Another vlog post from my trip.
I spent two nights at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, mostly because I wanted an electric hookup to sit out expected bad weather. I got a lot done in the camper on the bad weather day, then did two hikes on my way out of the park. This video fills in the details. Enjoy!
Some details about the places I camped during my winter 2021/22 trip to points south.
I thought I’d keep track of the places I camped each night in case anyone wants to try any of them.
Edited February 17, 2022:
Where I am now/just added: Navaro Beach Camp, , CA.
| Place | Cost | Hookups | Facilities | Connect | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Three Islands State Park, ID | $36* | E ** | G ** | C | *Rate includes non-ID surcharge. **Water turned off for season. |
| Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, NV | free | none | T G * | C | *Multiple pit toilets. Lakeside sites. Wildlife, hiking/biking trails. Close to road. |
| Valley of Fire State Park, NV. Atyl Campground. | $35* | E W ** | T S G | *** | *Rate includes non-NV surcharge. **Dump station only. ***WiFi available for a fee. Nice sites, quiet, red rocks. Good value. |
| Lake Mead National Recreation Area, NV. Stewart’s Point. | free | none | T* | C | *Pit toilets in one area. Huge area right on the lake. Many campers but lots of space. Quiet, private. |
| Lake Mead National Recreation Area, AZ. Willow Beach Campground. | $57* | E W S ** | T S L G R | W *** | *Rate includes Good Sam discount and tax. **Sewer on site and at dump station. ***Free WiFi for one device. Overpriced but very pleasant. 50% off 65+ with pass. |
| Lake Mead National Recreation Area, AZ. Kingman Wash | free | none | T * | C | *One central pit toilet. Quiet, underutilized, early sunset because of canyon, 3 miles down gravel road. You can camp right on the lake. Coyotes, burros. |
| Lake Mead National Recreation Area, NV. Six Mile Cove | free * | none | T G * | C *** | *Park entrance fee or pass is required. **Central pit toilets. ***Weak come-and-go cell signal. Quiet (on weekdays), 30 minute drive down gravel road from park entrance station. You can camp right on the lake. Beware of soft sand in parking area. |
| Davis Camp. Bullhead City, AZ | $36.25* | E W ** | T S G | C | *Includes extra fee for dogs and tax. **Dump station. County park campground on Colorado River just downstream from Davis Dam. |
| Oatman-Topock Dispersed BLM Camping | free | none | none | C* | *Usable Cell phone signal on Verizon. Close to road, rugged terrain. |
| Needle Mt Road BLM Dispersed Camping | free | none | none | C* | *Usable Cell phone signal on Verizon. Relatively close to freeway, rugged terrain. |
| Lake Havasu State Park, Overflow Camping Area | $25.00 | * | T S G | C | *Dump station available. Limited number of beachfront sites. Inadequate generator rules. |
| Pomosa Road Dispersed Camping, Quartzsite, AZ | free | none | none | C* | *Usable Cell phone signal on Verizon. Very quiet. |
| Holtville Hot Spring BML Long Term Camping area | $40.00* | none | T S** G | C | *$40 covers up to 14 consecutive days in this and other long term areas. **Toilet and shower are at the hot spring. No soap allowed. Relatively flat, featureless area with dispersed camping. Lots of long term campers with expansive solar setups. |
| New Camp, Salton Sea Recreation Area | $37 * | E W ** | T S*** G R | C | *Rate includes $7 reservation fee. **Dump station only. ***Shower was solar hot water, $1/token. Hookup campsites were either in a large parking area or adjacent to main road with railroad track nearby. Camp store closed. I would not camp there again; not worth the money. |
| Joshua Tree South BLM Dispersed Camping | free | none | none | C | Large area along maintained gravel roads just south of Joshua Tree National Monument. Many campers, but plenty of space. Easy access to I-10 freeway about 1 mile away. Remarkably quiet. |
