Mount Rainier National Park - A Wild Time Among the Wildflowers (National Parks Trip #3)

This post represents another installment in the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.

“Think outside the box.”  This fairly common expression is probably familiar to most people.  It’s a concept that my very logical mind often has difficulty converting into anything useful.  But, when it comes to finding good campgrounds, my brain has figured out that it never hurts to think outside the box.  And that means . . .  power companies.  Back in 2021, when Alan and I spent an extended period of time in Idaho, we camped at two facilities run by Idaho Power.  (Our campsite at Woodhead Park in Hells Canyon remains one of my all-time favorites.)  In researching a good base camp for our visit to Mount Rainier National Park, I discovered that Tacoma Power in Washington operated four facilities with campgrounds – and one of them was less than 20 miles from Mount Rainier National Park.

Another Favorite Place - RVParkReviews.com!

Rather than just provide a complete list of my favorite websites under “Check out my favorite places!,” I decided to add them one at a time and let you know exactly why I like them.  That way, you’ll be able to determine whether or not the site might be of interest to you.  Besides, I believe that these sites do such an awesome job of providing information and/or entertainment that it really is a pleasure to bring them to your attention!

RVParkReviews.com has become an invaluable resource for me whether I’m in trip planning mode or we’re traveling without reservations and simply need to find a place to spend the night.  I’ve been known to spend hours digging up info on a campground that we may need for even just a night or two.  I’ll bet you’re wondering why.  Alan wonders why sometimes, too.  But, truthfully, his idea of a perfect campsite and mine are pretty similar.  We enjoy the larger size and more natural surroundings of campgrounds found in State and National Parks.  We’ll both gladly forego hookups for “a room with a view” and, of course, we both want someplace safe and quiet to lay down our heads at night.  Although we do stay in privately owned RV parks when the need arises, we don’t generally search them out or require any of the usual resort amenities when we’re staying at one.  Our perfect campsite would be on public lands - on a lakeshore or riverfront, deep in the woods or at the edge of a meadow with a view of the mountains.  Because I feel so strongly about the sites we choose, I’m willing to devote time and effort to online research trying to match our preferences to campgrounds in the area in which we’ll be traveling.  That’s where RVParkReviews.com comes in.  Photos included in this post are all from campgrounds I found with the help of this extremely useful web site!