Ines and Danish shops and bakeries.  After a couple of nights and days of exploring, we bid our generous hosts goodbye and headed toward the ocean again.

Oxnard
Our last stop before heading home was to see our friends Cheryl and Hugh.  They were scheduled, with us, to go to Mammoth Lakes / Silver Lake before that trip was cancelled.  Instead, they invited us to stay in their driveway at their home near the beach in Oxnard (about 1 ½ hours south of Solvang).  The temperature really dropped as we drove up and over the mountains down to the coast.  The searing heat was replaced with cool foggy air – a welcome relief from the hot temperatures of the Santa Ynez Valley.  Our Scamp 13’ easily fit at the side of our friends’ driveway along with our tow vehicle.  They even have a Dump port in their driveway which we used to dump our Grey water!  Oxnard is a beach community with a harbor with shops and restaurants.  Cheryl and Hugh live only a short walk from the sand.

Our friends Cheryl & Hugh are super generous and treated us like royalty.  They fed us a great lunch, took us on a tour of downtown Oxnard on their new golf cart (with the Beach Boys music cranking on the stereo), and later treated us to a fantastic seafood restaurant dinner!  And, Cheryl made her famous gluten free Lava Cake (dark chocolate cake with molten chocolate oozing everywhere) for dessert back at home (of course there was vanilla ice cream on the side)!  To top it all off, they even gifted us plates with images of camper trailers on them for our Scamp 13’!  We are always blown away by their hospitality.  We had a fantastic visit with Cheryl & Hugh.  And, we also thoroughly enjoyed playing with their Havanese dogs, Avatar & Gidget.  On our way out the next morning, Hugh made sure we took a couple of King Salmon filets that he caught on his recent trip to Alaska (which we ate a couple of days later and were delicious)!  We drove back to our home in San Diego (3 hour drive) early enough to get our Scamp cleaned up and ready for our next trip!

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly. 

Lassen Volcanic National Park (with lots of fun stops)

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Lassen Volcanic National Park (with lots of fun stops)
July 3rd – July 14th, 2021 (11 nights)

This was one of those epic Northern California summer adventures with the highlight being a stay at an otherworldly campground high up in the mountains surround by volcanoes and set on a beautiful lake.  Throw in some underground lava tube exploration and geothermal boiling sulfur pools and this trip is a recipe for a lot of fun!  And, best of all, it’s only about four hours north of San Francisco, right here in the United States!

Whenever heading north, our first stop is usually Santa Barbara to visit my cousin Jon and family.  The ride from our home in San Diego is usually about 4 hours.  But, on this strip, since it was the start of 4th of July weekend and a Saturday morning, we decided to leave really early to beat traffic.  We left at 5:30 a.m. and arrived in Santa Barbara at 9 a.m. making record time (3.5 hours)!  It seems not many people are on the roads this early!  We had a great day with my cousin Melvin and even tried an excellent Mexican restaurant called Tacos Pipeye which serves fantastic tacos, mole chicken, and enchiladas, for a very reasonable price!  We missed my cousin Jon and his wife Ida on this stop as they were on a Tesla drive trip out to Santa Fe, New Mexico, but we would see them at the end of the trip on our final stopover.

We usually break up the drive from Santa Barbara to Oakland with a middle stop in between (following our rule of driving no more than 4 hours per day), but since we wanted to experience 4th of July at my sister’s home in Oakland this year, we did the trip straight with just short breaks for gas.    We arrived in Oakland at around 12:30 p.m. (after a 6 hour drive) and used wood boards to raise the rear of our tow vehicle so that our hitch cleared the driveway transition, allowing us to get our Scamp tucked away in the narrow side yard space between my sister’s home and the bordering neighbor’s fence.  Since it was expected to be a very rowdy 4th at night, we felt like it would be safer in the driveway than sleeping on the street.  And, East Oakland did not disappoint – the mostly illegal fireworks started even before sundown and exploded all night long!  People were out on the street right in front of my sister’s home exploding firecrackers and igniting other illegal fireworks, so we were glad we weren’t sleeping in our Scamp out there this trip. Thankfully, with our ear plugs, white noise app, and the Scamp’s insulation, we were able to sleep soundly!  We had a great time with our family in Oakland, including a nice walk on Alameda Island the next day.

