SubscribeIn RV-land, many of the parks where we stay begin to seem similar. This is, of course, a matter of design….true RV parks will consistently have certain features that we’ve come to depend upon. Among them are sewer hook-ups, 50-AMP electrical power, good water pressure, aisles wide enough to drive a big-rig without forcing walking passers-by to leap for safety, long-enough sites to allow you to tow your toad into it without unhooking if you are leaving the next day and are feeling lazy (or are just exhausted after a 300-400-mile pull through a consistent construction zone, say), enough distance from the nearest highway or busy road that you won’t try to sleep feeling like you’re still driving, no blazing searchlights blaring in through your privacy screens, Wi-Fi that works, and a pet policy that makes sense are just a few of the things that Irene goes through on her checklist as she and I are traveling down the road and she’s selecting our next destination. But these “necessities” also physically define the look and feel of the park, and it’s natural that they would.
This excepts State Parks, naturally. State Parks very wildly, so much that it’s almost comical. You can have parks that have nothing at all in facilities, parks whose most attractive feature is that they are there and nothing more. And you can have places like the one we went to last year in West Virginia that had terraced sites a million miles apart from each other, sites so long you could land jets in them, so level they could have been pool tables, high above a lake pretty as a postcard, across from a golf course as green as the fruit of a ripe Kiwi. A beautiful park, if somewhat orderly in its beauty.
Soaring high above even that nice park is this one, Henry’s Lake near Last Chance, Idaho. Not that it’s the fanciest ornament on the tree; it’s not. It’s rather plain and on a plain as well, a high-desert plain with a mountain range over 10,000 feet rising behind it. The sites are large and well-spaced and level enough for government work, but what this park has is surprises of the natural kind. Last time we were here, a year ago I think, I almost feel over a cow moose and we released at least six magnificent Cut-Bows, an unusual hybrid between a Cutthroat and a Rainbow Trout that can reproduce and grow like crazy…the six we caught were at all at least 20 and mostly 22-23 inches, making them all between 3 + and 5 pounds, good fish for any fly-fisher and the highlight of last year’s Western States swing. But so far our visit here has equaled last year by the simple unexpected arrival of two magnificent bald eagles….one of which was promptly chased and scared away by two very aggresive seaguls; the second of which cruised our site repeatedly looking for something….a dead rabbit? A small Cairn Terrier?….and in the doing making us feel as if we were, just for a moment, part of his life, and it’s a nice feeling, being part of the life of an eagle.
I’ll trade off full-hookups for an eagle any time.