Hubris, Dirt Bags, and other insights.

We travel without reservations.  I mean this in the literal sense, although some could argue that the metaphorical meaning is the very point of travel.  As a guiding principle, we’ve chosen not to commit to being at a certain place at a specific time (with albeit a few exceptions).  Furthermore, I simply hate the planning.  The checking of fares, the online deposits, the user account creation, the naming your own price, all make me crazy.  Though I’ve gained a certain satisfaction of doing the proper research, stitching together the disparate logistics all while trying to get the sweet deal, nothing beats rolling up to a rest area in rural Minnesota and saying, “yup, looks good to me.”  I don’t even have to mention that we made good use of the unsecured electrical outlet box at the base of the ubiquitous midwestern security light pole to let you know that I feel like we’re somehow beating the system.  Side note to the Ruritan Club in Pipestone, MN, you really should secure that bad boy.   Suffice it to say that the years spent planning programs and sweating the details of itineraries at Appalachian have prepared us for throwing away the security of knowing just where we’re going to park our butts for the night. 

We choose to adopt what I like to call a “dirt bag” state of mind.  This means less an accumulation of detritus in our clothes, on our skin and the general decline of our overall hygiene, than it does the embrace of an economic philosophy.   We’re trying to get the most return on what money we do spend by reducing what we need to pay for.  We can sleep just as well in a free camping area as we can in a hotel, coffee brewed in our French Press tastes better than Starbucks and if you bring in your own cup to any Subway the iced tea is 1/3 than when you get a new cup.  Coming from a long line of frugal do it yourselfers has certainly sped my transition to this frame of mind, though my 13 year old self would die if he knew how he turned out.  Thank goodness we get the opportunity to outlive our 13 year old expectations. 

When we left Boone 11 months ago, my needs were much higher in many ways, but I was arguably less comfortable with winging it when it came to where we would sleep.  While I didn’t really need a specific reservation, I definitely wanted options that included a camping spot either paid for or free (as in the national forest) but someplace specific to call our own for the night where camping was definitely allowed.  I’ve always been a good rule follower and this was no exception.    

By the time we returned to the South East our ability to locate a freebie has surprised me, and made for some of our most memorable camping/parking locations.  If we find a place that does not have a sign specifically addressing the overnight parking policy we figure it’s good to go. 

And if you would like to become so emboldened and save some cash while traveling, here’s a few helpful steps:
 
1.  If you have a small enough trailer, don’t mind looking around a bit, are good with maps and directions, you can almost always find a camping spot for your trailer in an actual assigned slot with your own fire ring and picnic table, nearby potable water, and flushable toilet.  GPS will guide you to many camping spots, but many of these are commercial operations which will charge you $30 and up to wedge you in between two small battleship-sized RV’s which run their air-conditioning all night.  These places have paid to have Garman lead you there, so be savvy. 
 

2.  When you’re feeling pretty good about that, getting the hang of nabbing those last few remaining sites in a popular park, you can up the ante a bit and go for the less refined, but still perfectly acceptable places to spend the night on public lands.  The National Forests and Bureau of Land Management areas are particularly good for this.  We have developed a keen eye for trailhead parking lots, undeveloped camping areas, or anyplace on public land where some fool has pushed together oddly sized stones into a rough circle with the shared qualities of being dark, nearly level and a distinct absence of signage addressing the legality of overnight parking.  Quiet often these areas are equipped with a pit toilet, nearby stream, and little to no fees.  I love these nights the most.
 

3. Once you have mastered sizing up and snagging the “completely legal” places to spend the night, you can test yourself and chance a night or two in a place where questions of legality might be more ambiguous, refer to the aforementioned lack of signage.   Rest stops, grocery store parking lots, neighborhood streets, dead end roads, all can be great locations to park your rig for the night. 

