Dry Camping

January 24, 2015

I had never even heard the words dry camping in combination until recently, but sometime last year, when the van was new to us, a very intrepid friend came to visit and told us of her adventures in a similar vehicle, in which she said she could camp anywhere – even the side of the road, the desert or the woods. She could do this because the van was self-contained – it had its own lights, water and propane stove. I heard what she said, imagined her in the wilds of nowhere, but I could not imagine myself camping anywhere but the types of places I had already seen – surrounded by others, in contact with “civilization.”

How wrong I was! And, how glad I am to have experienced dry camping for myself. I wrote about the first time, back in Big Sur on the mountainside over the ocean. This was a matter of necessity. But, then our entire time in Carpinteria, we camped without connecting to water, electricity and Wi-Fi, hardly a hardship because all we needed was either in the camp or the town.  And it greatly reduced our nightly costs.  
But, the night after we left the beach, I got my first taste of really DRY camping – a night on the desert – at the South foot of Joshua Tree National Park.

Just as the sun was setting we pulled down a dusty desert road off the highway and saw several other campers, spread across the sand. We pulled in (no sign-up, no fee) and parked just in time to see the sun set. The night sky offered us a personal planetarium experience, howling coyotes were the only sounds. We woke as the sun began to rise, lighting the desert with pastel light and a soft wind.  The dogs loved it too.

That day, we drove through Box Canyon, the desert road defined by soaring and varied rock formations unlike anything I have seen. We spent the afternoon and the night at the Salton Sea. Here too, we camped dry – with no service, but a few other vehicles around us, and access to really nice bathrooms and showers. There was little to see and do at the Salton Sea, so we headed out of California to Arizona and family. What a great time we had in Scottsdale. Great food, great wine, great company, great citrus and great fun. (Thank you Jaki.)  A highlight for me was our trip to the Phoenix Museum of Art where I got to see work by some of my favorite abstract expressionists. Lovely museum.

Yesterday, slightly spoiled by “normal” life, we headed out of Scottsdale, stopped for supplies, and drove south toward Tucson and the Pima Air and Space Museum high on H’s list of things to see.  We arrived in Tucson too late for a full visit to the museum, so we headed to Colossal Cave Mountain Park. Camping was ten dollars for the night, and talk about dry – we spent the night high up in the mountains, surrounded by cactus; saguaro, prickly pear, barrel and aloe (that I recognized) as well as mesquite. We were the only ones in the entire park. The only creature we saw was a beautiful hawk. The only way to describe this experience is to compare it to backpacking in a camper – spooky, self-sufficient and spectacular at the same time.

I am surprised to discover that we enjoy the simplicity of dry camping. The water we use is the water we carry. This means that I pay attention to how much is used for washing dishes and flushing the potty. Most places, even without services, have places to dump “grey and black” water, and hoses to fill tanks. Not all of course, so we need to be aware of the amount of water we carry. When we are connected to electricity, I have access to our combination microwave /convection oven. Without connection to electricity get power to run lights and refrigerator, heat and hot water from battery and propane.  We depend on our propane stove and (yikes) pots and pans for cooking. I have found that a pressure cooker is a great tool for cooking yummy food with little energy. Some mornings what I miss the most is toast.

On the plus side, the absence of connection means the absence of TV and other outside noise and news. We have our Iphones so we are not completely detached; except for nights like the one in Colossal Caves, where there is no service of any kind. The longer we go without TV etc, the less we miss it. It is surprising how much we find to talk about, how many books we can read, how peaceful the silence can be and how competitive we are becoming at 500 Rummy.

Most of all, I find we are both greatly appreciative of how little we need to be comfortable, interested and content with what we have.