Conconully State Park, camping!

July 28-August 2, 2024

This is a brand new destination for me here in Washington State. I sometimes wonder, I sometimes question, will I ever visit ALL of the campgrounds in Washington State? I bet not, but I’ll keep trying. 🙂

And the next question is … how do you pronounce this name “Conconully”? I have a very good friend and a few acquaintances with the last name “Connolly”, so I assumed the name of this state park (“Conconully”) was pronounced con-CON-ully. Sounds right, yes? It wasn’t until after I got home after this week’s camping trip that I found out that’s NOT how this name/word is pronounced. It’s pronounced CONC-uh-NULLY, with equal accent on the first and last syllables. Who would have known?

I should know better than to assume. I’ve lived overseas for many years, traveled around the world, studied Spanish (Mexican Spanish) for five years in school, German for one year in college, and have enjoyed talking with neighbors here in Washington State from all around the world, including indigenous Native Nation’s people here. I know better than to assume how a word/name is pronounced. Mea culpa. 🙂

But, let’s get on with this camping trip!

Third question … where is Conconully (CONC-uh-NULLY) State Park? It’s remote! Yes, there is the small town of Conconully right smack dab next to the state park, but it’s a very small town, and there’s only one road in (and out). It’s in the middle of Washington, up near the Canadian border, but it’s also off a bit to the west, up in the Cascade Mountains (the RED pointy circle thing in the image above). As mentioned, it’s remote … one long road in, the same long road out. The image above is from Google Earth. My home is the YELLOW pin on the left. I drove over the Cascade Mountains (all those white dotted mountain tops), then wound my way up along various rivers, up past Wenatchee, up past Chelan, up, further north, up, into the Colville Reservation. And then further north. The roads were great, all wide and smooth, many roads were two lanes each direction. But the further north I went, the smaller the roads got.

Eventually (image below), I arrived in the town of Okanogan, then turned left and headed up into the mountains. You can see the ORANGE route from Okanogan to Conconully. And you can see that there are no roads leading out of Conconully, except that one road. There were dirt roads leading off into the hills, and forest service roads, but no paved roads. [I explored a number of those small roads while I was here, so stay tuned!]

You might like to look on Google Earth at the town of Conconully, WA. It’s SMALL! The town of Conconully is about 5-6 blocks long by 7-8 blocks wide, almost all homes, two bars/restaurants (one was named the “Sit ‘n Bull”), one small grocery store, a library/community center, a very small medical center, a small volunteer fire department, a few businesses like the stump-removal place, etc. And one fuel station where the pumps were so old and rusted that I dared not use it. In fact, I saw only one vehicle pumping gas there during the entire week I was here.

Wifi was available only if I drove to the community center and parked within 40 feet of that building (which I did a couple of times a day). So, yep, it’s a small town. And it sure was pretty here, and quiet. And the state park and campground were right smack dab on the lake/reservoir.

Here’s my campsite … easy entry, lots of room, lots of trees, lots of sky. No one was in the neighboring campsites for two days. No one was in the cabins for two days. And even when neighbors eventually arrived, those folks were courteous and quiet and friendly folks.

 

The back dinette window of my trailer had a nice view of the trees behind me, no neighbors there.

But the view forward was the lake! I often ate lunch and dinner at the table outside my rig, and usually had my pre-dinner glass of wine out there either sitting at the table or walking around enjoying everything.

 

What a view!

 

And then I started to notice some movement in that large green grassland/wetland area above. Do you see them?

Here’s a closer look below.

Two deer! And a whole happy mess of Canada Geese. I think the deer are Mule Deer.

The geese don’t seem to give a fig that the deer are running through the area. The deer in the photo above was running through, and the geese never flipped a feather.

Eventually, that deer slowed down and started to sniff around, and started taking a few bites from the grass here and there.

She kept on doing that, wandering slowly and taking bites here and there. The geese didn’t bat an eye.

 

The geese weren’t concerned at all about the deer in the field.

After spending an hour or so watching all these shenanigans, I turned around and headed back towards my camping spot and my big white truck and Towhee the Trailer.

The photo below shows two of the cabins in the campground. As mentioned, not one of them was occupied for the first two days that I was here … none of the RV campsites next to me were either. Happy me. 🙂

What a great day! And this was just my first afternoon/evening here, my first few hours here.

It’s awfully quiet here this evening. I’m glad all of you folks are here with me too! 🙂

Stay tuned for more good stuff.