Monthly Archives: June 2019

Answer: Too Badly

04 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by in Adventures, Campground, Travel, Vanlife

≈ 2 Comments

The question was: how badly did I want my surprisingly comfortable, $29.99 CostCo chair? Badly enough to try to order it online, absolutely. Alas, it wasn’t on their website. But badly enough to return to CostCo for a third day in a row?

It took me a while to decide, but I really wanted that chair. That said, I definitely wasn’t paying resort prices for a campground for a second night. It was time to hit the wilds. Off I drove, into Gallantin National Forest, and a land of roads with no names, just numbers. Directly south of Bozeman, three campgrounds border the Hyalite Reservoir. The first one looked nice, but a review said the second one was great, if you were willing to drive along a bumpy, rutted dirt road for a while.

Bumpy roads? No problem, I’ve done that before. (This was probably a bad decision but I wouldn’t know that for a while. <–foreshadowing!) And that campground, Hood Creek, looked fantastic. Narrow, winding roads, but the campsites were on different levels, bordering the water, laid out for privacy and views. Unfortunately, it was noon on a Friday in June, and I was too late: the campground was full. The camp host suggested I give the next one down the road, Chisholm, a try.

I did. And… it was not great. It wasn’t horrible, but the available sites didn’t have water access or views or anything. It was $20 for your basic parking spot in the woods. I was tempted to keep driving. Maybe the first campground I’d passed would have an available spot? Maybe a campground back on the road to Yellowstone would be better? But I had no cell service, so no internet to research my options, and the skies were looking gray. Plus, well… I really wanted that chair. If I kept driving, I’d have farther to go to get back to get it. So I settled in with a book or two. (I’m currently reading everything Martha Wells has written, because I liked the Murderbot Diaries so much).

A camper van surrounded by tall trees.
My campsite: a parking spot in the woods, basically.

Within the hour, it started to hail. I like the sound of rain on Serenity’s roof. I am not so fond of the sound of hail on Serenity’s roof. It’s funny how much a seemingly minor increase in volume can change a noise from comforting to threatening. But there wasn’t anything I could do about it, so I read my book and waited for it to stop. To the best of my knowledge, the van survived just fine. Of course, I have no way to actually get on the roof and check for damage, but eh. I’m going to assume it’s fine. If it’s not, I’m sure I’ll find out eventually.

After the hail, the sky cleared. I kept my nose mostly buried in my book and bright and early the next morning headed back on that bumpy, bumpy road for the 45 minute drive to CostCo.

*Sigh.*

I shouldn’t have been surprised, really. When I took S to CostCo in Eureka, I told her that if you see something you want at CostCo, you should always buy it right away because there’s no guarantee that you will ever see it again. A third helpful employee tried to help me find the chair I was looking for, but this time, it was like it never existed at all. She let me look over her shoulder while she searched her computer for variations on camping chair, backpacking chair, outside chair, but nothing matched the one I’d seen on Thursday. It was the magical disappearing chair. I should have known that a comfortable camping chair for $29.99 was too good to be true.

The good news, though, was that instead of driving to Yellowstone in a hail storm, I got to drive there on an absolutely beautiful, blue sky, perfect weather June day. But it’s now almost 10PM and I’m tired after an eventful day, so I’m going to save my Yellowstone stories — and my foreshadowing! — for tomorrow. (Spoiler alert: I’m fine, so is Serenity.)

Bozeman Hot Springs Resort

03 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by in Campground, Vanlife

≈ 7 Comments

On Thursday, I headed off, so optimistic about all the things that I was going to manage to fit into my day. Finding water for the tank was number one on the list, but I also needed groceries and windshield wiper fluid. Of course, I’d have to buy gas somewhere — it’s a daily occurrence when driving this much — and after a few nights without plugging into electricity, it would also be nice if I could find a spot where I wouldn’t feel bad about running the generator for an hour or so to recharge my computer. I wasn’t going to kid myself about getting any real writing done, but at the very least, I wanted to update my blog. That meant I also needed at least a short time of internet or cell service availability.

Cutting a long story short, by 5PM, I was tired, sort of frustrated, sick of driving, and had at least another hour of driving to get to where I’d been hoping to spend the night. And I still needed water. But then there, practically calling my name, was the Bozeman Hot Springs Resort.

It had only one problem: it was the most expensive resort I’d ever seriously considered staying at.

On the other hand, it also had one incredible virtue: with an overnight stay, you got a pass to the hot springs. These springs were swimming-pool/hot-tub style, and easy walking distance from the campground. There were 9 different pools, or maybe 10. (I feel like I remember 6 inside, and I know there were 4 outside.) It also had live music, with a singer-guitarist on a stage in front of one of the outside pools. Fancy! And for tired, frustrated, camping-dirty me, totally worth the $64 I spent on my campsite. I took a shower, soaked in all of the hottest pools, then took another shower. Yay for hot water!

