Thursday, May 15
Before leaving Green River, Utah, the crew and I stop in town to prepare for our next camp. At Ace Hardware I have the empty propane tank filled and the half-empty second tank topped off.
Next we swing into Green River State Park to dump the waste tanks and to fill up the water tank and the water jugs ($5). At the Sinclair station I pump some gas into the Perfect Tow Vehicle. A dash into the convenience store to buy a bag of trail mix, and we’re good to go!
We travel about 120 miles due west.
Interstate 70 takes us all the way to Salina, Utah. Another twenty miles or so on Highway 50 and we arrive at the turn to Maple Grove Campground.
I’m not interested in camping at Maple Grove.
Instead we are going to a familiar creek side camp on the forest service road before the campground. Maybe you remember it from last year?
The road is a straight shot across bucolic Round Valley.
We pass cattle grazing on fresh, spring grass while we move toward the Pavant Range and Fishlake National Forest. I hope no one is in that pretty site we had last year!
Green enfolds us as the road curves toward forest and rock cliffs.
I left our Green River camp on a Thursday, rather than Friday, in order to better our odds of obtaining this former campsite that the crew and I enjoyed last year. Oh, please be empty, please be empty . . .
As we approach the site, I look through the trees for any sign of an RV. Is it clear?
Yes! We got it!
Happily I back the Best Little Trailer among the trees. I maneuver until the BLT is close to level. I throw down a board behind the low wheel and back up onto it. Our front door opens to a slope leading down to a grassy lawn and cheerful Ivie Creek.
That’s enough set-up for now! I want to look around!
I let out the excited crew. “Look! Do you remember this place?”
We run down the bank to greet the creek like an old friend.
“Spikey, are you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”
Spike initiates our camp with a good soak in the clear, cold creek, immediately followed by a wiggle in the grass.
Bridget seems to recognize the grassy lawn as she scampers to and fro. “Are you glad we came here, Bridge?”
A kiss-on-the-run is her reply.
Gee, this morning it was sand. Now it’s green grass. From one idyllic camp to another.
“Okay, nut cakes. Let’s go finish setting up our new home.”
rvsue
NOTE: “Green, Green Grass of Home” is the title of a ballad written by Claude “Curly” Putnam, Jr. It was first recorded in the sixties by Johnny Darrell, then by Porter Waggoner, Bobby Bare, Tom Jones, Charley Pride, Roger Miller, Johnny Cash, Joan Baez, Trini Lopez, and Merle Haggard, to name a few. Still popular into the seventies, it was sung by George Jones, Elvis Presley, Kenny Rogers and others.
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We’re camped in the same spot as June 2013 when this photo was taken.
