July 17-22, 2022
It’s summer! Let’s go camping!!
My first three camping trips in 2022 were to (1) Friends Landing (early May) in western Washington, (2) Mardon Resort (late May) in central Washington, and (3) Birch Bay State Park (mid June) at the north end of Puget Sound in Washington (next to the border with Canada).
Summer, real summer, doesn’t usually appear hereabouts until late July or August, though warmer weather is appearing sooner each year. So I was a bit surprised by how warm the weather was during the first three camping trips this year, maybe still somewhat cool-ish, but very nice weather.
But this next camping expedition, to Camano Island in mid July, definitely brought summer with it! Let me share a map with you so you can see where I’m going, and then let’s go!
Home is Olympia/Tumwater area … camping will be on Camano Island. That’s about a three hour drive with a little rest stop just north of Marysville.
Here’s a closer look (below) at Camano Island (pronounced kuh-MANE-o) using Google Maps. Drive north on I-5, turn left onto highway 532, drive thru/past Stanwood, then cross the bridge onto Camano (pronounced kuh-MANE-o). The Camano Island State Park is circled in RED in the image below.
It’s noteworthy that there is no direct road to the state park (although it’s an easy drive if you plan your route ahead of time). The two main roads on Camano run down either the west side of the island, or the east side of the island, but those roads also twist and turn in spots, joining other roads, or dis-joining them. It’s also interesting that there is no town on Camano. The nearest town is Stanwood, off island, on the mainland. There is one “shopping center” near the northern end of Camano with a gas station and a good sized grocery store, but there are no major shopping facilities. There’s another gas station with just a couple of small stores near the south end of the island, but no large medical facilities, etc. The “islanders” like it that way. They want to keep their island quiet and rural. And that was fine with me! 🙂
I was raised on Whidbey Island (just to the west of Camano) so am very familiar with island living and roads and attitudes. No problem.
So I drove onto Camano Island, then drove down to Camano Island State Park. It was gorgeous!
Probably every state park has a kiosk with info and maps and such posted there. I liked this one with the moss on the roof. I don’t expect you can read anything in the photo below, but I wanted to share anyway. 🙂
And then I drove through the campground and found my spot, my campsite for the week.
I pulled in, leveled the trailer from side to side with “big red” (I’ll show you that below), then unhitched, then leveled the trailer front to back, then plugged in the solar panel (nope, no power or water at this site, but look how much “sky” there is! great solar).
The photo below shows the view looking aft of the trailer (to the left) … that blue tent way in the distance was the closest neighbor in that direction.
Photo below looks directly opposite the trailer. There was a tent camper there (one person) for half of the week, then a pickup truck with a slide-in camper for the rest of the week, all of the people very quiet and courteous.
The photo below is looking to the right of my trailer … nothing, nobody!! 🙂
I walked up the road a short distance and took the photo below looking back at my trailer … no one behind me or beside me in those directions either.
I’d not driven through this campground until today, so when I reserved this spot online I had to trust the photos and information on the state park website. This spot is now my favorite spot in this entire campground.
So, let me tell you about leveling side to side with “big red”. You need to lift one side of the trailer in order to level the trailer side to side. You do that by putting something just behind the tire on one side, then you pull/push the trailer (with the truck) so that one tire rolls up onto that thing, thereby raising one side of the trailer. I used to use plastic yellow blocks, purpose built for that, but it was a pain lining them up, piling them on top of each other to get the correct height, estimating the correct height … and then when I was wrong, I had to tow the trailer off them, rebuild the pile and try it again. It was a pain.
And then I discovered these “big red” things made by Andersen. Each one can lift the trailer up to 4 inches with one simple roll of the trailer. I just put that curved device behind the tire, with the pointy end of it snugged up under the tire, then use the truck to push/roll the trailer backwards onto the device so the trailer tire rolls “up” the device and lifts just that one side of the trailer until the trailer is level, and it’s easy to pull forward or back just a tiny bit to adjust it. Then I knock the red triangular device in place to hold it tight.
[I bought two of these roller levelers, just in case. I also purchased an Andersen RAPID JACK leveler just like this one but larger, that will allow me to roll the trailer onto it and lift one side of the trailer up to 5.75 inches. So far, I’ve needed only the standard sized levelers.]
Below … you can’t get more level than that!
And then I unhitched the trailer and I was home. 🙂
Blackberries by the billions. They will ripen some time around late July, or August. But I was here in mid July, too early yet this year. It all depends on sunshine and rain and temperature. Gosh I love to eat wild blackberries. They are smaller than commercially grown blackberries so you have to pick a LOT of the wild ones to get enough. But these smaller wild ones have more flavor, so the extra work pays off. One of these years, I’m coming back to this very same campsite in early August and I’m going to have my fill of wild blackberries. You will know that for a fact because I will arrive back home at the end of my camping trip with my lips and my cheeks and my chin colored purple from the stain of the blackberries … happy camper. 🙂
Lots of great stuff happened the week that I was camped here, including an eagle sighting, a second eagle sighting, a third eagle sighting (did I mention I saw eagles?), and a visit to the Stillaguamish Valley Pioneers Museum where I was surprised by photos of my cousin in the school yearbooks, and where they have other old, cool stuff. And I walked on more beaches, and other fun stuff. Stay tuned.
Thanks for coming along on the journey. And thank you for your comments! You folks are the best. 🙂
NOTE: Here’s info and a photo about the “yellow block things” that lift one side of the trailer and that some of us think are a pain. Here’s a photo of them under my trailer (under the far side tire) on a former camping trip before I discovered the Andersen lift system. Notice in the photo below that it took 10 blocks (9 yellow and 1 black, tho they are all the same) to lift one side of my trailer just 3 inches. If that was too high, I had to tow the trailer off, then re-stack the blocks, then back the trailer back on them (at just the perfect angle!). Or if that was too low, then more towing off and readjusting was needed. It could take 15-20 minutes to get the trailer level. They are a pain! The “big red” Andersen system takes just a minute or so and perfectly levels the trailer from side to side.