| Rice Ranch, Quartzsite AZ | $40* | E W S | G | C** | *Somewhat discounted rate due to past business relationship. **Strong signal but slow due to heavy load on local cell towers during Quartzsite’s busy period. Centrally located very near two main venues, bicycling distance to all others. At noisy intersection. |
| A Friend’s House, Gilbert, AZ | $0 | n/a | n/a | n/a | Every year I visit with some friends in Gilbert, AZ. I stay in their guest room and let my camper sit empty in their driveway. The last night of my stay, they had more houseguests so I moved into the camper for the night, still parked in their driveway and not hooked up to utilities. |
| USFS Apache Jct Dispersed Camping | $0 | none | none | C* | *Cell signal was acceptable but not good. Wide open area not far from off-road vehicle recreation parking. Shooting within 1/2 mile before dark and before dawn in the morning. Coyotes. Two late arrivals slept in their vehicles and departed before light, which was kind of weird. Beautiful desert. |
| Catalina State Park, Tucson (Ringtail area dry camping) | $20 | none* | T S G R | C** | *Dump station available. **Cell signal was acceptable but not good. Nice park with many hiking, biking, and equestrian trails. Dog friendly. Main campgrounds offer electric and water at sites; nearly impossible to reserve. |
| Casino Del Sol RV Park, Tucson, AZ | $56 | E W S | T S L G | C W* | *Wifi near central building only. New campground with asphalt parking surrounded by gravel. Newly planted trees. No ambiance at all, but plenty of amenities. Expensive. |
| Las Cienegas National Conservation Area | $0 | none | none* | C | *Pit toilets available in group camping areas. Active historic cattle ranch(es) with dispersed camping. |
| A friend’s house, Sierra Vista, AZ | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | My Gilbert friends have a new second home in Sierra Vista and invited me to check it out. We stayed two nights and I helped them with a few of their renovation chores. It was wicked cold those two nights and I was glad to be indoors. |
| BLM Darby Wells Road Dispersed Camping, Ajo, AZ | $0 | none | none | C | Dispersed camping in Sonoran desert just south of an open pit copper mine. |
| Holtville Hot Spring BML Long Term Camping area | $40.00* | none | T S** G | C | See notes from first stay. I stayed for another 6 nights in February. |
| Mojave Narrows County Park, Victorville, CA | $39 | E W S | T S G | C | County campground right next to TWO train tracks. Sites were dirty, land was poorly kept. Other campers were loud, but train was worse; it ran all night. NOT recommended. |
| Gaviota Lane, Ventura, CA | $0 | none | none | none | Relatively quiet side street behind a strip mall with an apartment complex across the street. |
| Jalama County Beach Campground, Lompac, CA | $50 | none* | T S G R | W** | *I picked one of the beachfront sites which had no hookups. Other sites had hookups. There was a dump station. **No cell signal at all; WiFi was iffy. Very nice campground 14 miles down a twisty road. |
| Limekiln State Park, Lucia, CA | $35 | none | T S G R | none | Tiny campground tucked into a canyon under a bridge. Some sites are near the beach; others are in a dense wooded area next to a creek. No cell signal. Quiet. Pleasant stay but being out closer to the beach would have been nicer. |
| Bay Flat Road, Bodega Bay, CA | $0 | none | none | C | Recommended to me by campground host at full Bodega Dunes Campground. Pullout alongside the road right on the bay. Quiet except for fog horn, barking sea lions, and some traffic. |
| Navaro Beach Campground | $35 | none | T* G | C** | *Pit toilets. **Very weak cell signal on Verizon was enough to check in at social media and send/receive texts. Pleasant campground adjacent to a beach. Just 10 sites include table and fire ring. Very quiet. |
Key to codes
| Hookups | Facilities | Connectivity |
|---|---|---|
| E – Electric W – Water S – Sewer | T – Toilet S – Shower L – Laundry G – Garbage R – Recycle | C – Usable Cell Signal (Verizon) W – Free WiFi |
I leave the wildlife refuge for a comfy camping spot among the red rocks — and grab a shower along the way.
