Alder Lake Park Rocky Point Campground

We stayed at Alder Lake Park Rocky Point Campground in Eatonville, Washington. (Campground Reviews listing.)

A delightful lakeside view.

Dates:

Check in: 2022-08-07
Check out: 2022-08-09
2 nights

Weather:

Sunny
High temps 90°F, lows at 58°F
No significant wind

Noise:

Next to a highway, so a bunch of road noise; no train noise
No significant neighbor noise

Site:

#423, pull through, asphalt
Didn’t need to disconnect toad; parked behind coach
Not very level, sloped down from the driver side
Smallish site: about 60 feet long by about 25 feet wide
Partial hookups:

50 amp power conveniently located
55 PSI water pressure; conveniently located
No sewer

Picnic table, fire pit on gravel
Several trees on the driver side for privacy

Internet (in usage priority order):

T-Mobile: 55 Mbps down, 22 Mbps up, 55 ms ping
AT&T: 1 Mbps down, 4 Mbps up, 682 ms ping
Verizon: 8 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up, 25 ms ping
Starlink: not used
Campground Wi-Fi: none

Amenities:

Garbage bin

Here’s our review on Campground Reviews:

Lovely view of the lake and close to Mt Rainier

We stayed at the Rocky Point campground in site 423 and had the best view of the lake from our site. However, getting to the site was a little gnarly with our 40′ motorhome, as the road inside the park is very winding and narrow with many overhanging trees. The site was one of the few pull-throughs in the campground and just long enough for our motorhome and tow vehicle. There wasn’t a camp host on duty, but it was pretty easy to just go to our site and get settled. A ranger came by while we were at Mt. Rainier the next day and left our check-in paperwork under our wiper. There’s easy access to the day use area next door, so it was nice to cool off on a warm afternoon. The only limiting factor to this campground is the lack of a sewer connection at each site; otherwise, we would have happily stayed for much longer than two nights. We camped at Alder Lake Park in a Motorhome.

The RV park map:

Map sign

A delightful lake view from our site:

Lake view

Our site

Our site:

Our site

Only electric and water hookups:

Utilities

Not a sewer dump:

Not a sewer dump

Lake view:

Lake view

Dinner with a view:

Dinner with a view

View from our site:

View from our site

Moon:

Moon

Moon and lake

Another night:

Moon and lake

Aerial views:

Aerial view

Day use area:

Aerial view

Entrance:

Entrance

Campground full:

Campground full

The road in the campground was a bit tight for our coach:

Narrow road

Tiny trailer and tent:

Tiny trailer and tent

Gate to the day use area:

Gate to day use area

Day use area:

Day use area

Cooling feet

Lake

Video

Video: Welches, Oregon to Eatonville, Washington motorhome travel timelapse

A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 163 miles from Welches, Oregon to Eatonville, Washington.

Travel from Buxton, Oregon to Eatonville, Washington

We drove our coach 163 miles, about 4 hours of driving, from Buxton, Oregon to Eatonville, Washington.

The map route, heading north:

Map route

We pulled into a maintenance area to hook up our tow bar:

Tow bar

Our new Sinclair Trails logo sticker is visible inside with the slide-out in:

Sinclair Trails logo and David

Jenn driving; yes, she drives our coach:

Jenn driving

Enjoying some coffee at a traffic light stop:

Jenn drinking coffee

Sandy:

Sandy

Interesting MAX light rail station:

Interesting MAX light rail station

MAX light rail:

MAX light rail

Heading towards Seattle:

Heading towards Seattle

Paladin on the back of my chair:

Paladin and David

Leaving Portland:

Leaving Portland

Leaving Oregon:

Leaving Oregon

Stopping at a rest area:

Rest area

Lunch:

Lunch

The rest area had an RV dump station; nice:

Dump station

Paladin:

Paladin

Bridge:

Bridge

A small plane taking off:

Small plane taking off

Driving:

Driving

Another Tiffin joining the freeway:

Tiffin

Paladin passing over my lap:

Paladin

Gee Cee’s Truck Stop; quite nice and not busy:

Gee Cee's Truck Stop

Another bridge:

Bridge

We have Sinclair Trails logo Yeti coffee mugs:

Sinclair Trails coffee mug

Sleeping Paladin:

Sleeping Paladin

Mayfield Lake:

Mayfield Lake

Jenn driving:

Jenn driving

Paladin asleep:

Paladin asleep

Highway 12:

Highway 12

Hey look, another bridge:

Bridge

Hobo Inn, staying in train cars:

Hobo Inn in train cars

Day use area at Alder Lake:

Day use area

Our destination, Rocky Point campground:

Rocky Point campground

A rather narrow road within the campground:

Narrow road

Sinclair Trails stickers

One of the use-cases for getting a logo designed for Sinclair Trails was to put it on our coach.

