I say "Camping" because had this been a true dehydrated-food and filter-your-drinking-water type expedition, I wouldn't have had to play this three-dimensional game of Tetris with our largest cooler, sand toys, mini boom-box, etc. Still, I managed to get four-days of food and 4-year old entertainment under the cargo tarp of the X5. I folded one of the second-row seats down, but it all fit. Follow the jump to see how camping for the camping-averse looks.
Pretty nice accommodations, huh? El Capitan Canyon is just 150-miles from Long Beach, or about a 20-minute drive north of Santa Barbara CA. I'm not promoting this place (though it is pretty cool), but they offer cabins like this one in various sizes with bathrooms, spa-style tubs, and a mini fridge. We thought this would be a low-impact introduction sooty s'mores and charred tri-tip for our daughter whose idea of roughing it has thus far meant missing an episode of Little Bill. It was nice to forget about traffic and to miss a few days of tragic news reports. Fuel economy on the 295-mile round-trip was 17.1 mpg. Woof!
Chris Walton, Chief Road Test Editor @ 12,480 miles
johnmarco says:
10:34 AM, 06/30/08
Looks beautiful. Any decent recreation easily accessible there? How close to the beach?
dragonflight says:
11:12 AM, 06/30/08
Looks like you were really 'roughing it' with the BMW, Chris ;)
estreka says:
02:27 PM, 06/30/08
I stayed in a cabin outside Bozeman last week when I went down to Yellowstone. Really nice cabins.
http://www.mountain-home.com/gallerydetail.php?id=298&aid=2
banhugh says:
04:12 PM, 06/30/08
hahaha, this is as close as it get to camping for someone that would afford an X5. I would bet the cabin has wifi and a 60" plasma with wooden casing to match the furniture.
mtech8 says:
12:42 PM, 07/ 8/08
How much of the 295 mile round trip city and highway driving to get 17.1 mpg?
Has anyone gotten the 19 mpg for highway?