deluxe state park. Almost close enough to walk to town, beach and tidepools and trees and grass, pretty much everything
I came here 15 years ago with abalone-diving City friends. I'm not even sure that's a thing any more. Anyway, the campground is still here and it's still awesome. They have spots available when no one else does, and it's the simplest check-in ever: Pay them ($5 off for cash!), they give you a receipt for your windshield and tell you to park at any picnic table/fire ring that's not occupied. The rest of the world seems to get more complicated and bureaucratic, but this is the easiest damn check-in I've ever experienced. Checkout 2pm. Ocean Cove Bar and Grille is a sweaty uphill 3/4 mile walk away. Basic bar food, but great view of the ocean and campground.
On the east side of the lake, making for spectacular sunsets over the water every night. Very quiet and beautiful and delightful. The big north-south highway and train tracks are pretty close and carry big noisy trucks and trains respectively.
Down Horsfall Road off of 101 are OHV camps and trails, equestrian camps and trails, day use areas, and general use camps and trails. Wild Mare Camp - set up for camping with horses - was empty and very, very nice, but the mosquitoes were just brutal, so I moved to the OHV camping at the coast, where the breeze keeps the little buggers moving. Very pleasant here. Just a parking lot with large camping-only RV sized slots on three sides and parking for the beach on the side next to the ocean. I've stayed here three times now, and there's always a few OHV folks. Their pleasantness or rudeness and the amount of general hubbub varies greatly. The general rules is that the warmer and nicer it is, the more constant and unending and annoying will be the sound of unmuffled small engines.
Close to Lone Pine, really excellent view of Owens Valley south over dry Owens Lake, The last 2 miles have many brutal diagonal speed bumps, beware!
Small campground on a little strip of hillside between beautiful Odell Lake and busy Route 58, the through-fare between Eugene and the interior. There's a nice boat launch, fish-cleaning station, some pull-through sites - all the amenities for your grizzled old fisher-dude. Site 15 is a not quite level site facing right on the lake (down a 40' embankment). No sounds but the lapping of the waves and the wind in the trees ... and the semis on Route 58. It faces west. Sunset reflected off the lake and through the trees is spectacular. This would be a perfect place to launch a kayak.
Eerie lava beds moonscape. Really cool to have a campground in such a surreal place
shady, the camp is quiet, but there is an extremely busy highway right across the Snake River. Kind of deluxe and kind of expensive, as state parks tend to be.
A really interesting place. The entrance and Visitors Center are five miles off the highway, then it's another five miles to the payoff, the lighthouse and actual Gulf of Mexico. The Visitors Center looks quite deluxe, but both times I have been hurrying to make sunset at the beach, and both times I forgot to return in the morning.
Your two choices are tent camping and parking lot. It's a small lot, and everybody but me was running their generators till 10. Whatever is special and interesting about this park is not apparent from the road.
A big shadeless rectangle of land on the top of a bluff overlooking the Pacific. The southernmost of three campgrounds at Westport Union Landing State Beach.
Took me a bit of wandering down unmarked gravel roads to find the camping area, but I'm very happy I did. There's a toilet and a picnic table. Drive a little, there's boat access, a couple of trees, and a grassy area which I think is the official camping area, then the road wanders half-way around Lake 13. Nobody used the grassy area. The rain had made it a mosquito-infested bog. I parked at a wide spot in the road by the entrance, and at least one bunch of fishermen spent the night on the far side of the lake. Super nice place!
Typical National Park campground, the parking pads aren't even close to level, the roads are very rough, but they're amazingly low cost and you are in a spectacular place! This is the place you go when you know the main part of the park will be full by 11. At the east end of gorgeous Two Medicine Lake, spectacular mountains all around.
This is where you camp when Island in the Sky is full ... which it always it. The method is to stop here on the way in, nail down a site then continue on another 20-odd miles to the Grand viewpoint ... then come back.
At 9,300', so a short season. A dusty, cramped, low-amenity national park campground that's in a REALLY cool place.
Omigosh! Google has shrunk their map of Lake Mead so that Echo Bay is like 10 miles from the lake now! The water level must be really low!
talk about off the beaten path! A newly refurbished National Monument, centered around some cliff dwellings in the neighborhood.
Cedar Pass CG in Badlands NP was full on Friday night, so here I am. It is in the town of Interior, at the edge of the Badlands, so the name makes more sense than you would think at first. Six rows of sites, the hook-ups for the big boys are on the inside and the tent sites are on the edges. Some sites have picnic tables, some don't. I decided I'd rather be on the edge with an unimpeded view of the Badlands than in a couple of rows with a table. The shower was nice and very welcome. Things are well-worn but well maintained also. Nice place, and a godsend when the Park is full.
Infrastructure is all new they say. Pretty happening little spot on a warm November Sunday afternoon. Eight-ish vehicles there when I arrived. There's a bathroom and a viewing area at the parking lot. There were lots of birds right there - mostly pintails, widgeons and shovellers. Also in the distance snow geese, the other goose, a flock of cranes overhead, and across the road, a flock of swans! Then there's a short, 1/3 mile walk out to another viewing area. Pretty sweet little spot. On hte walk was a group of grazing curlews that were kind enough to not fly away as I walked pretty close. I thought I was doing just a drive-by on my way to the main Sacto NWR auto loop, but this was so cool I spent the afternoon here.
It's actually free, but there's a suggested donation of $5. Climb >4,000' of narrow curvy road out of Bishop to get to the Bristlecone Pine Forest, and your bonus is this sweet little campground. There are no numbered sites, it's all kind of freeform in a nice way. Short walks get you spectacular views west to the Sierras across the Owens valley, and east into the interior of Nevada.