Here’s me adding the logo sticker to our slide-out, above the states map:

David adding sticker

The Sinclair Trails logo sticker; looks really good, I think:

Sinclair Trails sticker

Above the map:

Sinclair Trails and map stickers

We also got another sticker with the SinclairTrails.com website and social name (e.g. Twitter and Facebook):

Sinclair Trails sticker

The stickers:

Stickers

Bike addition: heavy-duty security chain and lock

I got a Vulcan bike lock to secure our bikes. It was highly recommended by other Lectric owners. It is very heavy-duty; they claim it can’t be cut with bolt cutters or hand tools — an important consideration with ebikes apparently being a high-value theft target at some campgrounds:

Bike lock

Marchesi Vineyards

While in the area, we visited our favorite winery, Marchesi Vineyards in Hood River:

Marchesi Vineyards

We did a wine tasting (alas, not free, as we are no longer members there, since we can’t easily get wine deliveries):

Wine tasting

A resident dog, Jazzy, spent some time hanging out with us:

Dog

Jazzy and Jenn:

Dog and Jenn

A charcuterie platter for lunch:

Charcuterie

Misters keeping us cool on a hot day:

Misters

Decor

Vines:

Vines

Jazzy (with a boo-boo):

Dog

Vines:

Vines

Of course, we came away with a case of wines. That’ll keep us going until we can get back again next year!

Reflectix insulation in cupboards

The cupboards in our coach can get fairly warm when sitting in the sun. A common solution for that is to add extra protection via silvered bubble insulation like Reflectix. I recently added some to the back of most of the cupboards:

Reflectix

Trillium Lake

While staying near Mount Hood, we of course had to visit Trillium Lake for its great view of the mountain.

A view of the mountain on the way:

Mount Hood

Trillium Lake and Mount Hood from the dam area:

Trillium Lake and Mount Hood

We had a picnic dinner:

Picnic

Then enjoyed views of the mountain over the lake:

Trillium Lake and Mount Hood

This may look a little familiar: it’s the view on the Magne Shade on our coach windscreen (except during daytime):

Magne Shade

More pics:

Trillium Lake and Mount Hood

Ducklings:

Ducklings

Selfie

Lots of people enjoying the lake:

Paddleboards

Trillium Lake and Mount Hood

Rides around Mt Hood Village

A quick post with a couple of videos from short rides around Mt Hood Village. No photos, other than embedded in the first video, since those I took appeared in my review of the campground.

As mentioned previously, I use Strava to track my rides, and Relive to convert the routes into 3D videos.

Here’s the first ride, by myself:

And the second ride, with Jenn:

Not overly exciting, but a handy way to explore large campgrounds.

Mt Hood Village RV & Camping Resort

We stayed at Mt Hood RV & Camping Resort in Welches, Oregon. (Campground Reviews listing.)

A nice Thousand Trails Encore park.

Dates:

Check in: 2022-07-25
Check out: 2022-08-07
13 nights

Weather:

Mostly sunny
High temps ranging between 77-98°F, lows around 54-67°F
No significant wind

Noise:

No road noise or train noise
Not much neighbor noise (kids and dogs)

Site:

Vine Maple Hollow #78, back in, gravel
Needed to disconnect toad; parked in front of coach (on gravel)
Fairly level, sloped up a little at the back
Medium site: about 60 feet long by about 30 feet wide
Full hookups:

50 amp power conveniently located
50 PSI water pressure (we boosted from our tank); fairly conveniently located
Reasonable sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10 foot hoses used)

Picnic table, fire pit on gravel
Several trees for privacy

Internet (in usage priority order):

Starlink: 53 Mbps down, 10 Mbps up, 72 ms ping
AT&T: 6 Mbps down, 5 Mbps up, 27 ms ping
Verizon: 8 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up, 40 ms ping
T-Mobile: no service
Campground Wi-Fi: none

Amenities:

Garbage dumpsters
Indoor pool
Onsite restaurant

Here’s our review on Campground Reviews:

Nice campground close to Mt Hood

This park has a nice mix of sites close to all sorts of outdoor activities in the area. We were grateful to be under the tall trees during the worst of the heat even if it meant the Starlink was pretty useless. There are newer sites that have no trees, but they were baking in the sun. You really need to weigh your priorities when making your site reservation. The roads are a bit narrow in spots, and they have a few trees that need to be trimmed, but overall we had no trouble getting our 40′ motorhome around to our site. We really enjoyed the on-site restaurant. Their breakfasts are awesome. We camped at Mt Hood Village RV Resort in a Motorhome.

The RV park map; it a large park, with multiple campgrounds within it, separated into short-term and long-term RVs, plus cabins:

Map