We’ve Sold Out!
The enemy of the true American camper is the KOA (Kampground of America). Just the fact that they write words like ‘campground’ and ‘cabin’ with a ‘K’ is enough to dismiss this establishment as something I don’t want anything to have to do with. Alas, we find ourselves at a KOA and we are loving it. We’re traveling with our 2 kids (William (4) and Julian (2)) and they just don’t dig 5-hour car stretches. The KOA offered us restrooms (something we didn’t have at the last RV Park we stayed at which turned out to be right between a gas station and a junk yard), plus a lot of extras such as a swimming pool, a playground and Wi-Fi.
A bit about American RV culture. First of all RV stands for recreational vehicle. You’ll usually find them located along the highways of America, and there are two types: the 1000 sq feet variety which can easily be identified because it is usually pulling some other large American SUV of sorts (Jeep Cherokkee for example), or it is the trailer/hitch variety being pulled by some super red neck Chevy pick-up. The mentioned varieties come mostly in two motivs – white with turquoise swirls, or white with mountain scene.
I keep asking myself the question “Why do these people come here? Why do you spend hundreds of dollars on fuel to drag a beast like that to Salt Lake City? What do you want to do here? You park your RV, you come out, clean the windows, get yelled at by your wife and retreat back to your RV. You don’t emerge until you get back into your Jeep to go to the Old Country Buffet and then you come back after 2 hours, and don’t come back out until tomorrow? Why bother? You could park in your front yard and have the same experience?”
The bling-bling of the RV Parks is definitely the satellite dish. I know it is tough to leave your familiar surroundings, but if you have a satellite dish, or (more importantly, if you know someone who has a satellite dish) you are set. With modern RV-ing you no longer have to live without real time sports scores! Do you remember that football game that you wanted to know the final score? Well, the dude with the satellite hook-up and the 36-incher on the outside of his rig knows the final score. If you get in with him, you’re set.
All that said, the KOA is amazing for us. Our shit brown Vanagon stands out like a sore thumb amidst the 20 million dollars in RVs that surround us. Our kids love swimming, they love playing at the playground, William has been riding his scooter around the campground which makes life for us very good, too. We’re going to chill here for another day and then continue on. And, honestly, I’m sure we’ll spend more nights in a KOA down the road.
Tags: US-Mexico
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