Saturday, June 16, 2012

Finding Places to Stay and moving on…

On the road to Crater Lake

Our last few days in Collier State Park meant one more trip back to Crater Lake, several more hikes along Spring Creek, another visit to the Railroad Museum and few stray hikes here and there. This park had been a nice place to be for our five days and would have been a good place to stay longer as there is plenty to do in and around the park.

Ponderosa Pine flowering   Stone fly and self portrait

So in this entry I thought I would share what I do when searching for places to stay. The most important thing to me is to find a place that is close to something great to do. What do I consider as something great to do? We must be close to a major attraction, great hiking, interesting city, great wildlife observing or have other “must see or do” places in the vicinity. Here is a list of what we consider when we pick a site:

  1. Logging Museum and Crater Lake 035Location, location, location
  2. A driving distances less than 50 miles one way to visit several places to see
  3. We prefer COE parks, state parks, county park over private parks but will stay in any if rule number one and two prevail
  4. It must be close to our budget (we try to average $25.00 per night or less for the year)
  5. It must have mostly favorable ratings on RV Park Reviews

Crystal CreekEverything else is really negotiable. We would prefer to have full hookups, 50 amp service, on site laundry facilities, ample hiking within the park and of course fabulous neighbors. However, there are no perfect campsites and most are simply average.

One of the first things I do when searching for place to camp along our selected route is to locate the closest parks to what we want to see first and then eliminate them based upon the rules. Once I narrow it down to one or two I search the web with the keywords of the “park’s name” and the word “blogspot” to see if other Jim Jeanette and Sharonbloggers might have stayed at the park and written a blog about it. If they have great things to say about it then I usually contact them and ask about their stay or places that they recommend we see or do while at the park. This resulted in us getting a tip about going to see the birthplace of Spring Creek. What a great tip that was!  How cool it was to be able to see water bubbling up from beneath the surface giving rise to Spring Creek!

When we selected Collier State Park I found a blogger who writes exclusively about the Cascades area Barn on the way to Crater Lake of Oregon in a blog called Cascade Ramblings. After contacting Jim he told me that he and his wife Jeanette were actually going to be at the park a few days after we got there. So we were able to meet the two of them and they shared many great tips with us including routes to take toward the coast.  The even invited us to stop by their home base when we are in that area. At the end of the visit we shared a sighting of a new bird for our life lists – the Black-backed Woodpecker. Jim got a nice photo of the mother bird feeding one of her young after we had found their nesting tree. An added bonus to our search for campsites yielded this encounter with a really nice couple!

Birthplace of Crystal CreekSpeaking of meeting people, we also visited the Klamath Fish Hatchery since Sharon had never been to one before. After we walked around and completed our self guided tour a fellow walked out to say hello… He introduced himself as Richard Maly and as it turns out he and I went to college together… Wow! What a small world we live in!

Well we left Collier State Park and drove about 150 miles north to Cove Palisades State Park where we are now. Here for five days we plan to relax, do a little hiking and explore this part of Oregon…

16 comments:

  1. It's always interesting to hear how other full timers find their spots to stay. Thanks for the great tips, John! Learned a few new things from you today.

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  2. Making new friends is a wonderful bonus feature of Jim's blog!

    Our situation has changed since you left - Collier had a host cancellation for July, so we accepted a one month assignment. That means we won't be in Elkton to welcome you and show off our great little town. )-:

    We STILL recommend Highway 38 and be sure to have at least a pastry at Tomaselli's Bakery. Tell them we send you.

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    1. a great opportunity befell you- fantastic... sorry about not seeing you in Elkton but you never know it all depends on how long we linger here in the northwest

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  3. Thanks for sharing your methods and criteria for choosing campgrounds, especially the idea for searching blogs. We have certainly been challenged in terms of finding ones that match both our budget and aesthetic desires. We generally don't like to be tied to reservations, but are learning to be more proactive in that way. Have fun exploring and do try to get to the source of the Metolius.

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    1. i too disdain using reservations but have found it necessary during the peak summer months and an occasional winter monthly stay if I can ever figure out where we will be... i don't like how confining it is to have reservations as we do now thru mid July, as it reduces our agility and flexibility to change our minds...

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  4. Your checklist sounds very similar to ours. We too love COEs but many times they aren't close to the places we choose to visit.

    How cool to meet someone who you went to college with. I don't think I would recognized one person I graduated college with. High school yes...college no.

    Went to our first Fishery yesterday also. Pretty nice place. Enjoy your stay in Oregon. We really had a wonderful month there.

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    1. uhhmmmm... he recognized me first as I would have failed miserably to have beaten him to the punch...

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  5. We will be in Oregon later this fall so will be closely following your travels. :)

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  6. Definitely go to Smith Rocks State Park just north of Redmond, Oregon if you're in the vicinity. It's a beautiful oxbow river and rock cliffs popular with rock climbers. You can hike to the bottom of the gorge and along the river.

    I don't know if the little store is still there, but they had the best blueberry ice cream...

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  7. P.S. Love Spring Creek headwaters. Camped there once when I was leader of a group of 12 ten-year-old girls. THAT was an experience!

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  8. Good idea's on finding campgrounds. Location, Location, Location, is # 1 for us too, and of cours the price. We try to stay at $25 a day average a year too. I have been having internet service problems so have not bloged much and am behind. Your pictures of Crater lake were gorgeous. What kind of camera do you have?

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    1. my camera is a rather old point and shoot Kodak Z612... on its last drop I have damaged the "white" sensor I guess since anything white washes out now making taking photos much more challenging... looking to replace it when we hit the bigger cities...

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  9. You two have a knack for finding friends on the road :)

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    1. ... and making new ones as well :) which is one of the best things about this lifestyle...

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  10. Great Post Heyduke. Your criteria and mine are pretty much the same although I really hope for $25 max including taxes if I can get it which makes COE's and Federal spots great places. Really appreciate the idea of googling other bloggers. I will definitely use that when we have the freedom to travel again. Thanks!

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  11. Never thought about searching for blogs with a post about the park Great Idea!!! Thanks.

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