Elna and I completed the scouting trip for the 2010 caravan and are slowly heading for home.  We drove the caravan route from Santa Fe to Moab, locating and negotiating rates for campgrounds and various caravan activities.  The trip started August 31 and we should be home about October 17.  We had a great time as the weather was excellent and minimal crowds.  We were surprised at the number of folks out camping and enjoying the National Parks.  every campground manager and all but one tour operator indicated that business was “better than they expected” this year.  The only one who had a bad year was the helicopter ride at Bryce Canyon.  We also had many opportunities to practice our German as there were many Europeans traveling in their rental “Cruise America” class C’s.  I wrote a blog about our trip www.swadventurecaravan.blogspot.com if you want to review our trip.  I plan to set up a blogspot for members of the caravan as we travel on the caravan.  Most of the commercial campgrounds have wireless.  We are going to try to get reservations at a couple of National Park campgrounds, i.e. North Rim of the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park.  The reservation system for the national parks is interesting as we can only make four reservations per call or internet access, and the reservations must be in the individuals name.  The obvious reasons to stay in the park campgrounds are location and cost.  At Zion, the park cost is <$15 while the commercial cost is almost $40.   At the North Rim, the N.P.S. campground is right on the rim while the campground at Jacob Lake is 42 miles away.Depending on the number of N.P.S. campgrounds, we will have 14-17 nights of dry camping, so plan accordingly.  We will be providing our personal guidelines for dry camping in the next few months.  Also we are planning a “dry camping” rally in Feb. for those who can make it to Lake City, FL the week before the FL State Rally.