Sylvan State Park, Colorado

It's always a gamble to pick a campground from a brochure in the visitor's center, but we lucked out with this one. This is a little gem that's about 15 miles off the highway. We drove the first 10 miles to the entrance building, (which was closed) to find a sign that said the campground was another 5 miles, and it was FULL. It was getting late, and my experience with such signs is that they should be treated as "guidelines", so we proceeded 5 miles up the dirt road through a beautiful green valley. When we reached the campground the ranger confirmed that there were 15 open sites, so we lucked out.

It's a pastoral setting, with a fish pond and stream surrounded by green hills. Turns out it used to be a mink farm, until the owner couldn't pay his taxes anymore and the state took over the land. We were treated to a great lightning storm with a bit of hail to cap the evening.