Bruneau Dunes State Park

Destination:
Bruneau, ID
Bruneau Dunes State Park
Eagle Cove Campground
Site 90

When I booked my reservation online, I was surprised to see that the Eagle Cove Campground was virtually wide open with just one reservation; while the nearby Broken Wheel Campground was nearly sold out. And that was perfect for me since I was taking a large group of campers with me, making it easy for everyone to make their own reservations and still have us all be centrally located on the same loop. I learned later why this campground was wide open, and the other nearly fully booked.

Bruneau Dunes has 82 serviced camp sites providing 15/30/50 Amp Power and water, and 16 additional standard sites. The free RV dump is conveniently located between the two campgrounds making it easy to dump either on your way home, or at any point during your stay.

Bruneau Dunes is home to the tallest single-structured dune in North America. Rising 470 feet above the desert and small lakes of the park, the dune covers about 600 acres and is estimated to have formed over a period of just 12,000 years. Activities at the park include fishing, birdwatching, camping, hiking, swimming, and my personal favorite: star gazing. Bruneau Dunes is home to Idaho's only public observatory, with star watching programs available most Friday and Saturday evenings in the summer months. The stars are just spectacular out here. There isn't a city light for many miles, and that makes for spectacular star viewing.

What I recently learned about the Eagle Cove Campground, and what you need to know about it, is this: It's HOT at Bruneau Dunes, and ALL THE TREES are in the Broken Wheel Campground. So if you find yourself camping at Eagle Cove, bring your own shade. Also, try to park in spots 94-97 to make best use of your RV & Awning as a sun shade in the afternoon and evening hours. Spots 73-74 are also oriented well for providing shade. It also tends to be quite windy at Bruneau Dunes, so come prepared for heat and wind (think convection oven) – and bring a kite!

Crazy, Like a Fox

Destination:
Donnelly, ID
Lake Cascade State Park
West Mountain Campground
Site 156

For the record, Site 156 is not the worst site in the West Mountain Campground; but it is easily the worst spot that is large enough to accommodate an RV, which explains why it was the only RV site not reserved a full 9 months in advance, and why we were able to obtain a reservation for that site on such short notice, on a busy Independence Day 4-day weekend.

We’ve been working very hard in recent weeks to make repairs to the RV, including replacing an entire wall, the water heater, some of the plumbing, and a couple of gas lines. We also recovered all of the upholstery, added XM Satellite Radio, an air purifier, and made numerous smaller repairs to the lighting and associated wiring. So we were more than ready to take a break and go camping, and Site 156 didn’t really look that bad in the pictures that were available on the Idaho Parks Reservation System.

Trees, a table, a fire pit and a BBQ were all visible in the available photos. The reservation system says there’s potable water available at the site, and it’s pretty much our only choice anyway. So we booked it, packed the trailer and went camping.

The weather was pretty much what you’d want on a July 4th camping trip. Clear and hot. Record hot, in fact, for our mountain location. The trees provided no shade for our trailer, and the trailer currently has no effective means to cool itself (something else that we’ll be fixing!). So the trailer baked us, and all of our belongings, to the tune of 100+ degrees all day. And the first week of July contains some of the longest days of the year.

But we had fun anyway. My 4-year old daughter enjoyed her first camping trip, something she’d been longing to do, and I enjoyed my first day of Downhill Mountain Biking for the season at Tamarack Resort. We got out and enjoyed the fruit of all our labor, and we learned what work still needed to be done to the RV when we got home. All in all a success, but that’s not what inspired me to post this entry.

As the sun began to fade behind the mountain, and the mercury finally began to fall in the thermometer, a Grey Fox came strolling into our campsite. He didn’t stay long, at first, but it turns out that this site is where he spends a great deal of time in the evening.

After searching the trash cans across the street, the fox returned and bedded down in the shade in our site for several hours, and stayed there at least until we went to bed for the night. He was gone when we arose the next morning, but showed up again the second night, right on schedule, for a repeat performance. We think he probably does it every night, and that he’ll probably do it for you if you can handle camping in a site with no significant shade.

So, if you find yourself with no other choices at West Mountain Campground, try site 156. It’s not perfect, but it comes with a friend that will leave the other sites envious. Just be sure to pack your own shade!