Overnighters

[CALinSC]

We were Just meandering in Indiana. We were headed north to MI and were using IN-3, a beautiful highway up through central IN. We had been constantly on the move since we left FL and were hunting for a place to hunker-down for 5 days to a week. We saw a billboard advertising a CG near New Castle. We decided to drop by and have a look-see. The CG was Walnut Ridge, a beautifully appointed CG with lots of activity including pinball machines in the wash room. However, they do not have sewer connections. We took a 50 AMP with water and squeezed the holding tanks for three days before going to the dump station and leaving. They did have a honey bucket truck available by reservation with daily service. I don’t trust someone else to mess with our tanks so we said thank you and left.

We had a beautiful fully paved corner site. The owners live right across the street from the CG entrance. About a half mile down the road they own a medium sized RV dealership with about 10 servicing bays. They sell the DRV Suites luxury models.

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[GeoTech]

Great posts @CalinSC! Love all your descriptions of the parks along with the pics! We are in the early years of our retirement & RV'ing. Though we've had 45 years of camping (all of them in a tent in some really interesting places around the U.S.A.) we are ready to expand our horizons to see all of America. Do you normally have a set destination, or are you "winging "it? Do you pick a stop early in the morning before leaving or decide after being on the road for a few hours to pick where your next overnight will be? Thanks again for such an entertaining post!

[CALinSC]

Originally Posted by GeoTech

Great posts @CalinSC! Love all your descriptions of the parks along with the pics! We are in the early years of our retirement & RV'ing. Though we've had 45 years of camping (all of them in a tent in some really interesting places around the U.S.A.) we are ready to expand our horizons to see all of America. Do you normally have a set destination, or are you "winging "it? Do you pick a stop early in the morning before leaving or decide after being on the road for a few hours to pick where your next overnight will be? Thanks again for such an entertaining post!

Because of chronic medical conditions we no longer travel full time.

We were 100% committed to a full time traveling life style when we retired. We sold our home with a pool at a golf course community in FL, and nearly everything in it. Both of our children and grand children all lived in FL so it was easy to keep it as our state of residence.

We had no set agendas other than staying warm. It took us nearly 5 years to visit 48 states and 5 CDN provinces. Our choice of RV was a mid level 38' 5th wheel - to keep the weight down - and a Dodge dually diesel tow vehicle. We traveled north in the spring and summer months and south in the fall and winter months. Snow never hit our rig. We had a very comfortable budget and never boondocked, dry camped or stayed in some parking lot.

We just winged it and seldom used or made reservations unless we were going to stop long enough for mail forwarding. Of course we always mad reservations for north/south seasonal changes, normally about 2 months and sometimes near the kids in FL. I'm from Maine and Linda is from SC so we had family connections in those areas.

We had a large place in FL for storage. When our rig weight got close to max we would send the excess to one of our kids and they would put it in our storage facility. We both had hobbies that would cause an accumulation of weight. We purchased things from yard sales and sold them on internet auctions. My interests were military things, Zippo lighters and old fishing equipment. All sold well on the net. Linda's likes were glass, pottery, 1st edition books and jewelry (mostly heavy stuff).

We both like golf and fishing, train and boat rides. We hardly ever stayed in state of federal parks but visited most all in our path.

Both of us have a hard time at altitudes above 5000' and avoided staying at them more than a day or two at a time.

Being retired military allowed us to stay at military RV Parks/CGs. Sometimes they were destination stops. In fact, because of bad weather in southern CA one year, we stayed at the Naval Air Facility RV Park at El Centro, CA for two months.

We are not photo smart but we surely know how to point and click because we have thousands of pictures.

Some of the most interesting places to spend a night or two were found by reading billboards and signs. Like a free FHU all paved city park at Concordia, KS or in a farmers yard with 12 W/E sites including a 3 course evening meal with the owners and other patrons at Kellogg, IA.

I wrote blogs and kept journals which help me go back and make some of these posts before I get too old to do it. Linda and I were married 62 years on Oct 4th this year. Traveling will keep you active and we highly recommend going out and seeing our country. We live in a smallish seniors retirement community the SC foothills and until this awful pandemic came along we went to FL at least three times a year.

[CALinSC]

Once upon a time, meandering along in the “heartland”, we found a free RV park with paved, level parking, and 50 amp full hook-up services.