Day four of my trip saw me back on the road, this time traveling just about 100 miles. This video gives you a little background details about how I pack up to move out and shows you exactly what’s in the back seat area of my truck. (Spoiler alert; no one will be sitting there any time soon.) I also give you a look inside a truckstop shower — you may be surprised — and show you a fuel pump that has everything. Finally, a look at the reddest rocks you may ever see.
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What would have been a very pleasant stay is ruined by cold weather.
I’ll let the video tell the story; it’s short and sweet and it includes footage of my dogs riding in a bicycle trailer. The short version is that it was too cold at night to stay more than two nights at this otherwise very pleasant, free campground.
I’m still welcoming comments on the video production. I know I need to collect more footage and I’m working on it for future videos. Little by little, I feel as if I’m getting the hang of it.
What I’m really pleased about is how well the ScreenFlow software I’m using to edit the video is working out. Not only is it easy enough to edit on my laptop — a low end MacBook Air — but it’s producing relatively small 4K video files. I think this will work well as a video editing solution and I might even switch back to it for my helicopter video work.
This second trip vlog post should be a bit of an improvement. What do you think?
Well, I took the feedback I got from folks who watched my first Snowbirding 2021 vlog post and I used it to make some improvements — as I could.
The main problem was the time-lapse out the truck’s front window. A lot of folks just thought I was just throwing tons of photos out there in rapid fire. I guess that’s what a time-lapse is.
At least one person suggested slowing it down; I actually did slow it down to 50% of normal speed. Slower would make the video even longer and most folks simply don’t have 10+ minute attention spans. So I used the same speed in this video.
Another person suggested recording video of the whole drive and using clips. That would probably be better except for two problems:
But I do like this idea and I think I’ll try to put it to work the next time I move to a new spot. But not in the next video; I’ve already recorded that with the same time-lapse settings. Sorry!
Why include it at all? I really think the terrain change is fascinating and hope some viewers do, too. And remember — you can always stop the picture to take a better look at one of the clips.
Some folks said that the silent time-lapse wasn’t quite right. That it needed music. I’ve got you covered. I happened to have two royalty-free music clips on my laptop when I compiled the video on Monday evening. (That was a good thing because I had absolutely no Internet connection on any of my devices at Monday’s campsite.) One of the clips worked well (in my opinion) and I added it with ducking (a reduction of sound level) when I was narrating.
I’m still fine-tuning this. I realized that the best way to do it was to narrate a segment with the selfie camera when I was near the end of the drive segment. I also realized that I needed to keep it short and simple.
The narration during time-lapse in this video was actually two separate clips. It took four tries to get the first clip. (Hell, I was just driving down the road so I did multiple takes. No distraction; I just push a button, talk, and push the button again.)
The second clip was done in two takes but it was pretty bad and needed a lot cut out. You can see the cuts. You can also sense how tired I am at the end of it. I’d had a frustrating stop in Wells where the credit card reader at the pump wouldn’t work, the cashier wouldn’t let me just fill the tank (I had to give her a dollar amount), the DEF I bought cost a whopping $22 for 2 gallons, and I couldn’t get the DEF bottle open in the 21°F temperature outside. The unedited narration includes me whining about all of this and I cut most of it out. But I sure do look defeated at the end of that clip.
I recorded the final narration when I edited the video, which was two nights later.
Here’s the video; it was posted after the date of this blog post, which matches the day of arrival at my Pahranagut National Wildlife Refuge campsite (Saturday, December 11, 2021).
There’s no driving in the next video. It’ll cover some of what I did during the time I spent at the wildlife refuge with my pups.
In the meantime, your feedback is still welcome. I’m trying hard to get a format that pleases viewers while meeting my needs without sacrificing my sanity.