We met our San Diego friends Alexis, Chris, and Ben at Anthony Chabot Campground on Sunday (only a 30 minute drive from my sister’s house).  They rented a camper van and we arranged to have two adjacent campsites (#11 and #12) at this really woodsy campground overlooking Lake Chabot in East Oakland.  Although the campground is very close to Oakland, it feels very remote (a 20 minute windy road entrance).  Many sites are full hookup and under tall trees.  There are nice trails for walking and bike riding, including some that go down to the lake.  There is no swimming in this lake due to algae.  We had fun with our friends, went on a hike down to the lake, and even had some s’mores by the fire!  The next morning I was surrounded by a big group (rafter) of wild turkeys while I was writing my travel log at the picnic table!  They didn’t mind my presence and were just intent on looking for food on the ground.

We left for Russian Gulch State Park the next morning, a campground along the Mendocino coast about four hours north of San Francisco.  On the way, we stopped at the picturesque town of Healdsburg (just north of Santa Rosa in Northern Sonoma County) and had lunch in our Scamp.  We spent a little time walking around the charming town center and window browsing the quaint shops.  When we arrived at Russian Gulch State Park later in the day, we found our site #17 in an empty meadow, as it turned out the surrounding sites in the same meadow were closed during our visit.  There are no hookups at this campground, but there are water spigots close to each site.  There are great hiking trails here and we hiked the North Trail and Water Fall Loop Trail in the morning (which took us 3 hours for the 8 mile hike).  The trail goes through redwoods and fern forests and features a small waterfall.  In the afternoon, we walked the less rigorous Headland’s Trail (along the bluffs with spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean) to view the Devil’s Punchbowl.  This is a 100-foot by 60-foot sinkhole basin created when a tunnel penetrating inland from the ocean collapsed.  When the tide is high, the sinkhole becomes an explosive cauldron of sea water.  Although our friends Alexis and her family couldn’t get a spot at Russian Gulch State Park, they did find accommodation at nearby Caspar Beach RV Park (just a few minutes’ drive from our campground).  We enjoyed s’mores and hot dogs (and steak) with them (in that order)!  They are great chefs and provide fun company!  The next day we explored the coast including walking the quaint seaside town of Mendocino village, where I purchased a “Been Squatchin” tshirt (Big Foot / Sasquatch is a local legend in this area).  We did not spot Sasquatch on this trip though.  Note:  we had no HD TV or cell phone service down at the Russian Gulch SP campsite.  Instead, just a short drive up the hill to the parking spots next to the Ranger entrance booth provided cellphone service.

After a couple nights and fun times at Russian Gulch State Park, we left for Lassen Volcanic National Park (a 5 ½ hour drive:  7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.).  I find if we leave early in the morning on long drives and still arrive early, then it doesn’t feel like we’ve spent the entire day driving.  There were a lot of curves and climbs driving from the coast, crossing the mountains, descending into the Central Valley (Redding), and then ascending again into the mountains to get to Lassen.  Lassen Volcanic National Park is at over 6,000 feet above sea level.  We stayed at Manzanita Lake campground which is right on a scenic lake with volcanoes in the background (including Lassen Peak).  The first thing we did on arrival was dump ($8 honor system) because we had just stayed at Russian Gulch State Park without any dump station there.  The dump station is right before getting to the entrance to the campground and was empty whenever we passed by.  The weather was warm (in the 80’s).  After we first arrived and had lunch, we went to a ranger talk close to the Loomis Museum (at the entrance to the park).  Our site (#A17) was completely shaded with very limited sunshine (which helped tame the heat).  This meant that we needed to move around our solar panels during the day to maximize our charging.  We left the solar panels out overnight and did not have any issues with them being disturbed (or getting wet since the air was very dry).  The spots are nicely spaced out, and although the campground was full, everyone seemed to have a good amount of room around their own campsite.  We had to drive up the road about a mile to Mile Marker #14 in order to get a cell signal (there is a turn out with usually a few cars parked making calls).