We had no particular place to go and were just enjoying the lands we were traveling thru. We didn’t have any reservation - we seldom do when just meandering along - so we start looking early for places to spend a night or two (We don’t dry camp!). We had just come out of NB and were heading south on US-81 when we entered Concordia, KS. Right after entering the city limits we saw a sign advertising a free RV park run by the city. The RV Park could not be seen from the road but the entrance road was paved so we went on in. What a nice surprise. It was very clean and well kept. The sites were large enough for just about any big rigs and very easy to get into. There wasn't any on site management. There was a message board with a few rules and a drop box for donations. The whole park was very well lit-up and the city police came thru regularly all night.

On one side the park is bordered by a National Guard compound with a big fire tower. Right across the street from the entrance road is a super Wal-Mart. We set-up, disconnected and spent two days there exploring the city and its attractions.

Here are a few pictures. They will enlarge when you click on them and the link is active.

http://www.concordiaks.org/departmen...campground.php

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[CALinSC]

This is one of our one time only stops. It was time to head south and we were going south on I-395 and decided to see if we could find a place to park for a couple of days so we could visit the vast and beautiful Foxwoods Resort Casino complex. We stopped at a rest area and started calling CGs/RV Parks in the area. It was a Thursday and everything close in was fully booked. So we went a little farther out until we found the Deer Haven CG at Lisbon. They had a FHU with 50 AMPS but only gray water dumping. We could easily stay 2-3 days with just grey water dumping so we took it.

The CG was down a narrow country road and very secluded. Our site was behind the park office/store and almost on the fishing pond. On returning to the CG late in the evenings we always saw some kind of animal on or near the road; mostly white tail deer and once a silver fox.

Being a Thursday afternoon arrival the CG was nearly empty and we wondered about only getting a gray water site. Well, by early Friday afternoon the place was packed full.

We stayed a couple of days and then took CT-2 and others across to I-84 so we could work our way around the more populated areas with their big cities.

Since we stayed there the CG has changed hands and is now a KOA CG.

https://www.parkadvisor.com/us/conne...ven+Campground

https://sunfoxcampground.com/

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[CALinSC]

This is one of those places you find when just meandering around on rural roads.

We had got off I-81 to follow US-11 and PA-239 down a section of the Susquehanna River. When we decided to head back to I-81 we connected up with PA-289 and that’s when we saw the sign for Moyers Grove CG. It’s very rural but friendly with a well stocked CG store. It was early afternoon and I had plenty of time to fish a section of the clear stream going through the CG. Our parking site was a FHU tight back-in, under a heavy tree cover. Highway PA-289 is a narrow rural road but well marked and repaired and provided some very picturesque views.

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[Dan50]

Just wanted you to know that I very much enjoy your posts and hope for many more. Thank you.

[CALinSC]

When we were full timers, our granddaughter was attending Armstrong State University at Savannah. Whenever we traveled I-95 in that area we would stop for an evening or two and have dinner and gab.

The most convenient RV Parking for those visits was at the Savannah KOA. It’s a long time, well established KOA. It has all the usual KOA things. However, it’s in a low area and whenever it rains it gets muddy.

There is an USAF aircraft museum at Savannah and its iconic aircraft is situated in a display area right out where everyone traveling I-95 can see it.

There is a very large retention pond/lake in the park area and it’s loaded with pan fish and some large Black Bass. You’ll get one those bass if you use the right bait.

Our normal parking site at this KOA is any one of the FHU sites near the office/camp store. These pictures are very similar to all of the sites in the tall pines.


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[CALinSC]

We have long time friends from our Navy days that retired in the NC country town of Four Oaks. Whenever traveling up & down I-95 we pull in here at this family owned and managed KOA and visit with our friends. The KOA has a nice sized residential section and lots of fairly large short term sites. It’s a laid-back quiet country atmosphere with great services.

The site pictured here is a long pull-thru with FHU and CATV. It’s a very easy on & off I-95 for those that just want to spend a night resting from that busy highway.

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[CALinSC]

A very nice parking site nestled under tree cover at Whit’s End CG. My 1st cousin Jan and her husband Dan owned and managed this CG. We were real close to the Bear Champ River and the CG provided Kayaks and a ride up river a few miles to launch them. My oldest son was traveling with us at this stop and did the Kayak ride.

The site provided water/elect and gray water dumping so we could stay until we had to dump the black tank. We carry more than 200' of TV cable for the dish and need almost all of it to find a signal.

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[CALinSC]

The Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine and Campground is run by the city and the RV Park is on the coal mine property. Their prices are very reasonable.

There are some tight turns getting to the RV Park but it opens up and getting into one of the FHU sites is pretty easy. The park office and surrounding grounds have numerous mining displays and they also run van tours daily.

