Facebook is mining our data and exploiting it to make a profit? We are being harvested? What a shock! Is that why Fruit of the Loom ads turn up on my Facebook feed when I search Google for a new set of shorts? At first that used to bug me but now I expect it. It’s the internet.

I’m always surprised when people get sassy about Facebook. If you use it, the stuff you say and the images and videos you post are public and will be harvested and regurgitated for the benefit of the company offering the “free” service. If you don’t want it harvested don’t plant it.

There was a recent Facebook post looking for advice on camping in Moab. I drove through Moab last Saturday. Moab is ruined. There was a line of traffic coming into town that reminded me of I-405 North in Los Angeles between exit 70 and I-105 on a Thursday at around 5:30 p.m. No one was moving! The place is swamped.

In the past couple years, Moab has managed to build and fill countless new hotels. Zip lines are everywhere. In town, foreign tourists stumble around the streets, sidewalks, restaurants and trinket shops, staring into “smart” phones and missing the towering red cliffs just outside their view.

Moab is truly a victim of its own success and will never return to the magical desert kingdom it once was. That could happen here so what’s the rush to build everything out and bring countless people here? Small is good. I lived in the Roaring Fork Valley since 1982 and I have seen what too many people can do to a charming place.

RV camping is all the rage and Moab is in all the way. RV campsites have popped up around Moab even on dusty lots next to the highway, where customers are willing to pay cash to share a dirt patch with noisy neighbors in Red Rock country. They are packed.

Some RV parks are apparently better than others, and Spanish Trail RV Park claims to be “Utah’s finest” one. For sewer, water, cable and wifi, you can sign up for the monthly rate of $775. The midwinter day rate is listed at $35. This does not include the $250,000 you paid for the bus you rode in on.

RVs are everywhere now. America is hooked. It’s not uncommon to see Grandpa hunched over the wheel of his glistening new F-350 Powerstroke Platinum pickup, pulling a 40-foot mobile home canister down the freeway at 75 mph. People are towing giant houses around, and many motorists are not qualified to drive a large pickup, never mind a large pickup with a towering house on wheels hooked onto the back. Forget backing up.

There are so many varieties of RV to choose from now, and most of what you see is what I call, “American-style.” American-style RVs are the ones that are too big, with garish, swirling paint jobs, dripping with awnings and tow packages.

But this is Winter Park, and we must go way beyond that schmaltzy consumer-grade stuff and head right to the top of the luxury market. Which brings us to the most expensive, technologically advanced, luxurious, comfortable, exotic RV on the market: The eleMMent palazzo Superior (Google it). This lovely land yacht built in Germany by Marchi Mobile is a 45-foot-long, 28-ton wonder that has more amenities than many Tabernash homes. It would take the entire paper to describe the lounge area, the kitchen, bathroom, master bedroom, spa area, multimedia center, sky lounge and spare-tire chamber, but suffice it to say they are the highest caliber, and no detail has been left to chance. They do cost $3 million, but to some of you within the distribution range of this paper it’s doable.

Just don’t drive the thing to Moab, the place is overrun. If you go too deep into the Experimental Forest you may not find a place to turn around.

What you see a lot of out there now among the young, wealthy set are Mercedes van conversions, which come in “starting” at around $125,000. These puppies have it all and can park stealthily wherever a car fits. Just draw the blinds and start the party. You see them everywhere draped with bikes, motorcycles, boats, solar panels and trailers full of toys.

I find it hard to believe, but VW camper vans are still sputtering down the track and looking more goofy and fragile by the day. But nostalgia for these V-Dubs runs high, and I saw a very ordinary used bright blue one for sale recently in Fraser for $35,000!

I can’t recommend any good camping in Moab, but if you want to park your new bus in Winter Park for a night under the stars you could try the Idlewild Campground. It may be difficult to cram a 45-foot eleMMent into one of the 24 non-electric Idlewild campsites. If you do, prepare to spend about $20 a night to sleep under the stars at 9,000 feet.

I’d argue that the luxury at a place like Idlewild Campground will be found 50 feet from your parking space in an aspen grove along the Fraser River among the rustling leaves, chirping birds and gurgling water. You can post a photo on Facebook and make everyone jealous.

Steve Skinner is reminded that a tent is one of the simplest RVs out there. Reach him at nigel@sopris.net.