Next day, a drive through Glenwood Canyon in the morning light, an early
arrival in Aspen. We had the choice of staying in a trailer park in Basalt,
with full hookups, and a very congested 20 mile commute to work each day; or
a campsite in Difficult, a forest service camp, with no hookups, no dump
station, no spots really big enough for us, and a very easy 5 mile commute
to work each day. We opted for a campsite at Difficult….. as soon as we
could find one we could get into. The space itself is plenty big for us. Problem is, the access road is
narrow and heavily forested. I drive past the spot. I put the motorhome in
reverse. I back up until the rear axle is at the left edge of the space. I
crank the wheels, but cranking the wheels left moves the front end of the
motorhome to the right. There is nowhere to the right for the front end to
go. I can’t crank the wheels to get into the space. We try other angles.
We try another spot. While we were trying and failing to get into the spot we wanted to get into,
someone vacated a spot we could get into. The campground host said they had
seen a forty-footer in there before, so the challenge had been issued. We
were going to get it into this spot. It took a few tries, but we made it. When negotiating a tight spot, there are eight motorhome corners to keep
track of. To do this, we have two side mirrors and a backup camera for the
driver. We have Judy on the outside with a walkie-talkie. It’s a good
system. It almost always works. Seven out of the eight corners of our
motorhome remain unscathed. Difficult. The campground. Deer, fawns, streams, beaver ponds, birds,
butterflies, stars, milky way, quaking aspen, chipmunks, rainbow trout,
brown trout, yellow warblers outside our window feeding their chicks. We’re
at eighty-five hundred feet. Warm days. Cool nights. It’s all good. Did some littlefishing on the stretch of the Roaring Fork that goes by the
campground. Shallow water. Pocket water. No graceful drifts. It’s fast
fishing. Rainbows and browns. The big fish in the pockets are twelve
inches. Smaller fish in the shallows. Caught a bunch. With no hookups here, we’re dry camping. The critical components of dry
camping are propane, fresh water, electricity, gray water holding, and black
water holding capacities. We have thirty-five gallons of propane, that’s
enough to camp all summer. We have a hundred gallons of fresh water. We
can last a long time on that. We have four house batteries to provide
electricity. We don’t need much electricity, and if we need more than we
have, we can run the generator once a day to recharge the batteries. The
black water holding tank, for the toilet: capacity is not the problem. We
dump it every two weeks before it gets too smelly. One of these components
is going to be the limiting factor. It’s going to be the gray water holding
capacity. This tank is about fifty gallons, to hold dishwater, bathroom
sink water, and shower water. Our dry camping will be limited by how much
wastewater we put into the gray water tank. Judy fed us on paper plates.
She saved any silverware and cooking utensils in a tub of water until it was
time to wash them once a day. Showers were brief. Judy washed her hair
once at the outside faucet to keep the water from going into the holding
tank. Since I’m working, I have to wash my hair every day. Carefully. Five days. Sunday through Thursday. The job is done. All capacities are
fine. The fresh water tank is still half full. The gray water holding tank
is three quarters full. It requires living carefully, but it looks like we
have the capacities to dry camp for a week at a time. If we’re not working,
we could stretch it even farther.