Another Overnighter in New Mexico

[Catherine+twins]

Dear daughter and I have now gone 4 weeks with an overnighter each weekend. It makes such a nice break!

Three times we went to Juniper Campground, Bandelier Nat Monument, the closest to us, and we got spoiled. The sites are improved (no water or electricity, but fire pit and table) and there are functioning water spigots spaced around the camping loops, as well as flush toilets and sinks with hot water for washing up. We like!

Last night we went to Redondo Peak Camp Ground, Santa Fe Nat Forest. One up on Juniper, the parking pad at Redondo Peak was ABSOLUTELY LEVEL!. I mean I checked my level bubble with the tongue wheel down and the wheels chocked, nothing else, and the trailer was already absolutely level. And it was really a lovely site. But Redondo Peak had no functioning water spigots (old spigots were permanently sealed off, water was supposed to be available at the host site, but there was no host and no water) and the pit toilets needed servicing. There was TP, and not much trash, fine, but they needed to be emptied.




Our streak of overnighters ends here, though. Next weekend dear daughter will be in Washington, DC, with her high school band, preparing to march in the 4th of July parade! (That saves me the trouble of trying to find a camp site over the busy 4th weekend! LOL)

Catherine

[Redneck Teepee]

Can't help but like a quick weekend get away....camping or function of interest! Good for the soul.

[lrrowe]

Nice. You folks out west and southwest sure have some nice country to camp in.

[MtnDon]

Did you hit the free camping day at Bandelier?

Redondo has been a favorite of ours. There has not been water there for probably a decade or more. The last time we drove by there the campground host was tenting! I'd never seen a host in anything other than a full size / service RV.

[Catherine+twins]

its what my summers are like cathernie over nighters head up the moutains above lander at 6 pm and break camp at 7 am and home to farm and ranch. get up to camp above lander around 7 pm go fishing and cook before dark. then crash and its up at 4 o 3 and fishin by 5 am breakfast by 6 and pull out for home around 7am...........its how you squeeze camping and fishin in with farming and ranching boating and fishing same way hook on to boat at 5 am on lake by Shoshone by 6 30 am fish till around 8 then gut fish and pull boat out of the lake and header home by9 am pleanty of time to farm and fish at the same time........slowcowboy

I remember getting up with my dad to fish for breakfast when we camped in Washington/Idaho/Montana (he taught summer sessions at UI for several years). Trout for breakfast. Yum. Maybe we'll try Fenton Lake for our next overnighter!

Catherine

[Catherine+twins]

Did you hit the free camping day at Bandelier?

Redondo has been a favorite of ours. There has not been water there for probably a decade or more. The last time we drove by there the campground host was tenting! I'd never seen a host in anything other than a full size / service RV.

We didn't get to do the free camping night. I worked that night.

I'd like to say I'm too old to work weekends, but, sadly, I'm not. And on the April-June schedule I had Saturday swing shift every other weekend, and a random shift every other "off" weekend because we don't have enough people to cover the shifts. Basically I work 3 out of 4 weekends. Hence the overnighters.

You know, I wish we could start funding our national parks and forests at a level that would allow them to rehabilitate the old camp grounds, thin the forests before they burned thousands of acres (and dozens if not hundreds of houses), and basically keep things from falling into ruin. I remember the camp grounds we hit when I was a child, many built up by the CCC after the Depression, or by veterans in jobs programs after WWII. Those were nice (and provided needed employment), and they haven't even been kept up to those levels. Sad.

Catherine

[Catherine+twins]

Oh, look, I was tapping into something in the air! CBS was doing a story about the CCC and Nat Parks, too!

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/on-the-trai ... nal-parks/

Not so happy about begging from businesses (they can end up stealing your un-trademarked names, as in Yosemite!), but if that is all we can do, it is what it is.

Catherine