Welcome to right outside the gates of
Bryce Canyon in the beautiful state of Utah.
In today's episode, I'm going to
show you what a plan B is all about.
So let's say that you spend hours driving
to Bryce Canyon National Park
intending on camping in one of its two campgrounds
only to find out, huh, they're full.
What are you gonna do?
Well, on this episode
I'm gonna show you what I did.
So if you want to learn about my plan B,
stick around and let's see how it works out.
Okay, so here's what happened.
I just left the North Rim of the Grand Canyon
where I spent a couple fantastic nights in a beautiful campground,
hightailed it up to Bryce, Utah
to get into one of the campgrounds
at Bryce Canyon which currently are not
accepting reservations. They're first-come first-served.
So I knew I was taking a risk.
I got to the main gate, asked the
ranger "are there any vacancies?"
No.
There are not. They just filled up ten
minutes before I got there.
So I did a u-turn and hightailed it
right out down the road to a place
called Ruby's RV Park and Campground, or
Ruby's Inn RV Park and Campground and
luckily they had vacant campsites.
I went ahead, paid my fee, and then they
said "go ahead and drive around." It seems
like they've got about 35 campsites here.
They said, "pick any vacant one,
stick a slip on it, and it's yours,"
and that's what I did.
So as always, I'm gonna just start off
with a quick campground tour.
This is definitely not a National Park quality
campground, for sure, but it's not bad.
So that's the good news.
Basically you do get yourself a picnic table
and you do get a fire ring.
Notice there is no grill attachment on it.
It's just a rock fire ring.
So I'm gonna have to make use of those
pokers I brought with me to cook
my hot dogs tonight.
Then, of course, I set up my tent
over here.
You can see they do pack in
campsites pretty closely here,
which isn't abnormal for
this type of a place.
Off in the distance you can see
the RV portion it's pretty full.
The campsites really kind of wind out
this way and there's a bunch of group
sites over there that were off-limits to
me being a single camper.
Then the road wanders up that way and around.
So it's a pretty small campground.
Okay, now the cost... I ended up spending
seventy six dollars and 20 cents after tax
and their three dollar and
fifty cent recreation fee that they
tacked on to the bill for two nights.
Yes, I did opt to just go ahead and get
two nights rather than mess around with
having to pack up my campsite and then
cross my fingers and hope to get into
Bryce Canyon's campgrounds on a Friday. so
Today's Thursday. Tomorrow is a Friday
I'm just not gonna risk that.
So I'm setting up shop here.
There was one really big selling point
that made me decide to do that, that I'm going to talk about
just in a little bit. So hang tight.
Why don't we go take a quick stroll
around here and we'll take a look at
some of the other sites really quick.
I'm just gonna focus on vacant sites
really because I don't want to invade
other people's privacy. This is that
site right next to me. You've got
pretty much room to park your car.
Not too much selection for where to put up
your tent. I'm gonna guess where this
area is devoid of some vegetation is
probably where most people set up their tent.
I kind of put mine back a little far
but it kind of borders these shrubs.
But the one good thing is I am up
against the woods over here and there is
a barbed wire fence. So I really can't roam back there.
I do get some privacy, I suppose, from the rear there.
At least there's that.
Here's site six.
It is... I guess it's not as sloped
as I thought, but it is pretty sloped.
This wouldn't have been bad.
It's definitely more secluded than the rest.
Keep that in mind this looks good to
you - site number six.
Another view of the grounds.
This is the RV area.
To me it looks like it's primarily an RV park.
The campground is stuffed the way
in the back corner where we are.
So if you're into RV-ing, which
I don't know much about, maybe this is good.
I really couldn't speak to that though.
As for shade, it's a mixed bag here.
I noticed that some sites had no shade at all.
They were just literally the middle of like a little field.
A lot of them have some trees.
This area seems like it has more shade.
Like sites one, two, three, four and five and six.
Mine? Eh, not bad on the shade factor.
That's why I chose it. It was fairly level and had shade.
That was really my criteria for this one.
Here are a couple other sites.
These could be pretty noisy because they
kind of border these gravel roads.
They probably got a lot of traffic,
but they seem okay.
Here's what I was talking about earlier.
You do have some sites, like site 29,
that are just kind of in a middle of a field.
I mean there are a couple trees over there but,
you're not gonna get any shade there.
The weather is not horrible here and it's actually
pretty nice... it's in the 70s right now
probably gonna be in the 40s at night...
but maybe in the summer that would be pretty hot.
Now I did notice stationed throughout the park
there seems to be plenty of
ample water sources here.
I assume they work.
Yep.
This is interesting. They do have teepees.
I think you can rent them.
Doesn't look like there's anybody over here so either
they're not available, and I can't really peek inside of them,
but you might want to inquire about them.
The only thing that's not so bueno
is it's right off the main state route
that leads into Bryce Canyon, which is off
that way. Just maybe like a mile or so down the road.
Now, I do want to say that when I got here
the staff where you go to register and check in
we're super nice. Super professional.
There were other patrons that kind of
were out of their luck that had rvs who
were let down when they found out that
there were no RV reservations and the
staff really handled that with a lot of
tact. I give them kudos for that.
So really good customer service, so far,
here at Ruby's Inn.
Now, I always like to look at the positive in things
because I knew there was a risk here with this plan.
But there are positives to everything.
So I'm going to show you one of those right now.
