After much driving around I pick a site clip my “Occupied” card to the post and drive back up the hill to report. By now there’s a little line. I patiently wait and report my spot and … they don’t care! Turns out you don’t have to tell them, I didn’t need to drive back up the hill. This is the only large campground\u00a0I’ve encountered where this is the procedure, but\u00a0for the non-reservable sites, makes a lot of sense. State parks typically have the fault of being over-bureaucratic, the management company here has figured it out!<\/p>\n

Anyway, no worries, I have business\u00a0up here on top of the hill anyway. Take a shower! Finally unburden myself of the almost three weeks of beer bottles I have held on to because the midwest apparently believes glass recycling is a liberal plot. There’s only a little hole for the glass so you have to put them in one-by one … 27 beer bottles! \u00a0The space for a twelve-pack and three six-packs of empty bottles has now been freed up! \u00a019\u00a0days \/ 27 bottles = 1.42 van beers per day<\/em>. \u00a0I try to keep it to one an evening, but it was so fucking hot and miserable most nights of that period that after the smallest bit of exercise I treated myself to another.<\/p>\n

Soak up some quality wifi, then back down the hill to my site.<\/p>\n

Now that I understand the system I allow myself to have second thoughts about my site choice. And I change sites yet one more time. I back the van up the one way road in a lawless fashion to the site immediately above me – no shade, but much roomier and better view.<\/p>\n