The Tourists Of The West - July 18, 2014

I have had a couple of weeks to observe the people that come out to visit this "Western Wonderland."  My assumption was that I would meet families going on the "great American road trip" and these would represent the majority or a good 80 percent of the tourists.  College students taking the summer off hiking and camping and a few retired people taking these trips to be able to check them off their "bucket list" would make up the other 20 percent of the tourists.  Well, I stand corrected.  The following are some observations based on subjective and qualitative "statistics" (in other words, my guess based on what I see).

The type of people traveling in the "Out West"

I estimate that at least 30 percent of the tourists in the sites that we have visited are Oriental (Chinese (?), Japanese(?)).  Another 20 percent are European, from Spain to Russia.   I would guess that people from India and Latin America make up another 5 percent.  Retired people from the US (well at least they looked old enough to be retired) make up at least 35 percent of the tourists and about 10 percent are the "typical" American families where the parents were 30 to 50 years old.

The retired tourists can be divided in two main categories:  Those traveling on motorcycles and those traveling on "Mega-Mansions Travel RVs."  Those traveling on motorcycles  travel in style:  big Harleys, BMWs,  Hondas and Honda Tricycle motorcycles with trailers that carry everything but the kitchen sink.  During the couple of nights we stayed in hotels, groups of two to five cycles would come in gunning their engines, many of them dressed in motorcycle "gang" regalia with bandanas on their head, emblems on their leather jackets, the big heavy boots, tassels on their saddle bags, the whole Easy Rider scene.  We would watch them park their bikes, slowly take off their helmets.  The man would get off first and then help the woman off the back seat.  They both almost always had gray hair, one of them, usually the man, would grab their walking cane to support them and they both wattle  off slowly to the motel office to register.  Not everybody was as feeble as the couple I described but, I figured the average age of the retired riders had to be 68 to 70.  And, we saw hundreds of these guys!

The other half of the retired tourists traveled in "Mega-Mansions Travel RVs."  I'm talking $200K to $400K bus size RV with pop-out living rooms, fireplaces and kitchens.  There were also some "lower cost" Mega-Mansions fifth wheels. They would set up all their awnings, their patio rugs and furniture, set up their satellite TV dishes  with large screen TVs both inside and outside.  Hell, some of them even had fireplaces.  When the bikers set up camp they were more of a typical camping community with fireplaces group dining and conversations.  When the Mega-Mansion RVs set up camp they were totally isolated, went inside their own mega-mansion the minute the first mosquito came out and never said a word to anybody, except to acknowledge a hello, and then it felt like it was done reluctantly.   RV camping is not the socializing experience that I am used to with tent and camper camping.

The Oriental and European campers were similar in many ways, but specifically in how they camped.  They all camped in rented Travel RVs that were between 20 and 40 feet depending on how many people or how much money they each had.  The Orientals seems to be 30 to 40 year olds who had brought their parents and their kids.  If they did not have kids, it was because they were single women who had brought their parents and what seemed to be older grandparents.  The Europeans consisted of either two or three couples traveling together or families with two to four kids, and in a couple of cases older French men traveling with very good looking younger women.  It was funny to see a group of travel RVs pull into specific sights, like the geyser fields in Yellowstone, park in a row, they all would come out (Orientals and European speaking their own language), take what seemed to be hundreds of pictures of everybody posing in front of this and that, march back up to their rental RVs and head out to the next sight.  I would offer to take family pictures of their whole family, in many cases by hand signals since many of them did not speak English, and they were all very appreciative with the older Orientals bowing and thanking me profusely. 

The Indians and Latin Americans seemed to always be with extended families.  In the case of Latin Americans, they seemed to have cousins with their husbands and wives and kids everywhere.  The "typical" American families had two to three kids and they all seem to have the same conversations: "When are we going to stop to eat?"  "Dad, I gotta find a bathroom."  "Get off that rock Johnny you're gonna fall off."   "Do we have to take a picture, I got a zit on my chin."   I'm sure the foreign families had similar conversations but since I did not understand them I could not quote them here.

Of the few "college-type" tourists that I saw, they were mostly young couples and always wanted to have their tents away from everybody and most of them hiked up to the high country backpacking or do some basic camping with a mountain stream for a source of water.

Of course and then there were the few more "modest means" campers like us.  They either had either a popup camper or a hybrid (tent) camper like ours.  We would fit in either a regular campsite, but since many of those were full, we could also be accommodated into an RV camp (at a higher price).  I have to admit though, the "full-service" RV campsites had certain advantage; we could use the air conditioning, the sink and that bathroom in our camper with the provided sewer, water and electric hook-ups.

The inside of our modest camper; two beds, sink, stove, bathroom and shower.