Here is the awesome news.
They have a Bryce Canyon
shuttle stop right outside of Ruby's Inn.
Right here.
It does run between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
I just checked. In order to use the shuttle...
I have a National Parks pass,
so I just show the shuttle driver
my parks pass. I don't have to pay for a fee.
At this little kiosk here is where you would pay your fee,
your park entrance fee, if you needed to - which is $35.
Seems like it's the same as Grand Canyon and Zion.
But definitely... I would recommend getting a
National Parks Pass if you plan on
visiting a couple of these parks.
If you visit two of them you almost pay for it already.
Here's a real nice little map
that they made here at Ruby's
that talks about Bryce Canyon City,
which is the area that I'm at.
We are here at Ruby's Inn.
And as I said the park goes that way and
there's your shuttle stop.
You could see they do have quite a big
selection of lodges
and other facilities in the area if
camping or RVing is not your thing.
They really have a lot of amenities, it seems,
around this area. And there's a lake.
Lake Minnie. I wonder where Lake Mickey is.
When you first pull in... that campground office right there
is where I went in to make my reservation.
It looks like they do sell ice
for two dollars and 25 cents
plus tax per bag, which is pretty good.
It looks like they do have firewood also.
They do have a bathhouse
here and I think there are showers
further back that we'll go seek out near
where the campground is.
I'll talk about that in more detail later.
You do have a laundry facility.
So as you can see,
they do have plenty of amenities here.
Oh yeah, and they also mentioned
that they do have entertainment in the
evening. Some kind of a dinner show.
I'll see if I could find more information about it.
I don't plan on going but she
said the most expensive thing on the
menu is their steak dinner which is $40.
Now speaking of more positives...
something else that's super cool here is that I
have really good internet. I'm with Verizon.
I almost have a full LTE signal
here in the park. So you know I've been
camping a lot in National Parks and that's
usually not something that you get.
You just kind of deal with it.
So it'll be kind of nice, I suppose,
to have Internet.
Oh yeah, and on that note of Internet...
I forgot to mention they did say that they
have free Wi-Fi here and they gave me
the connection that I need to make.
However, I don't know if it's secure.
She just said, "you just connect to it."
So I'm not sure about that. I'm not a big fan of public Wi-Fi.
Maybe because of the industry I work in. [laughter]
But anyway...
So yeah, it's not all that bad.
There are some things that
help make it a lot better,
like the shuttle and Internet.
Like I said, the campgrounds...
I don't want to
give you guys a false
report because they are pretty nice.
You know, for these kind of places you never
know what you're gonna get.
It's really close to the main entrance of
Bryce if you are planning on driving in.
You probably could even bike there.
I imagine if you really want to walk, you could too.
So those are some good things about this place.
Here are the restroom and shower facilities.
It looks like you could drive your car
and park up here if you were to use them.
I'm gonna go take a peek.
I don't know if I'm gonna be able to film
in there cuz I think I saw some
people go in there and I'm not about that. [laughter]
But let's go check out what they got here.
Ok so I was able to get in one of the showers
because they're individual showers.
Each one is behind a door.
You enter a code that you're given at the campsite.
Here's the shower.
Note that there are no coins required.
You get that as part of the cost that you pay.
You can see you've got a place to hang some
of your clothing as well as a seat.
But it is a little gross there at the floor.
A little muddy from people tracking in dirt.
But overall not bad.
Looks like we have a sink here and a water fountain.
So you could wash your dishes.
So a quick note on the restrooms...
I didn't want to go in and film maybe I'll try later.
There were patrons in there.
But I did go into the men's room and
I could actually say that is a nice bathroom.
Nicer than what you'd find a National Park.
At least ones I have been to so far.
Really nicely tiled. Clean sinks.
Yeah I was actually quite surprised.
Alright, so I have spent
a night at Ruby's Campground.
It's raining now.
It's rained a couple of times since I've been here.
But I do think I have enough
information to offer you guys
my opinion and final thoughts about
my experience here at Ruby's campground.
It's not bad at all. I mean as a fallback...
if you can't get into the National Park, which is very likely...
This place is crazy and the fact that they don't take
reservations right now makes it really difficult.
Ruby's is a fine fallback.
The best parts about it are that
the shuttle
is the first stop going into Bryce Canyon
and the first stop on the way back.
There are several other stops that the shuttle
makes outside of the park.
But that's a huge plus.
It makes it really convenient to get around.
You don't want to drive your car in Bryce.
Trust me. It's crazy in there.
The facilities were clean.
The bathrooms are very clean.
The showers were pretty clean.
That's best as you can expect for a campground anyway.
People washing off the muck from the day.
The only gripes I really have are the
campgrounds are really close together.
Or the campsites, rather.
You can see my neighbors were right there.
It's a very small campsite. It seems like they
primarily cater to RV folks which is
cool, but anyway...
That's really the gist of it.
It's clean. It's fine. Not as good
as staying in the National Park but it
gets the job done in the pinch.
So if you end up in that situation,
Ruby's will do a good job for you.
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Well, I do hope that you found this video helpful
and if you get in the same pinch let me know in the comments down below.
I'd interested to know if you had the same experience.
Other than that, I will see you on a
new adventure right around the corner.
So thanks for tuning in.
We'll see you next time.
Delicious. Although I'm getting sick of hot dogs.
That's all I ever eat anymore.
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