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[CALinSC]

The ambiance of Casino Resorts has always intrigued us. Over the years we’ve visited all of the major ones from NJ to NV. We’ve stopped at Indian casinos all across the country. Sometimes casinos have outstanding RV parks, even some of the smaller ones in meccas, like Biloxi or Tunica, MS or the monsters like Fox Woods in CT. However, we were never comfortable at any of the Atlantic Beach, NJ casinos because of the neighborhoods they were built in.

In the Tunica, MS area we’ve stayed at the four major casino RV parks. This one is at Sam’s Town. It’s a little too far to walk to the casino but they provide free van rides. All of the sites at Sam’s Town are 50 AMP FHU sites with CATV. It’s risky to stay at Sam’s during the rainy season because the lower sites will get flooded. We stay at the Hollywood when excess raining is forecasted. (That’ll be in another posting).

Like most of the Casinos in the Tunica area van tours to various points of interest are run by the RV Park office. An all day tour to Memphis, TN is highly recommended. They have a lunch stop in the famous music section of town.

We normally stay at this sort of RV Park 2-3 nights depending on the comps.

The link is active.

https://www.samstowntunica.com/stay/rv-park


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[CALinSC]

This particular stop was for 10 days and we had made reservations. We were up north for the summer and there are lots of interesting attractions in the Buffalo area. During our reservations search we were looking for a smallish RV Park, close to the highways and centrally located. One of the major selling points the AA Royal had was van tours starting and finishing at the park office. During all of the tours we took from there, we got very good parking spaces and head-of-the-line service at every stop. One of the catches was lunch stops. They were all at cafes with good hot and cold sandwiches and trinket shops.

The RV Park is paved and the owner/manager lives on the property. The bathrooms and laundry room were always very clean. Our site was a FHU and a good size for our trailer. There was no CATV but I had no problem finding a signal for the dish.

The link below is active and looks to be updated and open for business.

http://royalmotelandcampground.com/

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[CALinSC]

Crossing the Michigan Upper Peninsular on US-2 in the late spring/early summer time is an experience you will well remember. The campgrounds are family oriented with friendly, helpful staff members. The countryside is lush in fresh growth and wild animals are everywhere.

On this trip from east to west we were just meandering from campground to campground only calling ahead each traveling day to ask for a place to stay. Some travel days were a little longer than others but we always ended-up finding a place to park for a day or two before moving on again, and that’s how we found the Summer Breeze CG.

Our site was a FHU on a large grassy site. The section we parked in was a haphazard arrangement but easy to use once we found it. We were there on midweek days so it was quiet and restful. We were making so many stops during our travel days we were only averaging about 200 miles a day. By the time we got to Salt Lake City and turned south it was almost late fall and we even ran into some sleet in Rawlings, WY.

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[Adventurous]

Originally Posted by CALinSC

When traveling around the country with no particular place to go we just “wing it” (no reservations).

Our scheduled traveling days were somewhere between 250-300 miles. We avoid the rush by pulling in early and leaving CGs late.

A great number of our overnight stops were found on roadside billboard advertisements. While meandering across KS using US-54 we spotted a billboard with the Iola, KS RV Park P/N. We called and asked if they had any open sites, they had plenty.

It turned out to be a rather new and modern, smallish, RV park/storage facility. The owner/manager was a young fellow with a goal of 1st class service for all customers on the top of his list.

We spent two nights there. Had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant recommended by the RV park manager. The next day we visited the Veterans Memorial Wall and took a Trolley ride around town.

Stop by and spend a night if you’re passing through. You might extend a day to take in the atmosphere.


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My hometown! Glad you enjoyed your stay!

[GeoTech]

Originally Posted by CALinSC

Crossing the Michigan Upper Peninsular on US-2 in the late spring/early summer time is an experience you will well remember. The campgrounds are family oriented with friendly, helpful staff members. The countryside is lush in fresh growth and wild animals are everywhere.

On this trip from east to west we were just meandering from campground to campground only calling ahead each traveling day to ask for a place to stay. Some travel days were a little longer than others but we always ended-up finding a place to park for a day or two before moving on again, and that’s how we found the Summer Breeze CG.

Our site was a FHU on a large grassy site. The section we parked in was a haphazard arrangement but easy to use once we found it. We were there on midweek days so it was quiet and restful. We were making so many stops during our travel days we were only averaging about 200 miles a day. By the time we got to Salt Lake City and turned south it was almost late fall and we even ran into some sleet in Rawlings, WY.

