Rule number one of boondocking: don't pull your whole house into a stranger's front yard at night. We broke it on the first night of this trip, or at least we thought we had. We pulled into a field in the Texas panhandle in the pitch dark with no idea where we had just parked. The only light for miles was coming from the Brinkley.
The field was Rita Blanca National Grassland, near Dalhart, Texas. We found it on Campendium and on the grassland's own website, and as far as we could tell you don't need a permit. You just drive in and park. As long as we could find it, and didn't end up in some farmer's field, we figured we would be fine.
Why we left the resort for a free field
We had just spent two weeks at Angel Fire RV Resort in New Mexico for our first Brinkley rally. The rally ran through Sunday, which is normally our travel day, and we didn't want to miss the Sunday night event. Staying another full week would have cost almost another $1,000, at close to $200 a night.
Nathan saw the resort as a treat. Fabiola saw almost $200 a night for amenities we barely used, because we live in a luxury RV and already have everything we need at home. To her it mostly meant a lot of rules and a bigger bill. She won. We are fully capable of boondocking, so we left on Monday after work and headed for grass that costs nothing.
Boondock prep: food, water and tanks
Before we hit the road, we got ready for a few days with no hookups. Fabiola cooked ahead: broccoli, pasta, chicken with creamed corn and peas, with hemp seeds on top.
Then water. If it is a short travel day, we fill the fresh tank before we leave. This was a short travel day by distance, if not by hours, so we filled up at the RV park through our Blu Tech filter. Everything going into the tank gets filtered, so we can drink straight from it and don't have to haul jugs. The park's water pressure was slow, so Nathan put a sensor on the line to make sure water was still flowing while we waited.
The other half of the prep: dump the black and gray tanks before you leave. Clean water in, everything else out.
Breaking all the RVer rules
The first stop was a Subway at 5:48 in the evening. Nathan had worked a full day and was driving anyway, and Fabiola had napped so she could get back to editing. We post a new video every Friday now, and it's a lot of work to put one together and do it right. We enjoy it a lot, though.
By 7 p.m. the sun was going down, we had already seen cows, and we still had well over an hour to go. That's when we admitted it: we were breaking every rule RVers like to quote. More than 300 miles, more than three hours of driving, and arriving after dark.
Then we hit road construction. They were repaving the whole road, so traffic crawled. That gave us time to show off our AUTO-VOX CampSync cameras. On the monitor we could see the road behind us, the semi on our tail and the grass beside us, all at once.
We also tried something new at the fuel stop. We filled the DEF tank from the pump (1.2 gallons of it) instead of buying boxes, because the boxes always leave you trying to figure out where to throw them away.
Officially dark
At 8:43 p.m. it was officially pitch black, and it was the latest we had ever driven. We watched for animals. Dusk had actually been the hardest part, when it was hard to see and Nathan felt sleepier. Once it was fully dark and the headlights were doing their job, it felt easier.
Then we crossed a time zone and our ETA jumped to 9:45. The last town had a Days Inn, and Fabiola offered it as a joke. No, thank you. We have a fancy RV.
The plan was simple. Nathan had to be at work at 8 the next morning, and Fabiola too. If we couldn't see the ground well when we got there, or we got nervous about snakes, we would park, get roughly level and fix it in the morning. Basically, treat it like a Walmart night, somewhere we could get back out of if we had to.
Unpaved road, and we missed it
The last stretch was an unpaved road, and we drove right past the turn. The map said the gate we had just passed was the entrance, and from the road it looked pretty bad to get into. Going back meant 15 minutes, and finding somewhere to turn around in the dark.
Nathan made a U-turn with a 40-foot fifth wheel in the middle of nowhere while Fabiola guided him from outside. We don't speak exactly the same language when it comes to backing up a trailer ("Straight the wheels!"), but it worked. It is basically the same move as backing into a campsite, just on a road at night.
On the way back we saw owls sitting on the dirt road, camouflaged so well that the mud looked like it was moving. There was a whole group of them on a nearby roof.
The barbed-wire gate
The entrance was a barbed-wire gate. There was no sign telling you how it worked, so we figured it out with flashlights. A bar holds the tension on the wire. Unhook it, and you can pull the bottom out and swing the whole thing open without getting cut. Then you have to put it back the right way, in the dark, which means remembering which end is the bottom.
Just past the gate was a big hole. Nathan straddled it with the truck and hoped the RV would follow the same line. Then the flashlight found the sign we had hoped for: Rita Blanca, Unit 93. Exactly what we needed.
We set up on a pretty level spot under a beautiful moon. Fabiola was not a fan of walking around in tall grass in the dark ("I feel like I'm in a horror movie"), mostly because of snakes. She kept her eyes on the ground, but not too closely.
The spot had three reviews on Campendium and they helped, but the unit number on the sign, R93, wasn't clear there. When we leave our review, we will add a photo of the gate and how to open it. If you go, here is what we would tell you: look for the unit number on the sign, and plan on opening a barbed-wire gate yourself.
Setting up in the dark
We stayed hitched to the truck, since this was supposed to be a single night. To put the slides out, we wanted the jacks down first, so Nathan used manual leveling, which is faster than auto. The front jacks were already down from hitching, so he extended the rear jacks until each one touched the ground and stopped the moment the RV started to move. It was almost perfectly level, so he left it there. Slides out. We made it.
Staying hitched for one night is something we also do on Walmart overnights, and our Walmart overnighting guide covers how we handle it.
What we woke up to
In the morning we finally saw where we were: open grassland in every direction, free, no reservations and nobody around for miles. We had planned on staying just one night.
Then a truck pulled up and a man walked toward our door. Were we in trouble?
We weren't. It is public land, and we were in the right place. He told us someone had recently stayed one spot down, in the wrong place, and the landowner had told her to leave. He also gave us a heads-up that they would be moving cattle past us early the next morning, around 7. We could move if we wanted, or stay right where we were. We stayed. Nathan asked if he could fly the drone over the cattle drive, and he said that was fine.
He also pointed out that there is fresh water down the road, from a solar-powered windmill, if we ran low. We would have to siphon it in, but it's good to know about.
Solar on a cloudy day
It was cloudy and rainy, and the batteries were at 88%. Nathan checks them on his watch now (a birthday gift). Even with the clouds, the panels were still charging a little, because we weren't using much. It was chilly, so no air conditioning, just computers and the basics. If you want the details, our solar setup is written up on the site.
Fabiola set up her office and kept editing, with her hair in what she calls boondocking style. She had a shower before we left, so no complaints yet.
The cattle are coming
By day four we were still there, and we were up early because the cows were coming. They had warned us a couple of days ahead, so it was no surprise. They came down the road with a truck, a horse, a dog and a couple of cowboys. Some of the cows had white faces. One went sideways, and someone went after it.
It was a lot calmer than we expected. Nathan crouched on the roof so he wouldn't startle them, and the herd went around the RV just fine. Because it is a national grassland, the cattle can't stay in one spot forever. They move them through, then move them back later.
The man who checks on the cattle came by to say hi with his dog. They take care of the grassland, and they were really kind to us.
Next week
We had an incredible time boondocking here. But after all that rain, getting our 40-foot RV back out of the field might be a challenge. That's next week's video.
Have you ever pulled into a boondocking spot after dark? Tell us in the comments on the video. If you want to find a spot like this yourself, we wrote up how we use Campendium to find free boondocking. We also send a short weekly newsletter, and the signup is on our newsletter page.