Time to move on

I spent the weekend at HiValley RV Park, which is just a couple miles from the Holsinger's. I thoroughly cleaned Minnie's inside, shampooed the carpet with Robin's portable carpet cleaner, and did up all my laundry, including all the bedding. I gave Hanna a bath and trim, and got groceries. I hung out with Robin and went to church with her on Sunday morning.

On Monday morning, I packed up, filled my propane and water tanks and hit the road north toward Cascade and the Boise National Forest. My goal was to check out the dispersed camping areas in the zone of totality for August's eclipse, with plans to come back here for the week or two before the event. I had previously downloaded the MVUMs to my Avenza app and saw many forest roads with designated dispersed camping. I turned at Smith's Ferry and headed into the woods. About 3 miles in, I found a large enough pullout to unhitch and leave Minnie, while I went scouting some of the roads looking for campsites.

I was disappointed to discover many of the areas marked as campsites on the MVUM were simply pullouts along the forest road. I sure wouldn't want to park with my backend in oncoming traffic. The other thing I was watching for was cell signal. As I drove up and down and around hills and valleys, the reading bounced between "No Signal" to 3 bars of LTE.  I finally turned onto one road and started seeing some small meadows and short spur roads with other campers already in them. I finally settled on a nice large meadow that had 6 other rigs around the outside edge, 2-3 bars LTE, and a nice available spot between a couple of trees.

I went back and got Minnie and drove up to set up my camp. All was well until about 6:00 pm when a new rig towing a trailer with a couple ATVs and a motorcycle pulled in. It didn't take long before they were all three fired up and zipping in and out of the meadow, stirring up dust and adding noise pollution to my evening meal and Netflix movie. It went on until 9:30, when suddenly it got quiet. Ah, peace at last!

I knew it would be a chilly night when my thermometer dropped to 60 before the sun even went down. I wore my flannel pajamas to bed and pulled my double fleece blanket over me in the middle of the night. This morning's thermometer told me the overnight low was 38 degrees.

Luckily the ATVs didn't start back up until close to 10:00 this morning and they seem to have gone on a longer journey today. I see the trailer still parked in the corner of the meadow, though so I suspect they'll be back before nightfall. I hate to sound like RVSue, but I sure wish those things didn't have to zoom around my campsite. I plan to go scouting the woods a little more today, and if I find another spot, I'll come back and move Minnie.

One more thing; I'm going to confess another mistake I made. I mentioned I had my propane tank filled yesterday morning. This morning, I woke up, but was still snuggling in bed when I had the sudden realization I had neglected to turn my refrigerator back on! Good thing it was so cold overnight. Things seem to be okay. Frozen stuff is still frozen, although the ice cream is not as hard as it should be. But I don't think anything spoiled. The same cannot be said about the catastrophe at home that Daryl discovered when he stopped by to check on things.