Boondocking Near Oroville, Washington

Our first night in Oroville, Washington, we spent at Osoyoos Lake Veterans Memorial Park 

which was absolutely beautiful, but we thought it a bit pricey at $24 with no hookups whatsoever. You can see it wasn't terribly crowded, although there were a few other campers. There was one lone site with hookups; it went for $30 a night. Jan thought it was kind of ironic that a veteran's memorial park didn't offer a veteran's discount.

Leaving the trailer there, we headed out of town to reconnoiter in preparation for Jan's gold panning plans. I refuse to drag the trailer out into the hinterlands without knowing that the terrain is suitable and there is room to maneuver. We found the site we were looking for, 6.4 miles west of town, and were happy to learn that there was plenty of room for our 34 foot trailer at the site, with free camping (BLM). If we were going to boondock, free is definitely better than $24 a night. There wasn't any cell phone signal at the campground, either, to argue for staying in town, so the next morning we filled up the freshwater tank and moved out there. The site was, as I said, roomy and peaceful--here you see our trailer in place. Just past the trailer, over the bank, was the Similkameen River, which is a tributary of the Okanogan River. This is reputed to be a fairly good gold panning spot. 

Here's another view of our home for the week.

and here's what the river just over the bank, which we could hear from camp, looked like.

We stayed 5 nights. Every day Jan panned

while I moused around the house. Without electricity, we read a lot, played music on our instruments, and started listening to our Gunsmoke classic radio CDs that our friend Tom and given us. Thanks, Tom. We so enjoyed them and look forward to many more exciting episodes on the CDs when life slows down and we can appreciate them. Most days I drove into town to access communications, as there were some family things needing my input, but I would have been happy to stay home most of the time.

Mostly, we just enjoyed the quiet. We had a couple neighbors that Jan chatted with. We found an apple tree just over the bank--now, how did that get here? Some picnicker years ago, carelessly tossing an apple core over the bank?

The apple crisp I made was delicious.

It was easy to imagine what it must have been like in years past. We savored the quiet, the lack of demands, the simplicity of our days. We had time to think.  I don't want to boondock all the time, but I would like to do this some more.