Boondocking, how do you know where to park?

Well chickies, it's my last full day along Lake Mead. (New to the blog? Read about free chickens). Tonight after work (his, not mine of course, I'm in deep deep idle time) my nephew Dave is driving out to Government wash to see me and tomorrow about 6 am I'll drive west to Pahrump, NV. Pahrump is almost on the California border due west. The following day I'll be at a beautiful oasis that birders stay at in the desert near Tonopah, NV. I'm leaving now because Saturday and Sunday are forecast to be above 100F here. Pahrump is 10 degrees cooler and Tonopah a bit cooler yet.
Rick sent me a very good knife sharpening link. Phil Churchill previously mentioned this guy to me too. He won a competition and is in the Guiness book of records. Something about getting an axe sharp enough to shave with. Here's the link .

I was talking to a lady here at the wash and it finally dawned on me that most boondockers just go to where they have been told by other boondockers. That is extremely valuable, but in talking to her, she and her husband had missed some very nice overnight stops, just like I had previously missed Craggy Wash north of Lake Havasu. That got me thinking of course, how is that I use the web and maps to find these places? You wouldn't think that it would be very important, just park anywhere. That is sort of the George and Tioga way to do it but I never sleep well in spots where I expect someone to knock on the door and tell me to move.

So this is how I find free places now, and each year I've become better at it. This came up because this is exactly what I did this morning to lay out the next two days of travel. I do all of this while I have an internet connection, which of course I usually do because of my satellite dish. If I knew there would be no connection I would lay out weeks worth of places, but that is time consuming and does not allow for weather related changes to the plan.
1. I bring up a weather program like this one and look at the 5 day forecast. I look two days into the future for the high and low and this is the number I use to compare each free site I locate. I want above 30F and below 92F. That is my ruling criteria while in travel mode.
2. I have a general direction I would like to go based on seeing something in the area or heading back to Oregon or to the southwest from Oregon. It is fuel expensive to move the trailer so I like to work in reasonable patterns. If I can get within 5 miles of what I want to see, then I use the moto bicycle. Based on that general direction I look on the map and find the nearest city. I immediately check weather 2 days into the future and make sure it falls within my range for highest and lowest. If not, I change towns until I find one or two that match my weather criteria.
3. I then use Google and search for "free camping name_of_town" and then "boondocking name_of_town". You will find hours of reading when you do this and in a pretty short time you'll find websites to bookmark that come up again and again and have good directions. Almost everyplace west of the Mississippi has boondocking locations that are free or less than $10. I am only interested normally in free (but you guessed that, right?).
4. Sometimes the links you are searching will have good directions and other times you just get something like, the Hicksen rest area is pretty good west of Austin five miles. I look at my maps and see where they are talking about and if it is in my line of travel, but the next step is crucial.
5. Once you know the name of the boondocking area google the name. You can get lucky and find a site which has pictures and greater detail, and often personal experiences with the area. The best sources when you google the name is anything that has to do with birding. Those people take good notes! THis morning, for my Tonopah stay I found the exact GPS coordinates and even the layout of the boondocking area.
6. Last, if you're social, when you find a good spot with other RVers walk around and say hello. Many are as hungry as I am to talk after spending so much time alone, and you will learn of other places, but more importantly, you'll learn all the little ins and outs of the place you're at. For instance, I paid $5.00 a couple of weeks ago to get into the Lake Mead area from the Vegas side. Later from other boondockers I find that only the Vegas end of the Lake Mead Recreation area has a fee. THEN I find out they close the booths at 4:30pm and you can come in for free. I also learned where to dump and fill up with good water for free and where the best no pay showers are.
Boondockers are concerned with these things usually.
a. Finding big areas that they can spread out in and have plenty of room, and of course, not paying money so they can camp longer and go back to work less.
b. finding good tasting fresh safe water and a free place to dump the black water tank. Most do not worry much about the grey water as they dump it out at night illegally. There is no smell if you do that every day! In a dispersed area where they rigs are not close together this is better environmentally that pouring it down a septic leach field to be eaten anaerobically. However you can make a point that in the desert that water was not part of the ecosystem. Feel free to comment on this.
c. HOT showers that are free or cheap.
d. Better weather suckers (sorry that was impolite)!

So that's my secret method, and I miss few good spots this way. I still have all the Flying J's marked on my maps but less and less do I need to stay in a noisy gas station, and more and more I find myself in beautiful, stunning places, like two nights ago parked on an ancient bed of coral, overlooking dramatic erosion canyons working their way to Lake Mead. There is NO commercial campground that can offer you even a tiny bit of that experience. Commercial campgrounds are for scaredy-cats who fear anything that doesn't look like their suburb or their class A. In a commercial campground you'll be cheek to jowl with your neighbors and have a whole host of features that mean nothing to a boondocker. Got to have that cable tv connection I guess, oh, and full time power for the two air conditioners. If you go to some place that hot, what are you going to do besides sit in the air conditioned RV anyway? I'm ranting.
Later chiclets.