The campground also included a nice hotel-style breakfast in the morning: scrambled eggs, waffles, yogurt, cereal, apples, bananas.

And the campsites weren’t horrible. They were definitely the parking lot style, the kind of place where if you stuck around long enough, you’d get to know everything about your neighbors just by overhearing every word they say, but they weren’t piled up on top of one another. There was nice grass between the spaces and I stayed in a water-electric spot, so refilled my fresh water tank and my jugs, and recharged my computer. Also used the sous vide cooker and insta-pot to prep some food for quinoa bowls later in the week. Yay for electricity.

a camper van parked in a grass site with blue sky and clouds in the background
I had no neighbors on either side of me, so it was nice and spacious, but it would have been pretty cozy if the campground had been full.

Plus, it kept me close to CostCo. One of the reasons for my frustration was that CostCo had the most comfortable camping chair I’d ever sat in out on display. I’ve been trying out camping chairs for basically forever. Well, for three years anyway. They’re just not really comfortable, mostly. They’re fine for half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes if you’re sitting around a campfire, but they’ve always got metal bars that dig into your legs or weird armrests or they’re too low to the ground or oddly angled. I’ve never found one that I really liked until that day at CostCo. And it was only $29.99! An absolute bargain, given how expensive they usually are.

Unfortunately, the only one they had left was the one on display. But that was okay, because they were getting a new shipment — 224 of them — the next morning. All I had to do was come back. That wasn’t exactly convenient, since I’d hoped to be well on my way to Yellowstone by the time CostCo opened in the morning, but it was worth it to me, because it was such a comfortable chair.

But boo for CostCo. When I drove back the next morning, there were no chairs. I found a helpful CostCo employee — not the same one I’d talked to the previous day — and he used his walkie-talkie to ask about the chairs. Alas, they hadn’t arrived. But they were still on their way and ought to be in the next day.

Did I want to stay in Bozeman another day? Nope. Places to go, things to do. But by the time I’d gone to CostCo, parked, wandered around searching for my chair, found an employee to help me, and chatted, I was already running late to get a campsite in Yellowstone for the night. (They’re first-come, first-served: during peak season, they fill up by 7:30 AM, but this time of year, they fill up around noon. I was about three hours away, so would get there around 2.)

I decided to start driving south, while I considered: how badly did I want that chair?

Best of May 2019

01 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by in Best of

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What a month May 2019 was!

It started on a beautiful morning of bird-watching at a county park in Oregon, included a state park and a parking lot in Idaho; a state recreation area and an independent campground in Oregon, plus a hotel in Oregon, then a county park in California, and then a driveway. But that was just the beginning. Eventually, I made it to a county park in Oregon, then a driveway in Seattle and a driveway on the Olympic peninsula, followed by a national forest campground in Idaho, an independent (and free) campground in Montana and then another independent (and very expensive) campground in Montana. Fourteen different places, five different states. It was a busy month!

And it was also a delightful month. I was terrible at the part where I wrote a book, but I was extremely good at the part where I thoroughly enjoyed my life and spent lots of time with people I love.

I’m not even going to try to pick a best moment, though. There were simply too many excellent choices. I barbecued peeps and soaked in a hot springs under the stars. I brought the dogs to a restaurant and found cool clothes at thrift stores. I failed miserably but entertainingly at building a campfire. I got to spend time with R and hear stories of his adventures. I went to multiple beaches and breathed deeply of fresh air on morning after morning. I ate great food — gluten-free cupcakes and fresh oysters come to mind — and took some good photos. (If I had faster internet, I’d post dozens of them.) I even went kayaking with my dog!

A white Jack Russell terrier sitting in the grass.
Zelda, content in the grass

I could probably spend the next two hours thinking about the past month, remembering all the things I liked about it. New moments keep coming back to me, things I wrote about at the time and things I didn’t. Playing games, watching Person of Interest, eating spicy seafood medley. Laughing about coconut milk. More laughing about coconut milk, which I thought was one of those stories where you had to be there, but turned out to be funny when shared, too. Having P’s co-housing friend J tell me how much she enjoyed Cici and how eager she was for the sequel. Just so much goodness.

But I’m still in the midst of the goodness, with stories to tell about the places I am and the places I’m going, plus adventures to have, both big and small. (Today’s adventures will include dumping the tanks and visiting CostCo, woo-hoo!). But if I get my act together, it might also include Yellowstone National Park! And I also need to write about my Thursday, where the need for clean water led me to make some unexpected, expensive, but quite delightful choices.