It was pretty chilly here at the Maxwell Wildlife Area, with temperatures in the upper 30s this morning. But nonetheless, I got a great night's sleep, and since there was only one other person here besides me, it was very quiet, to say the least.
I found out the wildlife area has a maximum camping stay of 5 nights of boondocking, which sounds like plenty for me, and I'm not even sure I need to stay that long. If you remember, I was checking this place out to see if it would replace Storrie Lake State Park as my first big stop on my winter travels, and so far, it looks good because everything is so similar. Such as ......
1. Storrie Lake State Park had lots of areas to walk around and get a little exercise. And the Maxwell Wildlife Area does too.
2. Storrie Lake has a big lake you could camp next to. Oddly enough, so does the Maxwell Wildlife Area.
3. Storrie Lake has birds you can take pictures of, but it's mostly geese; the Maxwell Wildlife Area has geese and a whole lot of other birds.
4. Storrie Lake can sometimes be somewhat noisy since it's a popular place for the locals to have parties and picnics. From what I've read, the wildlife area has none of those problems.
5. Storrie Lake State Park is built for people to use and be comfortable. Maxwell Wildlife Area is run by the federal government and set up to appeal to animals, not necessarily to people who go to see and photograph them…I like that.
6. Storrie Lake State Park has great close-by shopping, with a Walmart, Gas stations, and hardware stores 3 or 4 miles away. Maxwell Wildlife Area has almost no shopping to speak of, so you need to arrive here with a full refrigerator and pantry. And that's not really a downside for me. I can make sure I've got plenty of groceries when I get to the wildlife area, since I always spend the night in the Trinidad, Colorado Walmart parking lot
7. And now the biggie! Storrie Lake State Park charges $15 a night to boondock. And Maxwell Wildlife Area has completely free boondocking for 5 days. But the 5-day limit doesn't really bother me, since I've seldom spent 5 days at Storrie Lake State Park.
As you can see, things are shaping up pretty well for the Maxwell Wildlife Area. And it doesn't look like I'm losing much of anything by coming here instead of Storrie Lake State Park.... So it looks to me like this is my lucky day. But I will be really interested to see what goes on here over the weekend.
Theboondork
This picture shows most of the campground. You can see a travel trailer about a hundred yards from me. They pulled out this morning, so I'm here all by myself now…. Talk about peace and quiet! If it weren’t for the birds, there would be no sound at all.
This shot shows how close my boondocking spot is to the lake.
I knew there wouldn't be a decent sunset, and I was right, but this is what it looked like without a cloud in the sky.
There was half an inch of frost on my picnic table this morning …Needless to say, nighttime around here is pretty chilly.