Unusual Treasures in Unusual Places
The unusual place is Beaver, Utah
The unusual place is Beaver, Utah. The unusual treasure is the Beaver Canyon Campground as well as the Love the Art gallery.
How did we find this place? Beaver is merely a fly speck on the road to the warmth we search for every winter. Even the GPS has difficulty finding the Beaver Canyon Campground, but it is one of the few discount RV parks along the way.
The Beaver Canyon Campground is a funky little park in the middle of the town. Each site is unique and distinct, decorated with treasures rescued from the latest yard sale or other peoples’ throw-aways. The whole park radiates an aura of recycle.
We stopped here way back in 2002 when we first started our snowbirding adventures. At that time the office resembled the kind of storage space revered by a confirmed hoarder. It hasn’t changed much.
This time, when we drove up to register, a young fellow was flitting back and forward like a buzzed roadrunner trying to keep (or get) things organized. He was panting as he explained to us, “There is only one site left, way in the back—is that okay? You would need to come up here to the rest rooms and showers.”
“No problem,” we told him.
“I’ll be back is less than five minutes. You can fill out the form sitting on the counter in there,” he said, as he ran ahead of another RV, escorting it to its site. As we went into the office, it did seem less cluttered, but was still full of bits and pieces.
Five minutes later, he and his faithful dog Blue were back standing on the front porch. Blue decided I had an interesting crotch and I needed to keep shooing him away.
This young fellow is the son of the original owner we had seen in 2002. I think he is trying to fix up the place, but he told us he was constantly running interference from his dad.
All registered and ready to go, Blue and his faithful human ran us to site C24.
A pull-through, yes, but not overly level or wide.
We wandered around the park admiring the creativity and ingenuity of the folks who had decorated the sites. Some sites have fences surrounding them, others have covered patios and almost every site has some sort of decoration wall.
The park comes with a built-in fabulous Mexican restaurant run by Maria, the wife/mother part of the ownership. Truthfully, we have never had better Mexican food and even the local folks told us that it is the best place to eat in town.
Love the Art gallery
Talking about local folks, we always try to explore a community we visit. Well, Beaver is not what you would call a thriving, robust community, but we did manage to find a unique treasure—the Love the Art gallery.
We went into town to check out the WiFi at McDonalds and noticed an interesting sculpture sitting in front of what looked like an abandoned service station. The gallery is in that old service station. Love the Art is a warm, family-owned business. Almost all the pieces are created from local materials and Tina, her dad and uncle have done most of the work housed in the gallery. They have one-of-a-kind hand carved rock sculptures, animal carvings, gifts, jewelry, chainsaw carvings and much more. The gallery has only been open since 2012, but they have been in the gemstone business for 35 years.
