Owners Find A Road To Paradise Combining The Essence Of Conservation & Relaxation Into Their RV Park
For Kim Sherwood and Cherie Major, the road that led to owning their own campground began in a community kitchen deep in the Australian Outback. They were exploring the Aussie continent in a campervan and found themselves impressed by the communal spaces available at every campground. The couple had a great time hanging out at community kitchens, meeting people and finding out about the local environment.
“We saw that the community kitchen could double as a learning center,” Cherie says. “We were both about to retire so we decided to start our own campground where we can have that kind of experience all the time.”
That trip to Australia took place in 2007… Fast forward to 2016 and Sherwood and Major are entering their second season at ACT Campground & Environmental Learning Center, about 2 and a half miles from the center of Moab, Utah, near the banks of the Colorado River.
The hunt for the right piece of land took a while though.
“We knew we wanted to be near a river,” Cherie told The Buzz. “And we were tired of snow after all those years [living] in Spokane [Washington]. Plus, we needed somewhere that was a destination…or on the way to a major attraction.”
Cherie, actually Dr. Major, was a professor of education at the University of Idaho. Her husband Kim worked as an environmental engineer specializing in waste water at the Washington State Department of Ecology. For years the couple lived straddling the state line halfway in between their two offices, setting off in opposite directions every morning.
It was time to find the right piece of land.
When they discovered Moab, a small town in Utah on the Colorado River, they knew they had hit paydirt. The town can boast some of the most scenic geography in the American West, with two of our most stunning national parks, Arches and Canyonlands on the edge of town, as well as Utah’s most spectacular state park, Dead Horse Point close by. Moab is a well known destination internationally for its famous mountain bike, ATV and 4X4 trails wandering through the red rocks of the region. It’s also on the main route between Denver and the Grand Canyon, the country’s #1 must-see attraction.
“Moab is a great little town,” Kim says. “The mountain biking trails are internationally famous, with the La Sal Mountains right here. There are trails to box canyons, petroglyphs. The slickrock jeep and ATV trails are known all over the world.”
“We have all kinds of watersports as well, including rafting and jetboating on the Colorado, plus adventures like ziplining, skydiving, hiking and rock climbing,” Kim says. The area also has some of the most challenging whitewater in the country, the Class V Cataract Canyon rapids that nearly put an end to John Wesley Powell’s 1869 attempt to explore the course of the Colorado. The Green River joins the Colorado near Moab and Kim steers families to rafting excursions on its calm slack water. “It’s a lot more tame,” he says, “better for [the] kids.”
Major and Sherwood built their campground from the ground up, aiming for an environmentally friendly facility that would model sustainability. They selected an architect, Peggy Hosner, with a progressive approach and a local builder, Eric Plourd of Eco-Logic Design, LLC, well versed in energy efficient and environmentally sound construction techniques. The name they settled on, ACT, reflects the campground motto: Act responsibly; Sleep comfortably.
Eric Plourd is an expert in straw-bale construction, an eco-friendly building style especially popular in desert regions of the west. His company is the principal builder with Community Rebuilds, a non-profit organization in Moab, building affordable and energy efficient straw bale houses for income-qualifying families. The homes are built by interns, most under 20 years old, from around the world, who come to learn natural building techniques. Participants come away with a professional straw bale builder certificate, and college credit through the University of Utah.
The front wall of ACT’s main building is straw bale construction with other walls using equally eco-friendly materials, including waterproof bathrooms made of lego-like styrofoam forms filled with concrete that provide excellent insulation. A section of wall is cut out, leaving what Kim and Cherie call a “truth window” where you can see the various layers of straw bale construction.
“It’s a big help to Eric,” Cherie says. “He sends people up here to look in our truth window so they’ll understand what straw bale [construction] is [all] about.”
The main building houses amenities for the campground’s 21 full-hookup RV and 19 tent sites, including a laundry and restrooms. The couple’s home is at one end, while nine cabin-style rooms line up along the back. And, of course, there’s that community kitchen.
The spacious communal area has two stoves, three sinks and seats up to 35 people, making it a prime spot for socializing. Cherie and Kim use it for biology, botany and geology programs for teachers and kids, as well as writers workshops and environmental education. Photographer David L. Brown, ACT’s artist-in-residence, offers photography workshops and tours, and shows his work on the walls of the room.
Cherie and Kim, whose campground received a coveted TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence, find that hosting people from all over the world, chatting with them in the community kitchen, is the most amazing and rewarding part of their new life.
After just one season of operation, Cherie says, they’ve had guests from every continent. “Siberia…China…Russia…Africa…[and] every single country in South America. We’ve had college groups, an international group of wildlife rangers, and inner city teens from Denver having their first experience of the wilderness.”
She continues: “Our guests are all ages. We had a 70-year-old man from England biking across the United States. We’ve had young families on a budget trip to the Grand Canyon. Meeting all these different people makes you feel really positive about your country and the world.”
Renee Wright
A graduate of Franconia College in Social Psychology, Renee has worked as Travel Editor for Charlotte Magazine and has written three travel guidebooks for Countryman Press among other writing assignments. She enjoys food and sports.
Make Sure To Stay At:
ACT Campground & Environmental Learning Center, where outdoor fun and learning come together in exciting Moab, Utah. We offer a complete range of camping services, from RV sites to tenting and our cabin-style rooms.