There is a little trail to the lake from the campground and a nice walking path that goes all the way around its circumference.  It takes about an hour to walk the full lake loop, which is a nice easy flat walk along the water.  People were swimming, kayaking, and fishing on the lake and everyone seemed to be having a great time.  We weren’t able to bring our inflatable kayak on this trip as our tow vehicle was full due to having to haul items up to Oakland for my sister.  Although it was warm during the day, the nights were cool (60’s) and sleeping in the Scamp was very comfortable.  We enjoyed watching movies at night (see article “How to Watch Movies in the Wild”).  Our “Holy Grail Portable Grey Water Tank Solution” saved us a lot of hassle and money during our three days at Lassen.  Instead of having to completely decamp in the middle of our trip and drive the Scamp over to the Dump and spend and then set up our Scamp again at the campsite, we stayed put by using our portable jugs and dumped them along with our regular Black and Grey water on our way out of the park!

One relaxing and really fun thing to do at Lassen is to drive the 30 mile Northern – Southern route to the other end of the park, stopping along the way at various mile markers which have different scenic activities (it’s about an hour without stops each way, so allow at least several hours and take your time).  It’s recommended to download the NPS (National Park Service) app at the Google Play store for free before you go and also download Lassen Volcanic National Park from within the NPS app into your phone so you won’t need an internet connection to access all the park information.  It’s also a good idea to download audio files you can play on your phone about the park here.

There is a reasonably priced gas pump at the campground store (Regular Unleaded only), so it’s best to fuel up before taking the Northern – Southern route drive since there are no other gas stations anywhere close by.  Along the way you can see Choas Crags (an area with volcanoes and rocks covering the ground due to a volcanic eruption 1100 years ago), the Sulphur Works (hydrothermal pit of bubbling stinky mud), various lakes, great views, …..  We spent a little time at the visitors center at the South side of the park relaxing before heading back (there are refreshments and food for sale inside the center).  Another fun activity which doesn’t take too long is to drive to Subway Cave Lava Tubes (just about 20 minutes outside the campground).  It was 102 degrees when we arrived at this lava tube but, after walking down the stairs into the cave, we experienced very cool temperatures (the temperature inside the cave remains a constant 46 degrees year round!).  The night before leaving for our next campground, we hiked around Manzanita Lake under no moon to take some Milky Way images!  It was pitch dark and we wore headlamps.  We saw deer and some other night creatures along the lake trail!  We were rewarded by a stunning Milky Way which rose above Lassen Peak and Manzanita Lake at around 10 p.m.!  We dumped (including 3 Grey containers) before leaving early in the morning for Oakland.

After a four hour drive to Oakland, we reached my sister’s house around lunch time.  We decided to set up the Scamp in the driveway again since it worked out so well on the 4th of July.  After lunch we took a long walk along Alameda Island beach (watching some kite surfers) and then had A+ Burgers for dinner at my cousin Rebecca’s house in Oakland.  We also played some card games and Qwirkle with our family before leaving for Washburn Campground in San Simeon the next morning.

Washburn Campground is about a four hour drive from Oakland and is located in the San Simeon / Cambria area on the coast.  It is a “primitive” campground (only $20/night + $8 reservation fee), although there are water spigots here.  For us, since our Scamp has a bathroom and we have solar panels, the type of campground really doesn’t matter too much if we are only staying two to three days.  In any case, we filled up our Fresh tank at my sister’s house in Oakland before we left.  We had site #W264 which had plenty of sun for our solar panels!  The sites are well separated and the area did not seem crowded.  The campground is high up on a hill with a nice view of the mountains and ocean below.  We walked down to the beach from our campsite along the road and it’s only about a mile each way.  There are also trails but signs warned of ticks with Lyme disease and recent mountain lion sightings so we stayed on the road.  The campground area was overrun with “cute” ground squirrels and they were not very shy.  Some even jumped up into the undercarriage of parked tow vehicles (not sure what they were doing under there).  We made sure to keep our Scamp door shut so as not to discover any unwanted guests inside.  Our San Diego friends were camping in the adjacent campsite (San Simeon Creek Campground) and we met them there in the evening for some excellent chicken burritos and salad!  Washburn Campground / San Simeon Creek Campground has a Dump Station at the entrance and the charge is $10.  Since our Grey tank was only 50% when leaving and we only had one more night left on our trip (and we also had our Holy Grey solution just in case), we skipped it and saved the money.

