A couple of nice campsites in Nevada

We didn’t really plan on spending a lot of time in Nevada, but as it turns out, we’re spending most of the month of April here.

From Arizona, we crossed the Colorado River,

near the Hoover Dam . . . and into Nevada – a new state for our map!

On that initial trip we drove right on past Las Vegas and up to Pahrump to get us closer to Death Valley.

There were 4 Passport America campgrounds to choose from in Pahrump, and we selected Wine Ridge RV Park & Cottages because it looked like the nicest.  We never did see any of the others, but can’t believe they would have been any nicer than this one.

We checked in and paid our $24 for 2 nights, and drove around to our pull-thru site on Merlot Avenue.

The sites are a little narrow, but we still had enough room.

And once Bryce figured out the correct direction to point the antenna, we even managed to pull in all of the network TV channels!

This was a really nice resort with 2 pools,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cottages in addition to the RV sites,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a clubhouse with a full social calendar, a weight room, and really nice bathroom and laundry facilities.

They even have a car wash!

Wine Ridge is also home to a winery tasting room and restaurant.  We didn’t have dinner in the restaurant, but Tom and I did go to the tasting room.  Their wine was pretty good!

After our long day at Death Valley, we came back to the park and enjoyed several hours in the hot tub to relieve our weary legs,

in the shadow of Mt. Charleston.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a couple of beautiful sunsets, we moved on to Las Vegas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We didn’t really have any interest in visiting Las Vegas, but it was the most convenient location for flying back and forth to Michigan.  We looked at several RV Parks close to town, but most were nothing more than a parking lot, so we ultimately chose the Lake Mead RV Village at Boulder Beach.

It’s inside the National Park, so it was a good thing we already had our national park pass.  We paid for 3 weeks, and got set up on our pull-thru site.

The park is a little older, and there isn’t a pool (which is a bit of a bummer with the 90 degree days we’ve been having!), but it’s peaceful and quiet, and still fairly close to civilization.

With all the palm trees and azaleas in bloom, it was like a tropical island!

 

 

 

Yep, it’s been a pretty good home base for our time in Vegas, and we’ve even found some fun stuff to do while we’re here!

Dodging Rain in Missouri again!

The weather reports for Wednesday and Thursday weren’t great, but it was dry when we got up on Wednesday, so we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to put another 200 miles behind us.

The drive to Cuba, MO was dry and uneventful, and we arrived at the Ladybug RV Park with plenty of time left in the day for school and work.

 

The RV Park was small and basic, but it was quiet and at $13.50 (PA rate), it was a good deal!

We settled in for the evening, and never did get any of the rain that had been predicted!

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Thursday, after taking care of some work and school, we decided to go ahead and make another move.  We had just finished hitching up when the drizzle started!

We had on/off rain all day, but only a few bursts of heavy rain, and no severe weather – although the sky was pretty threatening at times.

The fall colors along the way were really beautiful – I think we’re seeing Missouri at peak leaf season!

We made a quick stop at a rest area outside Springfield, and despite the rain, I just had to take a few pictures.  It was really cute – all of the picnic shelters were made to look like Route 66 businesses!

We arrived at the Big Red Barn RV Park in Carthage, MO in the rain, but had a small window of time to get unhitched.  We had heard that this was a Passport Park, but apparently they stopped accepting Passport, yet they still add on all the “extra charges" to the base rate.  Overall, the park was disappointing, so we decided to just stay the one night, and then move down the road to another RV Park for the weekend.

On Friday, we went to 7am mass for all Saints Day, and then got packed up for our 4 mile move.

We arrived at Coachlight RV Park, and were pleasantly surprised to see how nice it was! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weather had improved, too, and we were finally seeing the sun and blue skies again!

We checked in at the office and quickly got set up on site 52 . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. . . in plenty of time for Nicolas to get into his Physics class on time!

This park is right off the freeway, but it’s pretty, and quiet,

and seems to be a popular spot to stop on the journey west.  It’s been almost full all weekend!  The campground is owned by an RV Dealer, and is conveniently located just behind the dealership.  Nicolas was glad to have some free time on Friday afternoon to tour a few RV’s (not that we’re in the market yet!!)

We spent the weekend exploring Carthage and Joplin (and watching football), but those will need to be separate blog posts!  Tomorrow we move on again – Oklahoma – Bryce wants to get through there quickly, even though I explained that they don’t usually get tornadoes in the fall!

Campground Review–Hidden Ridge RV Resort

Our site:  #28

Location:  Hopkins, MI

The RV Park is located off US-131, about halfway between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids, exit #59.  We left from our former home at about 4pm on a Friday, taking I-94 west to US-131 North, and arrived at the park by 6pm.  The park is very convenient to the freeway, but we didn’t notice any freeway noise at all.

The RV hung over the back of the cement pad somewhat, and we were a little bit crowded with both the car & truck, but we fit, and there was plenty of open grassy space behind us.

There are a lot of seasonal campers, but the sites are all kept basically the same, and it’s kindof hard to tell the seasonals from the “weekenders”.

If you look straight through the opening in the fence, all the way over to the woods, you can see our RV on site #28.

Many of the sites overlook the various ponds located throughout the campground.

When we stayed here:  Friday, August 31, 2012 – Friday, September 7,2012.  We paid the weekly rate of $302, which was equivalent to just about 1 day free (normal daily rate:  $49). 

