A LITTLE EXPLORATION & A MOVE TO A NEW CAMPSITE.
Day 2 – It was 63 degrees & cloudy at 7:30 a.m. We all slept well; the campground area we were in was quiet. After our coffee/tea, we drove the two campground loops on the west side of the lake (Oak = no pets; Sycamore = pets okay). We noted empty campsites that were large enough for the RV & car and private enough to meet our picky demands, including the Oak loop in case the Park would allow cats that stay inside & don’t bark. We were preparing for our visit to the campground office to find out if we could stay at our current site, or had to move.
There were two other sites in the Sycamore loop that had some privacy and were large enough, although they weren’t as private (bushes/trees on three sides) as the campsite we were already occupying. There were also two sites in the Oak loop (no pets) that were private & large.
Next we drove several miles from this group of sites, around the lake & through the small town of Howard, to the Rustic loop of the campground. This was an isolated, heavily-treed area with a gravel road. The campsites for tent campers were great with steps up the hill to sites deeper in the woods. The RV sites were fairly small and right by the road. There were train tracks nearby. It looked like this might have been the original, older location of the campground. There was only one campsite big enough & level enough for the RV and car, and although all sites were private, we figured the area was not our preferred location. This brought us to a total of six sites out of the 155 total campsites in the Park. Then we went to the campground office within the newer section of the campground.
The campground office was in a new, beautiful post & beam building. The Park rangers were there; yesterday had been a holiday. Sure enough, the campsite we were currently occupying, site #085, was reserved for tonight and future nights. We would need to move to a different site for the next couple of nights. We asked if Oak loop would allow cats – no, they were considered pets, too. We asked how often the trains come by on the tracks near the Rustic loop – twice a day. We were glad we had become familiar with all three loops, so we could pick a site that was available for the next two nights, #080 in the Sycamore loop, only a few campsites from where we were currently located. This site, luckily, was somewhat private, not as good as campsite 085, but it did have more space and we’d be able to put up the tent in the back of the site, very private there.
One thing we did find out when driving through the small town, and when visiting the campground office, this weekend is the annual PUNKIN CHUNKIN WEEKEND. In 2019 this event drew 10,000 people per day; it’s a big deal here. We guess that’s one reason the camping sites are so booked.
During the afternoon we did a quick pack-up and moved down the road to our new campsite. The girls thought this was the shortest trip they’d ever been on and wondered why we bothered. Rob set up the tent behind the RV and we spent a couple of hours in it while doing some research on campground availability elsewhere. Even though we vowed not to do reservations in advance on this trip and to play it loose, today was a wake-up call that showed us it may not be that easy to get campsites on weekends. We found that every campground near destinations we planned to visit within the upcoming two to three weeks was booked on the weekends. What we’d heard about the camping situation these days, the extreme busyness, appeared to be true. Meanwhile, the high today was 70 degrees and it remained overcast all day. No mosquitoes, but there are some bees & wasps. They aren’t as sneaky as mosquitoes.