Our final drive before heading home to San Diego was back to my cousin Jon and Melvin’s house in Santa Barbara.  After the three hour drive, we decided to go to Tacos Pipeye again with our cousin Melvin since we enjoyed it so much at the start of our trip!  Once again, it did not disappoint!  We also had a nice walk through downtown Santa Barbara before and after lunch.  My vegan cousin Jon and his wife Ida were back from Santa Fe and treated us to a wonderful homemade dinner (risotto and Beyond Meat burgers) that night.  And, we also got to see our cousin Carolina.  The next morning we drove back to our home in San Diego (4 hour drive) and arrived early enough to get our Scamp cleaned up and ready for our next trip!

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly. 

Yosemite National Park

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Yosemite National Park
May 10th – May 16th, 2021 (6 nights)

Yosemite is a must see National Park mainly because of its abundance of scenic beauty.  Waterfalls, huge granite sheer mountain walls, wildlife, and a beautiful valley with meadows and countless hiking and biking trails add to the immense wonder of the park.  If you can reserve a spot at one of the campgrounds in Yosemite, consider yourself very lucky as these spots are extremely difficult to get.  For tips on getting a spot, see my previous article “Winning Yosemite’s Campground Reservations Online Lottery”.

The drive from Carlsbad, California to Upper Falls Campground in Yosemite takes between 7 and 8 hours.  To make the drive easier, we decided to stop midway both on the drive up and way back home.  We stayed at two Boondockers Welcome locations, so the overnight stays didn’t cost us anything (other than the $50 annual subscription fee).  We stayed in the driveway of a nice home in Visalia going to Yosemite and at a miniature donkey farm in Bakersfield on the way home (this was our 2nd visit!).  Using this subscription is a great way to make trips easier and get some interesting experiences!

Yosemite has several campgrounds and we chose to stay at Upper Pines.  This is a fantastic campground nestled within the pines and having a sheer granite wall towering high overhead.  There are 240 campsites at Upper Pines and each has a picnic table, food locker and fire pit.  Although there are no hookups, there are bathrooms and access to drinking water from central spigots.  There is also a Dump Station at the entrance to Upper Pines campground.  We found the Dump Station to be completely empty throughout the day.  It gets busier around midday when people are checking in.  Although the campground has a lot of shade, there was enough sunlight at our site #126 to keep our solar panels out and charging our Scamp battery.  Site #126 was rated for a travel trailer with maximum length of 12 feet.  It is the responsibility of the camper to ensure that both the travel trailer and tow vehicle fit on the campsite pad and do not stick out onto the roadway.  With our Scamp 13’ and our Volvo XC40 (around 14’) we were still able to just fit by angling our tow vehicle slightly to keep the nose off the road.  A longer tow vehicle or trailer might have a problem in this short campsite.  So, it’s important to read the campsite description before reserving to make sure your setup will fit!

We made sure to use the Dump Station on entry to Upper Pines campground (which also includes a fresh water filling area) so our Scamp 13’ was completely dumped as well as filled with fresh water.  Fortunately, we carried our Holy Grail Portable Grey Water Tank Solution with us so we did not need to move our Scamp 13’ the entire 4 days at the campground!  On the morning of the 3rd day, I filled our 4 five gallon grey water tank jugs and drove them to the Dump Station and poured them out there.  We didn’t have an issue with our Black tank as it can generally go for about 6-7 days with two people.  Our electrical needs were taken care of by using our solar panel briefcase each day.

