Big Creek Campground

Sunday, July 7, 2019

Get those wheels turning and let’s go camping!

This campground (Big Creek) was only an hour’s drive south of where I live, but it was a world away from the big and busy city of Tacoma in which I live … all the difference in the world!

As I maneuvered around each curve in the road on my drive out to the campground, I could feel the tension leave my shoulders, my body relaxed, my breathing slowed, and at one point I realized I had a smile on my face without even knowing it.

I guess it obvious that it was WAY past time for me to get out into the woods again.

The “main” road from Tacoma to Ashford (the very small town closest to Big Creek Campground) is just a two-lane country road, paved and plenty wide enough, but still just a really comfortable country road surrounded by lots of forested land and the occasional country home. After passing through Ashford (a really small town), I turned off onto Kernahan Road, then crossed the bridge over the Nisqually River, then turned off onto Skate Creek Road (closed in the winter), and eventually turned off that road to the right — into Big Creek Campground, crossing the small bridge over Big Creek on the way in.

This little bridge rattled and jiggled and moaned as I drove over it with the truck and the trailer, but I knew RV rigs plenty larger than mine drove into this campground so I felt safe.

It was so beautiful here!

Big Creek Campground is small, and old. The roadway inside the campground makes one large circle in the woods, with campsites well-spaced on both sides of that road. The only hookups (electricity and water) in the campground were for the campsite that’s used by the Camp Host. With so many trees, there’s not much opportunity for solar power. So this campground is used mostly by tent campers in warm weather.

The weather prediction for the six days that I would be here called for a smidgen of rain later in the week, so the place was mostly empty all week. I was happy with that! 🙂

I snuggled into my campsite, parking the truck at an angle so it wouldn’t stick out into the roadway. Near the left side of the photo above, you can see part of a white vehicle … that was my closest neighbor.

What a gorgeous place to call home!

Then it was time to set up camp, including hauling out and attaching the remote solar panel. The trailer has a solar panel permanently mounted on the roof, but when I’m camped under trees, I usually need a little boost in battery charging from the remote solar panel as well.

The remote solar panel can be placed anywhere and it can be angled to face the sun, but the sun was directly overhead when I arrived so I simply laid the remote panel on the picnic table and ran the cords to the back of the trailer.

 

The photo above shows where the remote solar cables enter the trailer. I used red tape and black tape to differentiate between positive and negative cables. I also used different shape connectors for each so there was no way that I (or anyone else) could connect them incorrectly.

Not surprisingly, Little Towhee had long since jumped out of the big white truck and was exploring everything around the campsite and was following me around as I set up camp. In the past, I had always put the remote solar panels on the ground, tilting them to face the sun. This was the first time Little Towhee had seen the panels lying flat up on a table. It gave her a perfect opportunity to take a real close look at them.

As usual, she had lots of questions! “What are the black squares, Ann? What are the white lines, Ann? Why is it flat, Ann? What do the wires do, Ann?” She was full of questions!

I answered as best as I could, with information as I knew it, telling her how the sun shines on the black squares and creates electricity which then runs along the wires into the trailer so we have electricity inside the trailer.

She thought about that awhile. And looked even more closely at the panels.

When I described how the sun shines on the panels to create electricity, she wasn’t real sure she believed me. So she checked out the sun too!

Little Towhee told me that when SHE looks at the sun, SHE doesn’t create electricity, so why would those black panels do that! She chirped and cheeped a bit … then fluffed her feathers, jumped down off the picnic table, and went exploring around the campsite again. I think she gave up on me and my silly electrical solar panel. 🙂

This was a lovely place to explore! Here are photos (below) that I took while standing in the middle of my campsite.

 

 

 

 

My trailer was in a perfect spot. My camp was set up nicely. Little Towhee was off somewhere talking with the other birds and would return soon. I could just barely hear the creek (Big Creek) in the distance through the woods. I was already enjoying being here and I knew the week here would be wonderful.

I’ll tell you all about it … stories of my adventures coming soon!