We couldn't park! Too tight a squeeze at our first National Park campsite

The long-awaited solar installation was complete, and we were taking on the Southwest, boondock-style. After finishing the install at our solar contractor's Arizona ranch, we had two weeks before we were due back in the state, and so we took advantage. First, we traveled up to Nevada to dry camp at our site-with-a-view at Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Despite having quite a few cloudy days, our solar lasted a long time, and when we needed a quick recharge, all we needed to do was turn on our generator for a couple of hours. We got a sense of how to live completely self-contained, and we have to say, we quickly got hooked on the freedom.

After Lake Mead, we headed to our second dry camping site, which would also be our very first time actually staying in a National Park campground. It was time to visit Joshua Tree! National Park campsites are hard to come by, especially with a rig our size, and so we had booked our site at Cottonwood Campground a couple months ahead of time. It was the only campground that still had availability at that time, as the campgrounds on the north side of the park book up very quickly. We'll talk about why in the next blog post. Cottonwood was a great location for us, though, because after our time at Joshua Tree, we could conveniently jump back on I-10 and make our way back to Arizona.

On our way to Lake Mead, we took US95 north, which passes on the eastern outskirts of the Mojave Desert. This was where we spotted our first Joshua Trees, and boy did that sighting make our day! We couldn't wait to see their abundance in the National Park.

Only...when we arrived to the park, there were no Joshua Trees. We drove miles in from the southern boundary, to our campground, and not one glimpse of a Joshua. We couldn't help but contrast the experience with Saguaro, where the cacti cropped up all over the place well before we reached the park boundaries. Could the Joshua Trees really be that isolated to one small area? It does make sense scientifically, we suppose. After all, that's what makes all these desert plants so special. They all need certain climate conditions to survive, and those conditions only occur in small areas. And so we stayed patient for a day that we could explore the other side of the park, closer again to the Mojave, and for the time-being decided to see what the south side of the park has to offer. But first, we needed to get into our site.

In National Parks, even though some campsites can accommodate larger rigs, for the most part, the campgrounds are made for small RVs and tents. We've heard stories of RVers squeezing into sites smaller than their measurements and doing the famous "overhang" that we mentioned in our Lake Mead campground review post. This site at Joshua tree actually did measure large enough to fit our trailer, but the question was, could giant Clyde fit in there too? Cottonwood Campground has two loops, and each loop contains back-in sites across the street from parallel sites. A parallel site is exactly what it sounds like; there is a part of the road that grows wider, creating a spot to pull over into. If you're small, you can usually just pull right in, as though you're pulling off on the side of the road. If your rig takes some more maneuvering...yep, you're looking at a parallel parking job.

For all intents and purposes, we're medium sized. I know it doesn't sound like it when we say our combined length is 56 feet, but we're not hauling a giant 36ft trailer or 45ft fifth wheel behind us. So we honestly didn't know if we'd be able to pull into our site, or if we'd need to drive forward first and back our way in. With cars lining up behind us, we decided to first try the simplest, quickest maneuver: pull in. We almost made it too, except our site had the added bonus of boulders lining the site, separating the pavement from the dirt of our picnic area. We get it. The boulders probably help keep RVs from running over vegetation. But boulders are all different shapes, and this one in particular stuck out about 6 inches from the others, and that 6 inches was enough to not allow us the ease of pulling into our site.

We reset our position, and I navigated Anthony forward on the road so he could back his way into the spot. I don't think I've done that much running around the rig in a long time. I had to keep going from the truck, to the front of the RV, to the back passenger side where the boulders were, to the back driver's side corner to make sure it wasn't sticking too far into the road. I could have benefited from having about 10 more eyes that day, but we made our way in with only a couple of little repositions needed. We found a spot between a yucca tree grove and our picnic table where our steps could go down, and while we technically weren't sticking out on our back corner, we lined our rope lights up along the outer edge of our trailer just so people could easily see it at night. Once upon a time we had triangles for emergencies, which would have come in handy in this situation. We made a mental note to buy more, but honestly, the rope lights were possibly even better. Props to Anthony for coming up with that solution!

Thankfully, we didn't need to make our campground compadres wait too long behind us as we maneuvered our way in, but we did get a nice compliment from one of them as he drove by. That's the thing. We all know the deal with National Park campgrounds, so we're patient and accepting when rigs are trying to finagle their way into spots. We got a second compliment from a lady walking her dog, who also had a 28ft RV, and so we exchanged mutual congratulations for our jobs well done getting into our sites. By that point we were leveled, unhitched, and trying to park Clyde in our site. Everyone talks about our trailer size, but our truck is only a little bit shorter, clocking in at 22ft! (The other 6ft is our tongue, which is how we get 56ft combined). I tried so many different approaches to navigating Anthony into our site with the truck, but those boulders were not our friends. There were times when the truck tires were mere centimeters from the boulders, but we couldn't swing it. The sun was setting and we were tired from our travel day, and so we surrendered. We got the trailer in which was the most important part. The truck would be fine parked a little ways down in the bathhouse parking lot.

The next day, I told Anthony I wanted to try again with the truck, now that we had gotten a good night's sleep and it wasn't dark out. He figured it wouldn't work, but I told him I would "take the knowledge I had accrued yesterday and apply it to today's attempt." Even I thought I was full of it, but apparently there was actually some truth to my confident statement. First try, and we got Clyde into the site. Granted we couldn't get the tailgate open or the passenger side storage bay door, but it was all about the principle of the matter! After that, we still mostly just parked at the bathhouse because maneuvering just wasn't worth it, and we started a trend. By the end of the week, ours was one of three giant trucks, all having a party at the bathhouse.

So why did we go through all that trouble to book a National Park site, when it's a hassle to find availability and even when we do, we know it'll be a tight squeeze? It's to ensure that we'll have our favorite park perk: a hiking trail just steps from camp. We sold our house because we got sick of needing to jump in the car and drive every time we wanted to hike somewhere. Being able to conveniently hike, even on a work day, has been one of the best gifts of RV life. Even better is that these hiking trails are always different, bringing us new terrain and views that keep us inspired and excited. Despite not having Joshua Trees nearby, the hiking trail from camp was fantastic. We'll be covering that in our next post.

But, before I sign off, I do want to give credit where credit is due. While our parking area may have been too short for both Buggy and Clyde, the site itself was extremely spacious. I wasn't expecting it for a National Park site, but in Cottonwood Campground they really make sure that each camper would have room to both park and pitch, if they were bringing a tent. We had no tent, but I couldn't resist setting up my camping chair and sunbrella on a beautiful, sunny day. And that, my friend, is where I ended up doing my taxes. Sure takes the cake for the best filing place of my life!

The tent area was separate from the picnic area, and little paths weaved around the desert vegetation. We even had a path connecting our site in loop B to loop A, which gave us some variety when we took Tanner for walks. This is the space we care about. Where we park is just that - a parking spot. The surrounding nature is what truly matters, and there was no shortage of that here at Cottonwood Campground. But, we still hadn't found any Joshua Trees in the park! Our adventures, including our journey to find these trees, are coming up in the next post.

Campground:

• Cottonwood Campground at Joshua Tree National Park
• Site B1, no hookups, parallel parking site, picnic table
• Campground recommended? Yes
• Site recommended? Yes