For just $26 per day, staying in Upper Pines Campground is a fantastic bargain!  It’s an easy walk or bike ride to sites throughout the Yosemite Valley, including Curry Village, the general store, Cook’s Meadow Loop, and Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls.  And, a lot of great trails, like the Lower Yosemite Fall Trail, Cook’s Meadow Loop, Mirror Lake Loop, Valley Loop Trail, Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall Trails, Mist Trail, John Muir Trail, and Yosemite Falls Trail are all easily accessible from Upper Pines Campground.  We chose to walk throughout the valley, but bike rentals are also available.  Alternatively, for a nice hotel within the park, plan a stay at The Ahwahnee hotel and expect to pay over $500/night!

The campground was very quiet but populated.  We had the opportunity of meeting a nice retired couple travelling in a van from Maryland (tent campers).  They invited us to dinner at their campsite one night (great salmon and rice dish) and we cooked them pasta on another night.  They are on a four month trip across the country visiting National Parks.   We were fortunate with the weather and crowds.  Every day was clear and sunny and afternoons were warm but not too hot.  We experienced dramatic starry nights and enjoyed watching the climbers’ lights as they scaled the faces of some very high vertical walls in pure darkness.  Our days were filled with long walks throughout Yosemite Valley and early morning hikes.  Our favorite hike was up to Vernal Falls – the most interesting part is a steep stone staircase that goes up to the top of the falls.  A rainbow forms across the stairs due to the heavy mist created by the water fall.  We ventured out to Yosemite Valley almost every night to enjoy the stars and engage in astrophotography.

Our four nights at Upper Pines Campground went by very quickly.  Yosemite is a great place to get outdoors and also relax.  There’s hiking, horseback riding, fishing, biking, boating, climbing, and countless other activities in which to engage.  We did speak to one of the rangers and he advised us that it does get like Disneyland in the summer with serious crowding.  So, if you can arrange it, go in early to mid-May because the weather should be good (although can be unpredictable), the water falls are generally raging, and it’s most likely going to be less crowded than during the summer months.  Yosemite National Park gets 5 stars!

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly. 

Pinnacles National Park (With Fun Stops)

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Pinnacles National Park
March 6th – March 14, 2021

Although Pinnacles National Park is one of the newer national parks (established in 2013), it was actually declared a national monument in 1908 by President Roosevelt.  It’s not as famous as and much easier to get reservations at than the most popular national parks, but offers some very compelling reasons to visit.  Located in Central California, this adventure is an easy reach from San Diego and allowed us some additional fun stops along the way.  Our stops included Santa Barbara, Pinnacles National Park, Pfieffer Big Sur State Park, Oceano Campground (Pismo Beach), and a final stop in Santa Barbara on the way home. We search for openings at national and state parks because the sites are often spread out and tend to be economical.  When planning our stay overs, we also consider our needs for dumping, water replenishment, and electricity demand.  We generally need to dump every few days, but can usually find dump stations at gas stations if they are not available at campsites (which they often are in at least a centralized dump station at the campground).  On this trip we were able to test my new portable grey water holding tank solution (stay tuned for a future article!) to double our dry camping days (from 3 up to 6 days) and did not have to use a gas station dumping area.

Coming from San Diego, both Central and Northern California are a bit too long of a drive for a nonstop trip.  Since we like to follow our 4-hour rule (driving no more than this amount of time), we generally plan a stop in Santa Barbara when heading to these northern locations.  Santa Barbara is about a 3 ½ hour drive from our home and my cousin Jon lets us stay in his driveway (and hookup to water and electricity).  On this trip we stayed on a Saturday night (both on the way up and on the way back) and were treated to two fabulous BBQ fish dinners (grilled Salmon and guacamole and chips) with all my cousins.  We also had time to explore the area of the Old Mission Santa Barbara and do some hiking in Tuckers Grove Park.  It’s always great to be able to combine a Scamp adventure with a family visit.  We really enjoy our cousins’ company and their driveway is in a very quiet neighborhood and very peaceful for sleeping in the Scamp.  Additionally, the property is surrounded by heavenly tasting oranges which provide a great, seemingly endless treat.

