okay
all right what uh what kind of camping is there in Texas
well there there are quite a few um parks i guess state parks and there's a couple of national parks i guess that you can camp at
um-hum
um most of them have pretty good facilities
i don't know if the camping that i've done is really roughing it without a a whole lot of stuff
yeah
so you do uh like backpacking and the like
uh done a little bit of that mainly just um
camping out at state parks i've been to a couple in Texas and there's some real nice ones in Arkansas
uh-huh
um i think Arkansas has one of the best parks departments around
huh
is the Ozarks in Arkansas
um-hum yeah part of them are
yeah so that's probably a pretty nice place to go
yeah they've got uh real nice lake system and
around their parks and
one of them uh the Gray i think that's one of the ones we've been to it's is real nice there a bunch of lakes around it there's a golf course and um
um-hum
just a whole bunch of camping sites
yeah
what about you where have you uh
oh i've been camping for years not on a regular basis but uh i first started camping out in the desert in California
uh-huh
and then sometimes in the mountains also in California
and uh then i moved to North Carolina and i i didn't camp for a long time and then i started to uh
go camping again kind of in conjunction with white water rafting so i'd go up somewhere and camp overnight and then do some rafting
um-hum
and then maybe camp another night and drive home
and that was uh that was pretty good so i went out and bought a whole bunch of camping gear
and uh
you know i still do it once in a while
yeah i think we've collected stuff off and on over the years
the more times we did it the more serious we get about it
uh-huh yeah
where where is Raleigh in North Carolina
uh well it's it's uh in terms of north south i would say it's uh a little a little more towards the northern border of the state and pretty much in the eastern half of it
okay
so what it
so you're kind of away from the Blue Ridge Mountains that area
well it it's uh actually the the Blue Ridge in Virginia are closer to Raleigh they're about three hours away if you go due north
um-hum
um uh the Blue Ridge in North Carolina i think are much nicer and you can pick those up going west but then you're talking about six to eight hours
yeah
the way it works
but um
it's a real it's a real nice place to go and camp and there's some pretty decent campgrounds although i don't think Raleigh i don't think the state of North Carolina takes
they probably just don't spend as much money as a lot of other states might
um-hum
yeah my wife's from the western part of Virginia we've been down the parkway a lot but i didn't know how much how much camping areas there were along there
i think there's quite a few
i can't say i've checked them all out though
what what's it like camping in the desert and California that seems like a challenge
it's uh it's actually kind of incredible it's really really nice
um
i like it better than almost anything i've ever done just the sky is so
amazing
you know you really can
probably count thousands of stars and uh
um-hum
it's it's just kind of nice i like the uh i think the desert has a rare kind of beauty
which um
a lot of people don't realize you know they hear desert and they think of scorpions and snakes and sand and
being real dry and lack of water course it it has all of those qualities but it also has a certain quality of beauty that's
you just don't find anywhere else except in a desert
um-hum
so it's pretty nice the uh
the movie The Doors has some some nice desert scenes those guys all go camping out in the desert
yeah
of course they drag a lot of drugs with them but
um
the uh the shots are are pretty nice and it's sort of like that i mean it's just almost surreal in some places it's very pleasant
hm
are are the temperatures real extreme there or they just
they can be yeah i mean you got to you sort of have to choose your season carefully and know what's going to happen
um-hum
what i've been i've been camping in Death Valley
one doesn't go in July
yeah true
but it's beautiful in February i mean it's just beautiful the days get up into the high eighties
yeah
huh
uh maybe the nineties but it's it's quite bearable and then the nights are reasonably warm you know sixties or seventies
it's just great it's really very nice
yeah we've talked about planning a trip up through um
i have a sister-in-law that lives in New Mexico up through New Mexico and into Colorado and the Grand Canyon area
i don't know don't know when i'm going to get a chance to do that but
yeah
well that would be
that would be pretty nice i've been i have been camping on the south rim of the Grand Canyon
that's okay a lot of people like to go down and camp down inside i was just too lazy that trip to
do all that walking especially with my gear
um-hum
i'll bet
yeah one one thing you said about the stars is really true it's when you're close to a big city like Dallas the the lights kind of wash wash out the star so it's nice to
oh yeah
to get away
it's just amazing how how much you miss
yeah it
yeah it really it really is
i mean i don't think i ever see the Little Dipper you hear people talk about the Little Dipper
hm um-hum
but i don't think i ever
see it except when i go get out of the city and go camping in the desert or in in the mountains
otherwise it's just too faint
well i guess we've
talked as much as we need to on the subject
yeah i think we fulfilled our obligation well thanks for calling nice talking to you
um yeah it was good talking to you Robert bye-bye
okay bye-bye