The funny thing about the “poached” camping spot is this, so long as you aren’t squatting for weeks or even days at a time, no one really takes any notice of you.  Frankly, you aren’t that noticeable even if you are parking in an antique camper with a bright purple door.  Someone might make notice of you parking somewhere you shouldn’t if you’ve posted up for a couple of days, but for one night, no matter how every atom in your body might tell you the opposite, you just aren’t that important. 

All of this rolling of the dice comes with a price, of course.  Regular showers are rarely in the established campgrounds under our budgeted $18/night price point and even though we’ve gotten lucky many times in finding one of the last remaining sites, we risk not finding any place at all.  Let me tell you that much of the romance of the open road can be lost when dark is falling at the end of a long day, we are now hungry, tired, cranky and driving to the next parking possibility or chasing down the little green tent symbol so clearly printed on our Adventure Atlas but dodging us as we try to translate its precise location to the real world.  Every now and again we’ve been completely skunked.

Yellowstone was one example.  Perhaps going to our Nation’s first and arguably most iconic National Park during the start of peak travel season without any reservations is tempting fate.  That we chose to do so on a weekend, might have gone beyond simple hubris and crossed some unknown boundary into stupidity.  Yet there we were driving to Yellowstone from the Tetons smiling and hoping for the best.  Once again darkness approached, our bones wearied from the day’s hike and we remained clueless.  We neared the park entrance, long since closed, and found our fate on a list of open camping areas.  Luck was with us, one of the least costly and closest areas to our entrance had loads of spaces.  We slept once again smug in our certainty that all would be all right, our luck would hold and we could move on to our next area with impunity whenever it struck our fancy to do so. 

We woke early; drove to the Old Faithful Visitor’s Center with cups of hot morning brew and proceeded to have a quintessential visitor day at Yellowstone National Park.  We watched 3 classic geysers erupt (Grand, Bee Hive, as well as Old Faithful), attended ranger-led programs, walked the boardwalks, posed for cheesy photos, visited the massive falls in the “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,” and even strolled through the Old Faithful Lodge an iconic structure which has defined the National Park Architecture for over a century.  At the end of our day in the south and middle of the park, we drove north with 3 different camping areas in mind.  The first one we came to was full, the second-- chalker block, the third --strike three and out of the park we drove.  Poaching a campsite in National Parks is a bit of a challenge even to the most seasoned dirt bag, but it’s damned near impossible at Yellowstone.  Say what you will about the Park Service, but they have that place locked down – this might have something to do with bubbling pools of super heated water and mud.   Every dirt road that might lead to a quiet unexplored part of the park has a gate, every parking area a sign.   We found a place to park long enough to make dinner, a small pot of coffee and prepped for the long drive out of the park. 

When adventure throws up a roadblock it is also an opportunity.  Even as we said goodbye to Yellowstone we witnessed some of the most memorable scenes of our first 25,000 miles on the road.   Just before sunset the sky opened up with terrific thunderstorms which quickly swept across the open valleys of the park.  As we crossed a minor ridge and descended to the valley below we witnessed a visual poem that this Big Sky landscape must paint for thousands of visitors a year – if only they pay attention.  The storms swept through to the east and opened the sky for the sun to shine through splattering the clustered clouds with pinks, reds and purples, hues almost too intense to describe as natural.  Across this scene two rainbows danced with each other as they faded away in the dying light of the day.   

As we crossed the valley floor in the gathering dark we came across the remaining herds of Bison protected within the park.  The midnight blue sky left their numbers impossible to determine and I imagined a time when these animals blanketed the landscape supplying the plains tribes with their very existence.  A thin ribbon of a river snaked through the darkened valley as I painted within my mind the native lodge camps and cooking fires scattered here and there amid the plenty before me.  As we crossed the park boundary into the National Forest the full moon of summer rose above the eastern horizon.  

When you chose to travel without reservations you make a choice to be open to the options left to you.  Bereft of an itinerary as the center of our focus, we find ourselves just where we need to be at just the right time.