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Snowman9000's avatar
Snowman9000
Explorer
May 24, 2017

CG Pics, 8 weeks no reservations, IL-AZ/UT/CO/NM-IL

I know I always get a kick out of trip reports, especially if they are more pictures than words. We are doing a trip in summer with no advance reservations. So far so good, I hope I don't jinx it now.

May 4: Wal-Mart parking lot, Cameron MO. There was some kind of city or county CG down the road, but we decided to do our first Wallydocking. It went fine. Cost $0

May 5: Kingman State Fishing Lake campground in Kingman, KS. It’s a nice place to spend the night, and just off the road. Cost $0


May 6: Ute State Park, Logan, NM. W/E hookups. Cost $14. Sorry, no photo.

May 7: Had to detour a bit to stop at an RV dealership. Albuquerque Central KOA. Cost $55 with tax. We wondered what a budget hotel room would have been, lol. No photo.
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  • Snowman9000's avatar
    Snowman9000
    Explorer
    May 27, 2017
    May 25-26: Zion NP Watchman CG. You won't believe this. On the first afternoon in Kanab, while sitting in the lawn chair using my phone to search for Zion CG info, I clicked on the Watchman page to see if it was fcfs or reservervation only. There was an Availability button. I pressed it and there is an electric site for the two days. You betcha!!!

    Cost $30 x 2. No discount for America The Beautiful pass, but it would have been for the geezer pass. Dunno why, but I can't complain. We had two nice days at Zion. Site B034, which could easily hold a 45 foot DP and toad. Elevation 3910. Pics from in front of and behind campsite below. The Watchman is the towering rock behind our site.

    (Small file size pics, let's see...)



  • Snowman9000's avatar
    Snowman9000
    Explorer
    May 27, 2017
    May 23 & 24, RV Corral, Kanab, Utah. Elevation 4970. Nice park, and we needed a laundry stop. All I have is a campsite pic, which is a slight to Kanab. It's a very nice, pretty little town in the middle of nowhere, but at the same time in the crossroads between Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce. Several Westerns were filmed here.

    Cost $40 x 2 nights. It appeared we got the last site. Reserved it the night before. We are living right.

  • Snowman9000's avatar
    Snowman9000
    Explorer
    May 26, 2017
    May 21 & 22: Grand Canyon National Park, South Rim. They have one first come first serve CG in the park. A guide book said it fills up by 1 or 2 PM. We got there at 12:30, it's full. Host says if we come back tomorrow between 8-10, we will get in. We tour that (east) end of the park and then exit the main (south) gate. Following advice from this forum, we go find a nice spot on Kaibab Forest Road 302.
    Cost $0. It was a fine spot, 5 minutes from the NP entrance; we went back for the second night. GPS 35.96419,-112.108658

    campsite photos:




    Obligatory GCNP photo:

  • Snowman9000's avatar
    Snowman9000
    Explorer
    May 26, 2017
    May 19 & 20: Dead Horse Ranch SP, Cottonwood, AZ. We were going to go straight to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon NP, but the forecast for the weekend was quite cold. So we decided to stay enroute in Cottonwood, which is a lower elevation and warmer. We got to the SP by mid-morning. The first woman said they were full, but the second said something to her, told us to pull ahead and come on in. They had one site, and we got it. Otherwise we would have had to go to Plan B.

    Cost $30 x 2. Weather was great. We ate at a BBQ joint one night. Since we had been at this SP before, I neglected to take a campsite photo. Except for the dog (DD's dog, we are taking it camping, lol.) She was cooling off under the MH:

  • pnichols's avatar
    pnichols
    Explorer II
    May 25, 2017
    You can also find plenty of campsites without reservations when camping in places and at times that other campers don't care for.

    We once went RV-ing across the U.S. back to the East Coast from CA, using the Southern Route in July and August. Hotter than blazes and wetter than the Congo - but we had campgrounds and campsites to ourselves with no reservations. We also had good air conditioning and generator systems!!

    Free as a bird campsite-wise on a multi-thousand mile trip ... but we'll NEVER DO IT AGAIN on that route at that time of the year.
  • Snowman9000's avatar
    Snowman9000
    Explorer
    May 24, 2017
    May 17-18: Lynx Lake NFS CG, Prescott, AZ. This was Wednesday and Thursday. Not first come first served, but there were openings. All sites were booked for the weekend, though. Cost $18 x 2 nights. Would have been half of that if we had already bought our America The Beautiful Pass. Bought it in town after we already paid.

    Free dump station at Affinity RV by the Fry's grocery store. Bought LP from them for only $1.60/gallon, which I think is cheap.

    Campsite, and Lake pics.



  • Snowman9000's avatar
    Snowman9000
    Explorer
    May 24, 2017
    May 8: Veterans Memorial park at the south end of Lordsburg NM, right off I-10. Cost: $0

    It has lots of campsites, but we were the only ones there.



    5/9 - 5/15: Visiting relatives at their house. Then heading for the general direction of Grand Canyon...

    5/16: Picacho Peak SP on I-10 in AZ. Cost was $20, "negotiated" down from $30 because the showers and dump station were out of order. Very few campers present. Sunrise photo:

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