The easy drive from Santa Barbara to Pinnacles National Park took about 3 ½ hours.  If you go, make sure to refuel your tow vehicle right when you leave the freeway (in our case the town of King City) because there is no fuel once you head inland to the park.  Also, there are two entrances to the park and if you are staying at the campground you must use the EAST Entrance.  This is very important as there is no campground access from the West side and the two entrances are very far from each other (over an hour’s drive).  The ranger station at the East gate entrance was unoccupied when we arrived and we simply drove directly to our site (#69).  I chose this site because it is far away from the other sites and, as it turned out, is a fantastic campsite being extremely private and quiet (and very dark at night).  Site #69 doesn’t have hookups like sites at the busier RV area close to the park entrance, but the solitude more than compensates for this.  Additionally, we only were staying two nights so hookups weren’t necessary.  There is a water spigot close by the campsite and a central dump station at the park entrance.  We arrived with a super full battery charge of 12.9 volts (charged while driving), full Fresh tank, 50% Grey tank, and 25% Black tank.  We put our solar panels out in the sun and our Scamp’s voltage shot up to 14.1 volts and kept that up as it charged the Scamp’s battery.  We had a nice lunch after arriving and then walked around the campground.  There is a small campground store which offers some souvenirs and camping supplies.  There is also WiFi near the store ($10/wk, $7/day, or $3/hr).  We couldn’t get cell service or HDTV signals at the campground but the WiFi allowed us to send messages and make phone calls over Verizon service.  There are some benches near the store where it’s possible to sit and watch for Condors and make calls, text, and browse the internet.

Pinnacles National Park is home to the California condor and also the impressive Pinnacles rocks on the high peaks.  Pinnacles was formed by an ancient volcanic eruption.  The area sits along the San Andreas Fault and, as a result, has unusual rock formations.  There were wild turkeys in the campground when we were there and they provided some amusement with their funny noises and colorful fanfare.  The skies at the park can be very dark at night (we planned our trip during a New Moon so it would be especially dark) and provide fabulous opportunities for star gazing.

After having a very pleasant night’s sleep, we headed out early for a long hike on Condor Gulch Trail to see the famous high peaks.  This hike is moderately strenuous and a long hike from the campground but can be shortened significantly by driving directly to the trailhead entrance at the Bear Gulch Nature Center parking area.  On the hike, we saw quail, deer, turkeys, vultures, squirrels, and the Pinnacles Rock Formations.  It’s worth noting that you cannot see the Pinnacles rock formations from within the campground.  So, it’s really important to get out and see the Pinnacles.  The absolutely easiest way to do it is just to walk toward Condor Gulch Trail at the bottom of the campground and take the short walk to the viewing area (a bench that looks up at the Pinnacles).  After our 4 hour hike (about 10 miles round trip), we were ready to relax a bit.   We had a nice lunch and strolled around the campground and went to the condor observation bench and watched the vultures (we didn’t see any condors on this trip).  We were treated to a spectacular starry night and we spent some time seated outside our Scamp looking up and taking pictures.  We saw plenty of satellites overhead and even an incredible meteor race across the sky (seemingly for seconds as we had to rotate our heads to continue to watch it until it fizzled out).  The next morning we used the central dump station near the park entrance to dump before heading out to Big Sur.

