Strange place - they seem to have charged me $21 to park in their yard. No bathroom, no nothin, just a parking place.
The Curecanti National Recreation Area is a huge place comprising most of the boundary of three reservoirs and then a few miles of the downstream river. There are many campgrounds, most are large, RV-friendly affairs out in the open next to the reservoir. This one is small and on the other side of the road up a little canyon ... er ... gulch. In the cottonwoods, very quiet and pleasant.
Allstays calls this Indian Memorial, an ACE campground. The signage is in the standard ACE font and color, and it just has the distinctive well-engineered style, so I am calling it ACE also. If so, then clearly it has been leased back to the tribe. It's on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Nice place!
Saturdays are such a trial to the hardened traveller. Every site is taken, and it has been raining for days, so the overflow lot is a soggy mess. The nice lady said I could park on the reasonably level pad next to the bathroom. The things I do for a shower.
Tub 1 seems to always be booked. Tubs 2 and 3 are the lower priced tubs most likely to be open. I did T2 because it looked cozier in the picture. I like it better I think, but in T3 you can kick back and look at the hills which is cool.
Nice place. Expensive, but nice. Only about 4 miles from the sports bar where I spent the afternoon. Both Dakotas do this trick where the campsite is $22, but non-residents must also pay the $6 entrance fee. I don't like it. The Swimming Beach is really nice. A huge area to swim in, shallow to enough to stand up 50' out.
Planning works! This is super sweet BLM campground three miles down the road from Heise Hot Springs. There is a pleasant day use area with river access. The host closes the gate at 10 pm, which is a factor if you have driven back to the hot springs in the evening.
Expensive for the non-resident, but a nice campground in a spectacular location, on the Chesapeake Bay just a few miles north of where it meets the Atlantic. There is a cool little boardwalk access to the beach, where you can walk along the beach to the boat ramp/picnic area/fishing pier a little south. Really fun place.
Used to be a state park, but they gave it to the Feds for some reason. [After my experience the next few days with state parks, I can see it. The layout is quite similar to Bennett Springs and Roaring River.] There's a loop with hookups and a small loop without, which for some reason was where everybody was. I was the only person in the huge expanse of the main loop. My site had pretty good shade in the morning, most didn't. Showers are a short drive down the road, but that's way better than no showers.
I am in Thumper Loop! A lovely, very well maintained large campground. The area is thick grass, but a wide area is mowed around each campsite. Very pleasant place to be out of the madness of Black Hills traffic.
On a gentle downslope between I-84 and the railroad tracks and then the mighty Columbia River, between Hood River and The Dalles. They have a ton of tent sites (80-ish?), so I easily got a nice spot at 4 PM on Fourth of July Friday - woo! Downhill I can see the river between the trees, and hear the train when it comes through, and uphill is the constant sound of the interstate - as regular and monotonous as the Pacific surf I tell myself :)
The is the campground of the North Unit of the TRNP. It's quite pleasant.
This is a California State Park on the western edge of Colusa CA, on the Sacramento River, right where it takes a left turn. Post COVID it is being managed by the City of Colusa rather than the state, and it has a much more mellow feel to it. Anyway ... pre-COVID it wasn't inviting to me. Now it is. Go figure. Bathroom has a key code, shower requires quarters. Over 65 gets $2 off. We are right inside the levee, which is cool. There is a really sketchy trailer park right on the other side of the levee, which is not cool.
A very nice campground between the town of Valier and the edge of Lake Francis.
It pays to call the ranger! I called about spring flowers on these riverside trails (not yet he said), and as long as I was there asked about staying overnight. He said the all the other parking areas were day use only, but the one at the end of the road - Perry Riffle (cool name!) - allows it. So here I am, feeling very pleased about life.
nice simple little tents only campground - that is to say, a parking lot, a grassy field, and a pit toilet. There's a little spur in the parking lot where one can park a van away from the picnickers and have a little privacy.
expensive but deluxe, with hookups. very nice hike over to the wildlife preserve, near downtown
Quite busy on Friday night. Lots of large, happy groups. Part of the crowd is for the observatory and the Friday night astronomy show!
Very low tech, just pull the van up to a picnic table and hang out
After a surprisingly exhausting drive up Colo 139, this place is really nice ... until dark, when the security lights made site 25 uninhabitable. Nice shower!
Nice little find tucked away in an area with few other campgrounds. There's parking and hookups (for $3 more), and a sign on the bathroom door telling you rates and to slip the money under the door. It's all pretty DIY here.