In June 2018 I rented a car, loaded it up with all of my car camping and backpacking gear and drove from Austin to Ely MN to spend a week at an artist residency on Tofte Lake. I decided to car camp my way up there to save money.
GEAR
And it gave me a chance to road-test my backpacking gear (tent – Lanshan 3F UL 2-person, sleep pad, sleeping bag, stove, etc.). There’s a complete list of my backpacking gear here.
CAMPGROUNDS
The first night I stayed at El Dorado Lake State Park, KS, which is massive, and pretty trashy – literally. I found the park at around dusk and pulled up to a weird little guardhouse with a guy in it. I showed him my reservation printout, and he had no idea where my campsite was – BB2-67, Pintail Loop Area 2. He didn’t understand the abbreviations on it. He had no maps.
So I drove around from campground to campground – that park is enormous – until I found what I guessed was the right one – right on the lake. I pulled in to my spot and I swear the people in the next spot were doing meth, right there. Their tent was getting blown apart too, so I got back in my car and drove a bit until I found an empty spot across the road (not on the water, so it was less windy) with no neighbors.
The landscape / lake could be really beautiful, but when I walked down to the water, there were about 30 concrete blocks with rusted rebar sticking out of them just sitting on the shore.
I was on edge. All of the campers were men – there were a bunch of college guys across the way partying. There was a ton of litter everywhere. And it was also really isolated and strange. No park host in sight. The bathrooms were a crime scene. I’m not even going to describe them.
Still, I pitched my tent, got everything set up, made my dinner, did some writing, and went to bed really really early, like immediately. I didn’t sleep well – every little noise woke me up.
some litter 
some ironic litter 
scary people 
some beauty
And then I woke up in the morning, grabbed the Dollar General bag that was blown onto my tent, picked up trash in the two sites nearest me, and left, passing two trucks with Confederate flags, one dad with confederate flag shorts, and a huge overfilled dumpster. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
