Workcamping at Redman Revisited

After 3 weeks we are calling ourselves seasoned workcampers. As rookie campground hosts we have experienced a lot, not everything, but a lot so far.

Redman is at 8,300 feet so spring and summer come late. There is still a little nip in the air when we wake up each morning. A little nip in the air may be different for people who have lived the last 8 years in the Valley of the Sun. Summer morning temperatures here in the summer time may equal Phoenix's winter lows. It feels good. We haven't had to run our AC once. We bought a small ceramic heater to warm things up in the RV in the morning rather than use our precious propane.

The air is super clean except when there is traffic on the dirt road next to the host site and the wind is blowing towards us. When I step out in the morning for my morning walk around the campground (about 1.5 miles) it smells fresh except when there are deer or moose nearby. My nose, in this fresh air environment, is much more alert. Usually I can smell deer or moose before I can see them. The vegetation has grown up so much that the deer and moose are sometimes hard to spot. Sometimes all I can see is twitching ears above the willows or young aspen.

Tent campers are, as I mentioned earlier, real campers. They are generally the cleanest too. When we make our rounds we stop at recently vacated sites and police up the site. Rarely do we encounter more than a few scraps of paper or one of those bread wrapper fasteners at tent camping sites. Popup tent campers are a close second. RVers cook and eat in their RVs usually so they are pretty neat too. The worst slobs in our campgrounds are very young adults that are camping with their friends. They treat the campground the same way they treat their living quarters I imagine.

We have finally encountered some vandalism. Our #2 toilet (we have 5 modern toilets in the camp ground) was plugged up. I feel that if a restroom is well maintained and clean even the idiots who enjoy destroying public property won't vandalize it. Our #2 has had problems with leaking and when people come in to use it the dirt on their boots and shoes becomes mud and soon the floor is a mud hole. It looks terrible and that leads to vandalism in my opinion. Our other, properly working, toilets haven't had any problems even though they have been heavily used by young males. Young, testosterone-laden males seem to have a toilet destroying gene. Does trashing a restroom impress young women?

If you stop in at Redman to camp, the best sites are 40, 11, 23, and 9 (part of group site 7-8-9). 40 is the best site except that it is not near the modern toilets. Only the group sites can be reserved. Everything else is first-come-first served.