Big Sur is only a couple of hours drive from Pinnacles and a great location for spectacular ocean scenery and viewing the redwoods.  We arrived at Pfeiffer Big Sur Campground around noon (although check in is at 2 p.m.).  Fortunately, the ranger let us in early and we were able to set up at our meadow site #77 and have lunch.  There is a water spigot next to site #77 and the central dump station is at the other end of the campground.  There are no electric hookups at this park.  There is almost no cell phone service unless you hike up to either Buzzards Roost or Valley View trails.  Alternatively, one can drive a mile or so South to the Big Sure Taphouse restaurant up the hill and get free WiFi.  We wandered after lunch and enjoyed walking through the redwood forest which sits between two sections of the campground.  We also purchased some t-shirts and souvenirs at the Big Sur Lodge (walking distance from the campground).  Wild turkeys blocked our way on one of the nature paths and we chose an alternative route.  They can get a bit feisty and chase you if you get too close (we don’t know what happens if they catch you though).  The next morning we had pancakes for breakfast in the Scamp and hiked up to Buzzards Roost (moderately strenuous mountain hike up switchbacks to top of mountain peak – 5 miles round trip).  There are some nice sweeping ocean views at the top.  We had a wild hail storm at night!  The campground was very quiet and we were the only ones camping in our meadow area.  We also hiked the Valley View Trail (2 miles RT) on one day which provided some nice ocean views at the top (and cell service).  We enjoyed watching movies at night (downloaded from Netflix and using the Jackery 500 to supply power to the TV).  On the morning we left, three deer grazed right outside our Scamp’s windows!  We dumped on our way out and headed to Pismo Beach.  Because the coast highway was shut down South due to rock slides, we had to double back North and cut across inland farm country to reach the 101 and then continue South to Pismo (about a three hour drive).

Oceano Campground is a bright and open campground right next to the Oceano Dunes beach.  The hookup site area (right at the campground entrance) offers sites close together and not nearly as nice and spread out as the non-hookup area.  We chose site #46 in the non-hookup area which is fantastic and has a trail right next to it leading to the lagoon and beach!  There is a water spigot right next to the site with a picnic table and fire pit.  We used our solar panels to generate all the electricity we needed and didn’t need to dump as we took care of that at Pfieffer Big Sur Campground the morning we departed.  There isn’t a dump station at this campground, but there is one a few miles away at the North campground.  There is plenty of cell phone coverage here as well as HDTV channels to tune into.  We enjoyed walking the lagoon trails and along the beach.  Oceano Dunes is the only beach in California where cars are allowed and we did see a number of dune buggies and ATVs driving out to the sand dunes for recreation.  Our friends Jim and Betsy live nearby and came out and shared a great Mexican meal with us at our picnic table!  We later walked along the lagoon path.  Pismo Beach and its surrounding communities (like Oceano) are beautiful quaint beach towns and we had a great time during our visit here.  I expect we will come back to this campground again in the future and stay a number of nights as there is so much to do (such as ATV rentals to ride up and down the sand dunes – when they reopen after Covid).

We really enjoyed this trip, mostly for its diversity (which included animals, plants, mountains, and the ocean).  Seeing the ancient volcanic geography and dark starry skies at Pinnacles was amazing.  And, experiencing the awesomeness of the giant redwoods and a crazy hail storm at Pfieffer Big Sur campground (as well as seeing wild turkeys and the spectacular coastline of Big Sur) was inspiring.  Visiting the laid back beach cities of Santa Barbara and Pismo Beach was also pretty incredible.  In addition to all this, we were able to successfully test a new portable grey water tank holding system (look for an article on this in the near future) and had a couple of misadventures! The door key twisted off inside the Scamp lock on day one of the trip (fortunately, we were able to continue our trips, albeit with the front door left unlocked for the remaining 8 days!).  A new electronic replacement lock will be the subject of a future article!  And our Maxx fan stopped working (although we called Scamp and the fix was simply resetting the fuse).  For all the adventures and misadventures, just getting out in nature every so often is definitely worth it as a great way to recharge (and this trip provided plenty of that!).  Highly recommended adventure!

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly. 

Wonder Valley (Twenty Nine Palms)

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Wonder Valley (Twenty Nine Palms)
December 12th – 14th, 2020

About a 3-hour drive from San Diego and close to Palm Springs, Wonder Valley is a desert oasis in Twenty Nine Palms, California boasting wide open views and dark skies filled with billions of stars.  It’s located very close to Joshua Tree National Park, which borders the Colorado and Mojave deserts.  The main features of the park are the magnificent Joshua Trees which stand over 20 feet tall and the massive boulder formations which take many shapes.  This is one of the few, if only, places Joshua Trees are found (some say they are also found in Jerusalem).

