June 28, 2023
Ahhh, the last morning. I love the last morning of a camping trip, it’s full of sweet memories. But it also means I need to leave, darn it.
My campsite in the Bay View State Park was perfect (almost). It was private, green, quiet, the price was right. I didn’t have electric or water hookups, but that didn’t matter. I had plenty of solar to keep my batteries charged, and I carry plenty of fresh water in Towhee the Trailer’s tanks to last me for many weeks. I use that tank water only for showers and doing dishes. I carry bottled fresh water for drinking and cooking. Even when I do have a hookup to a water source, there’s no telling about the quality of that water, so I err on the side of caution and bring my own drinking/cooking/coffee water in jugs.
As you can see in the photo above, this campsite was wonderful! The only drawback was that I had no view of Padilla Bay, the saltwater, and no view of the sunset. Life is hard, eh? 🙂
But this campsite was among the best I’ve had in my seven years of camping.
The Bay View State Park also offers cabins for rent, each with an extraordinary view of Padilla Bay and the western sunset across the water from each cabin’s front porch.
The downside to those cabins is that most do not have water inside … so no kitchen sink and no bathroom inside (except C5 and C6 which do have a bathroom inside). For the other cabins, you need to walk outside to the bathroom facilities. Each cabin has beds for four adults (bed linens not provided), a wall mounted electric heater and electric lights are inside, and a refrigerator! is inside, and there’s a locking front door where YOU have the key. And they each have a lovely porch with a view of Padilla Bay and the sunset, but no cooking facilities (you can bring a hob or other cook top or microwave that plugs into a standard household outlet, if you wish). So they have electrical outlets and heat and light inside and a refrigerator, but no cooking facilities, and no sink (except the bathroom sink in those two cabins, and there are faucets outside where you can fill jugs). In my trailer, I have my own private bathroom, with a shower, and my own bed and cooking facilities and refrigerator/freezer and my own hot/cold water in my bathroom sink and in my kitchen sink. I love my trailer. 🙂 But, I didn’t have a view of Padilla Bay or the sunset from my campsite here this week.
And yet for future reference, my favorite RV campsites here at Bay View State Park do have a view! They were these two campsites (below).
#3 above. Imagine my trailer backed into this campsite … and imagine the view I would have out over Padilla Bay with a lovely, warm, gorgeous sunset across the water. Hmmmm. 🙂
And #4 below … same thing, although #4 is a bit closer to the road that runs between the campground and the bay. Both #3 and #4 might experience some road noise from that road, but my gosh I bet there is no traffic on that road at night, minimal at most. #3 is still my favorite. 🙂
So in the end, I really liked it here at Bay View. I’d come back again any time.
And so, back to this morning … I’m leaving … I hitched up the trailer to the truck and pulled out of my campsite, and then I pulled around into the pump-out station here inside this campground, and emptied my black water and grey water tanks. You can see the pump-out station in the distance behind my trailer in the photo below.
Most (maybe all?) state parks have these dump stations. Many private campgrounds have them as well. I’ve never known any of them to charge money. Even some of the state-owned rest areas along major highways inside Washington State have dump stations for RVers. It’s easy, it’s free. It takes just a few minutes. And THEN I was on my way home, with thoughts of my next camping trip whirling around in my brain. 🙂
I could end this blog post here, but in the last blog post Dawn asked how I choose campgrounds … and that led me to think about how I choose a specific campsite within a campground. So let me share how I chose campsite #38 here at Bay View State Park. First off, this was one of those times when I was looking for a last-minute opening or cancellation, so I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of choices. But there were three campsites available in Bay View State Park for the week that I wanted to go camping … so here’s my process of how I chose which campsite I wanted.
The image below is from the Bay View State Park website. The campsites with a triangle have no amenities, no electricity and no water. The campsites with a circle DO have those amenities. I usually opt for electricity, but not necessarily. I have a solar panel on the roof of the trailer and I have a remote solar panel that I wired into the trailer so it can be up to 40 feet away from the trailer and still feed the batteries. And the trailer carries plenty of water for several weeks.
The campsites with a GREEN triangle/dot are available. The ones with a RED triangle/dot are not available. The ones with orange are … well, you need to check the website.
The image below was for just one day of the week that I wanted to be here in Bay View State Park. When I plugged in all of the dates for the whole week, then only three campsites were green/available … 38, 51, and 22.
At first blush, you might think campsites 51 and 22 would be best since they are on the outer edge of the campground, so they might be more private and quiet. But at this point I go to Google Earth (image below) to check out the surrounding area. You’ll see that campsite #51 is right next to a road in the image below (very bottom of the image). And you’ll see that campsite #22 is right next to a home with lots of cars, so probably lots of people and kids and noise (the very right hand side of the image). So I chose campsite #38 (the big red DOT).
The two yellow circles near the top of the image above are campsites #3 and #4, my very favorite campsites here since there is lots of space and trees between each of them and their campsite neighbors and because each of them has a stunning view of Padilla Bay and the sunset across the bay (north is to the right in the image above). And, yes, those two campsites will enjoy some road noise from the Bayview Edison Road, but I’d bet it’s either minimal or nonexistent at night.
So that’s sort of how I choose campsites. Other criteria might apply other times and places, but that’s my basic method.
And so, I am now heading home in the big white truck with Towhee the Trailer right behind. Stay tuned for my next adventure. Thank you for riding along!! My best to everyone! 🙂 Happy trails!