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Good morning Cal, and thanks for continuing the posts of your life on the road! Being from Michigan, & having travelled/camped since my youngest days (68 is knocking on my door) in Michigan, we still take at least 3-4 weeks a year to camp our own state! I just checked out the Summers Breeze RV park & will give it a try this summer! Hope all is well with you folks, & pray this craziness will end soon!

[CALinSC]

Being born and raised in rural Maine I take a much different tack when visiting there with a RV.

Being close to costal main as a youngster I got quite familiar with all of the costal tourist attractions from Kittery to Old Orchard Beach. So I never hunt for RV parking places near the coast. Mainers love to weekend camp. They pack-up, load the kids and head for their favorite family CG. Those are the places I like to park when up there in the spring and summer.

Beaver Dam CG is a typical Maine CG. It is family owned and operated and someone in the family usually lives there. Over the years it has evolved into a modern CG with FHUs available. And it’s about a stone’s throw to the North Berwick town line, my home town. The CG is about 10 miles from US-1 (the costal tourist highway) where there are many attractions to keep the tourist busy. Sanford ME is about 12 miles north and it has all the normal shopping stores and grocery stores. There are two bowling alleys there - candle pins – that most tourists enjoy.

Because we prefer a FHU site with 50 AMPs we park up on the knoll where those larger sites are located. The waterfront sites are W&E only.

The following link is active.

https://beaverdamcampground.com/

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[CALinSC]

After exploring up state NY we crossed the bridge into VT at Rouses Point NY. We then linked-up with US-2 going south, to travel down a chain of islands at the upper end of Lake Champlain. After having lunch at North Hero we decided to splurge and see if we could get a parking site at the Apple Island RV Resort. It’s a wonderful resort complex with just about everything you might want to do. Boating, Fishing and Golfing are all available at the resort.

We got a nice grassy FHU site overlooking a seasonal section of the resort. It was very close to the wonderfully manicured 9 hole golf course.

There are antique shops at just about all of the US-2 crossroads on the island. The University of VT is at Burlington. The down town “Battery Park” at Burlington overlooks the Lake and has numerous places to get a lunch and enjoy it on the clean park tables.

The link is active.
https://appleislandresort.com/

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[CALinSC]

We got snubbed pretty badly at this KOA. We were headed south for some of the winter months and had left I-81 at Winchester, VA to take US-17 down to I-95 and ultimately connect to I-85. We were going to spend a couple of weeks at Greenville, SC. This was not a normal route for us but we wanted to explore US-17 – a nice drive on a well maintained US highway.

When we got to Fredericksburg we opted to drive down a 7 mile county road to the KOA. We did not call as it was a Wednesday and almost all KOAs have sites during week days. Right away the manager didn’t want to give us a site because they had a large caravan arriving on Friday. We never did figure-out why they didn’t want us there. But, we had an advantage, our KOA card was golden and once they found that out they put us in a back-in spot down in the “south forty”, even though they had nice long pull-thrus close to the CG store.

The CG is old and the sites were quite antiquated but had FHUs with CATV. While exploring a smallish lake to see if I could do some evening fishing I found there was a large family of beaver there. The management was having a hard time getting the fish and game people to move them.

This KOA is an exception from the norm in that it’s not close to any major highway. However, the CG store was well stocked and some of the CG areas were modern with a nice sized swimming pool.

This link is active but a little deceiving.

https://koa.com/campgrounds/frederic...washington-dc/


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[CALinSC]

Because we are a retired military family we have the advantage of using military RV Parks and CGs.

This is not about a military RV Park, the user base here is for veterans. To qualify you need proof of at least 6 months active duty with honorable service. A DD214 will almost always qualify a veteran to join any American Legion post. You can get a membership card (about $20) at any active post. It will allow you the use of all other posts nationwide.

The American Legion Post 137 at Jacksonville, FL has a large membership base. The main post building is quite large. There is an Olympic size pool with an active tiki bar – in season. The post has an active rod & gun club, bass fishing club and motorcycle club. The property is quite large and there is a gated, paved double boat launching area with floating docks. That’s where there are 8 large RV parking sites. Six are FHU and the other two are at the boat launching area and have W&E only. We lived in Jacksonville for 23 years and all of our grand children and their children live there, so we always visit when on the east coast.

The main club has a large meeting area, pool tables, dart machines, shuffle boards, live entertainment on Friday & Saturday nights. There are steak dinners on Friday evenings and a walk-in brunch on Sundays.

Reservations are accepted. We like site #6 because of its great view of the boat launch and the Cedar River.

Here are a few pictures.

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