Although the overnight campgrounds were closed at the time of our visit due to the mandatory pandemic California shut down, the park was still open for day use.  We really wanted to go not only to see Joshua Tree National Park for the first time, but also to witness the peak of the Gemenid meteor showers.  Fortunately, there is a Boondockers Welcome location very close to the park entrance in Wonder Valley and the owner was very nice in accommodating us for a couple of nights!  The boondocking campsite we stayed at is a very large flat paved 2 acre area butting up to the desert.  There was one other travel trailer on this site when we arrived, but the area is large enough to fit 10 rigs, so we had plenty of space!

When we arrived it was very windy, but still clear and sunny.  We were careful to position our Scamp 13’ small travel trailer directly into the wind to minimize buffeting of the trailer.  The wind was very strong, but just blew right over us from the front of the trailer and we didn’t feel or hear much of it.  Since there are no hookups at this location, we made sure to fully charge our Scamp’s batteries the day before leaving, fill our Scamp’s freshwater tank with 12 gallons of fresh water and the hot water heater with 6 gallons of fresh water, bring one full 4 gallon jug of drinking water and 2 x 6 gallon water jugs to refill our freshwater tank, bring our Jackery 500 auxiliary power bank, as well as pack our refrigerator and storage box with enough food for a few days.  We found out later there is a free water spigot to supply campers’ water jugs at the Visitor’s Center at the entrance of the park on Utah Trail road.  We also made sure to bring our solar panels since we would need a little help from the sun to keep our Scamp 13’ batteries charged.

We had a nice late lunch in the Scamp after arriving (some pasta cooked up on the stove) and decided to check out the Visitor’s Center.  We found some really cool Joshua Tree t-shirts and spoke to some park rangers a bit.  They told us the park would be closed from 10 p.m. – 5 a.m. in honor of the coronavirus curfew now in effect.  Darkness falls early in December in the desert and we decided to wait until the next day (Sunday) to go into the park.  It was very cold and windy in the evening (early 30’s at night), so we decided to watch a movie hoping the wind would settle (see how to watch movies in the wild).  Our Scamp furnace kept us nice and toasty.  The wind did quiet eventually and we were able to see some meteors!  The sky at night here is very dark and the stars sparkle!  The location feels very remote.

The next morning we took a little walk around our campsite in the desert.  There are many interesting dilapidated shacks that dot the landscape – our Boondockers Welcome host explained to us that they are the byproduct of the Small Tract Act of 1938, a federal homestead act that deeded mostly 5-acre plots of land to distribute 457,000 acres of desert that the Bureau of Land Management deemed useless (the act was repealed in 1979).  Under the guidelines, homesteaders were granted the land if they built homes no smaller than 12 x 16 feet (192 square feet).  Most of these structures are tiny, currently in terrible condition, and many still have original old furnishings – we saw one with an old oven and a tea kettle still on the stove!  However, some of these shacks have been renovated and we also saw the new construction of a mini-home (supposedly by a man from Texas building his “dream” home)!

After a decadent pancake breakfast in our Scamp, we headed back to the Visitor’s Center to purchase an America the Beautiful Annual Pass ($80) which allows unlimited entry into National Parks for a year as well as other government lands.  We are planning on going to Death Valley National Park, Pinnacles National Park, Lassen Volcanic National Park, as well as other National Parks this year, so having the pass will save a lot on entrance fees (currently $30 per car at Joshua Tree National Park).  Driving into the park was easy and there are places to stop along the roads.  Based on the time of year and the strict pandemic orders, there were hardly any visitors during our trip.  There are a lot of very interesting trails, plants (including Joshua Trees), and rock formations to keep one busy for days.  We saw Skull Rock which looks like it sounds and completed an easy 2 mile hike to Split Rock.  We really didn’t have enough time to see everything and, in turn, we plan to come back in April with friends and will stay inside the park at Jumbo Rocks campground. Joshua Tree National Park is definitely a must visit if only to see the curiously interesting and one-of-a-kind Joshua trees!

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly.