Clearing Campsite

November 14-18, 2012

This campsite is amazing!   Truly one of a kind.    We’ve never had such sweeping all around views, coupled with perfect privacy.   We are so lucky to have found this spot and to have been able to get into it.  The only downside is that we don’t have any phone signal.   But that’s just a minor ding.   I was curious about how this clearing came into existence.   There doesn’t seem to be any need for this giant circle clearing, from a forest service perspective.    Missy finally came up with a possible answer: it’s probably an old helipad.   There are actually a couple of marked helipads along the highway, so maybe this one was decommissioned because it’s a little harder to get to.

There really isn’t much I can say about how fantastic our campsite is.    I’ll put up pictures, so hopefully you’ll get a sense of the lovely scenery we are treated to all day long.   Even when we had 2 days of rain, it wasn’t a downer because we still had amazing views out the windows.   Speaking to that, it was really cool and kind of creepy having the cloud ceiling lower so much that we were almost in the clouds.   The back, higher set of mountains disappeared from view.     And, a couple of times some sun broke through, and we had gorgeous valley-wide rainbows that were pretty much at eye-level.    So neat!

Since we’re tucked away off a dead-end forest service road, we have free rein for walking the dogs, biking and hiking.    (A few times we’ll get a jeep or pickup driving by, but not too often).   With the solitude, we get to enjoy the benefits of having the dogs off leash all the time too.    I love that!   So far the weather has been great.   The overnight lows rarely get to a point where the furnace is needed.    I’m not sure that the average temps are for this area at this time of the year, but I’m hopeful it will stay nice enough to allow us to stay here a long time.

Perhaps one of the best perks of this campsite: daily (weekday) private airshows!   Anywhere from 4 to 8 jets a day.   It’s strange;  no matter how many times we watch the military jets streak by, it’s still fun to watch.  They have some usual time ranges during the day that they fly by, but once or twice a day we’ll get some outside of those ranges.    It’s an art, learning how to enjoy the jets.   Because they are soooo much faster than the speed of sound, you really need to be watching the horizon for the approach.   If you hear the jet first, then you know that it’s already hundreds of feet past you.    The best action comes about 1 in 4 jets.    These are the low-fliers.   Amazing!   They are so low, it really feels like you could touch them with a broom from the top of the RV.   I like to call these guys “Nap Killers”, because the sonic boom and vibration from the low jets is 50 times more powerful than the usual jets.    And they always pull some kind of Top Gun maneuver to weave around and next to the mountainsides.  We’ve tried a couple times to get it on video, but it’s hard.   The low fliers MUST be spotted first, or you’ll miss them if you hear them first.    One time, a couple of weeks ago, one flew over us as we were getting in the truck with the dogs after a hike.    Buddy caught sight of it and was incensed!   He started chasing after it, which led him right onto the highway.   Luckily, there were no cars, because there was no way we could yell louder than the jet to call him back.

Tomorrow we’re planning on a trip into town.   We’ll spend some time at the internet café, where I can get these posts up.   Then we need to get some groceries and fill a propane tank.  Then it will be back to our paradise for another week.   So Happy Thanksgiving in advance!    I know we’ll be continually grateful for our lovely Clearing Campsite.

Edited: The café was unexpectedly closed.   I am posting this using McDs wifi.  Sadly, I can’t get pictures uploaded with this connection.  We’ll try the café again tomorrow.