I've been busy with a lot of driving so not much time for posts. When we left Walla Walla, WA, we luckily had arranged to meet my cousins David Paxton and Kathy Paxton-Schwartz and their spouses in Seattle. With such a great distance between us all our lives, we don't get the opportunity very often to visit in person. It was a great afternoon and evening at Kathy's house.
It was the difficulty in setting up our travel arrangement into Seattle that prompted this post. Seattle has no RV parks, but the communities around Seattle have a few 10-20 miles outside of town. Well most of these have been around for years and suffer from being designed for smaller RVs. So getting my rig in was next to impossible. Everywhere you called said you need to call 6 months ahead to assure a spot. We didn't know 2 days ahead that we were going to Seattle. We finally found a spot in Bellevue but for only one night. So we had to drive in early, setup the RV, and head to my cousins.
Since we had to leave Seattle the next morning, we didn't get to visit anything but family.
Big cities seem to have not planned well for RVers. I'm told it's not as profitable to build an RV campground as an apartment or housing development. The ones that do remain can charge anything they want and not upgrade their facilities.
We drove a lot on Monday to get as close to Glacier National Park as we could. Stopped at a road/lakeside campground that was nice but nothing special. It was still $40 with all our discounts. It seems that most all the decent campgrounds are packed from June to September out west. We spent the next morning trying to find a campground near Glacier. Must have research 20 and eliminated those who could not offer 60' sites with room for slideouts. Then we called about 5 before we could find availability for 5-7 days. The KOA was $99 a night with discounts, some were $65-75. We finally found a newly rebuilt campground in Columbia Falls for $54/night if you stayed a week.
Not sure why everything is so full and expensive. Probably it's the 100th anniversary of the National Park service, the increase in the popularity of RVing, and/or the cheap fuel.
It does mean we are going to have to do what we hate and that's plan ahead. It's been nice up to now to just drive until you are tired and start using your phone to search for a campground. You can no longer reroute your trip because you saw a roadsign about visiting the world's largest ball of twine. :-)
Also forget about RVing in State and National campgrounds. We have not found one that you could put a 40' fifth wheel with pickup truck into. In fact most we've researched limit you to a ~30' RV and a pickup. Basically 40' combined vehicle limit. The basic infrastructure of state and national parks has not kept up with the growth of RVs. No 50 amps, no sewer; great for tents and pop-ups, but not for big 5th wheels.
So if you are going to visit National Parks out west, book as far out as you can.
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