August 29 – September 1, 2022
More camping! 🙂 This trip was close to home, very close to home!
I needed a few days out in my trailer away from other stresses of life without the stress of driving very far, so I picked a campground that was just about as close as I could get to my home … and this one campground happened to have one empty campsite. I was taking a chance on this place not being very much of what I wanted, but it was closeby and I wouldn’t be there but a very few days. And yet it turned out that two campsites in this campground are now on my list of favorite campsites, and this campground (Riverbend) is on my list of future/return destinations.
Let’s go!
The sign at the entrance, above.
Below … the big white truck and Towhee the Trailer after they were backed into our campsite. No leveling needed, it was perfect. Direct hookup to water and electricity were provided. You can see there was lots of room between campsites. I’m thinking I’m going to like this!
And there was absolutely no one behind me. Well, truth-be-told, the Nisqually River was right behind me. And it was wonderful … birds, just a bit of a breeze, a very few people in small boats, fishing, peace and quiet, the sound of a happy river. I’ll show you more, rest assured.
But first, here are two Google Earth images below. Those of you who know Washington and who know a bit about south Puget Sound will recognize place names and landmarks in the image below. The city of Lacey where I live is just off the image to the left. The BIG RED DOT is where I was camped in the low-lying Nisqually River Valley, just before the Nisqually River flows to the north out into Puget Sound and then out around Anderson Island.
Below, a close-up on Google Earth. The white lines are the roadways inside this privately-owned and gated campground, the Riverbend Campground. There are lots of options for camping here, and there are private homes here (for long-term rent) as well. A very few of the homes are right on river’s edge. And there are four, only four, campsites that are right on river’s edge. And I was in one of them … the BIG RED DOT!
From inside my trailer, I could open my trailer door and step down my trailer’s steps, then walk straight back past my picnic table, and walk right up to the river’s edge.
Looking to the right, above.
Looking to the left, below. The RVs under the trees in the distance were stored there, those weren’t campsites. There were three campsites between me and those rigs in the woods, but every one of the three real campsites was generous in space and every campsite ran clear over to the edge of the water, so no one walked here except those of us who were camped here.
The river makes a sharp bend right here … hence the name of the campground, Riverbend Campground.
I turned around and looked back at my trailer and truck …
No one, any where near me! There was a rig in the campsite next to me, but they were quiet, and there were rigs in the next two campsites next to them, but they were here only part time and they were quiet too. Except, after a couple of days, we ALL put chairs out on the edge of the river in the evening and sat and watched and enjoyed that river and, of course, got to chatting with each other. It was perfect, just what I wanted. 🙂
As mentioned, small fishing boats zoomed up and down the river a few times each day, birds visited, I went for lots of walks, explored other parts of the Nisqually River and the delta it forms as it flows into Puget Sound. I’ll share the highlights. Stay tuned.
Thanks to all of you for being here! For reading, for commenting when you wish, and for coming along on this ride with me. I really appreciate every one of you. 🙂