We had a full hookup site, which also included cable TV and wifi.  The free wifi was OK, but kindof slow, especially on the holiday weekend.  It was slightly better during the week.  We managed without paying the extra $15/week for faster internet . . . not sure how much faster it would have been.  Verizon signal was pretty good.

Amenities:  This was a very nice RV Park, with a great pool,

and a pavilion by the pool where they had various activities.  We were there for Labor Day Weekend, and there was bingo on Friday, games and refreshments by the pool on Saturday and Sunday, and a DJ/dance party on Sunday night.  There was also a special treat for the holiday weekend, which everybody seemed to enjoy, including us!

The campground also offered a playground, basketball court and tennis courts, all near the pool.

There were also a volley ball court and horseshoe courts, but I didn’t get pictures of them.  Lastly, there was a clubhouse, which offered a library, a media room, a game room, and a fitness room.  All of this was located on the lower levels of what looked like a large home . . . and it was, in fact, the home of the onsite managers.

The boys enjoyed the game room, and Tom made himself right at home on the couch!!

The bath house and laundry were located near the pool, and were very clean . . . especially considering it was a holiday weekend, and they were packed!  Showers were individual and, although spacious and clean, they could have used some ventilation . . . and the water was extremely HOT!

The laundry had three Maytag Neptune front-loading washers, and six dryers.  Washers cost $1.75/load and dryers were $1.00/load.

Nearby:  We went to Weick’s Grocery Store in nearby Shelbyville (about 5 miles away).  They had reasonable prices, with a deli and bakery . . . and a very nice meat department!  There were several catholic churches nearby, but only 1 with a 9:30am mass . . . SS Ceril & Methodius, in Wayland.  Wayland also had several gas stations (including a Speedway) and various fast food restaurants.  We ordered pizza one night from Guisseppe’s in Wayland . . . and they delivered to the campground.  slightly farther away, in Otsego, there was a Walmart and Meijer’s.

Overall Impression:  This RV Park was very well maintained and offered lots of amenities and activities.  The Managers and other staff were highly visible and very friendly.  Rules were enforced, but in a friendly way.  We really enjoyed our stay here, and would definitely consider a return visit!

Campground Review–Hartwick Pines State Park

Location:  Grayling, MI

When we stayed here:  Friday, Sept. 2 – Monday, Sept. 5, 2011

We got an early start on Friday, and since it was Labor Day Weekend, we were hoping that it was enough to put us ahead of much of the crowd.  We took US-23 north to I-96 west, to US-127 north until it merged into I-75 at Grayling.  We could take US-23 to I-75 at Flint, and take I-75 all the way up north, but we much prefer the less-travelled US-127.  Traffic was pretty light, even through East Lansing, where we were also early enough to miss most of the crowd going to Spartan Stadium for MI State’s home opener football game.  We made it to the campground in exactly 3-1/2 hours, with one rest area stop.

Our site:  #82

We had a pull-thru full hookup site, although only 30 amp electric, and paid $33 per night.  There was no cable or wi-fi in the park, and Verizon cell service varied from non-existent to OK.

The full hookup sites are in the interior of one half of the campground,

and the sites were paved, well-spaced and reasonably level. 

We had plenty of room at our site for campfires and cornhole!

The interior roads were pretty good, although the layout of the one-way roads were a little goofy.  Our row of sites, for instance, had an inbound road on one side of the sites, and an outbound road on the other side.  This is fine until you have your RV parked, but then, since the end of the loop is a site, afterwards you need to drive either in or out the wrong way on the road.

This was just a minor annoyance, though . . . getting the RV in and out was no problem.

Our friends were in the other half of the campground, on an electric-only site.  (#51)

This area of the campground is more wooded, giving the sites more privacy, but less room.  We made our reservations about a month ahead, and I was surprised at the number of sites available for the holiday weekend.  By the time the weekend arrived, though, they were fully booked.

Amenities:  One of the reasons that this state park is easier to get into is probably that it is not on water.  Usually, we prefer to have a beach or pool, but we were only about 15 minutes from Higgins Lake, which is one of the nicest lakes in Michigan.  If the weather had been better, we could have spent a day at the beach there . . . as it was, we were able to rent a pontoon boat on Higgins for a day (see my post here), and that was about all the lake time we needed this weekend!

Conveniently located in the middle of the two halves of the campground is a new bath house with modern showers.

In addition to the campground, there is a small fishing lake with a pier, a large picnic area with baseball field (where the local vintage baseball team plays), a Visitor Center and Logging Museum, and several hiking trails and mountain biking trails.  See my other post about our ride on the mountain bike trail and visit to the Logging Museum.  No shortage of outdoor recreation!

For the little kids, there’s a nice play area in the campground

Starting at the entrance to the park, there’s a paved bike path that goes all the way into Grayling – I think it’s 9 miles long.  For the most part, it was pretty level, and looked like it would be a fun ride.  We might have to try this next time we’re here!

We saw a wide array of campers in the park this Labor Day Weekend – from tents to popups, to a Jayco Recon toyhauler that gave us a little competition for “Biggest Camper in the Park”!

This little camper reminded me of my Mom & Dad’s old Holiday Rambler!

Overall Impression:  We really liked this state park, and it’s definitely one that we can get our RV into.  The location is great, as it is conveniently located close to almost everything up north, including the Boyne area, Traverse City, and even the Mackinac Bridge -- only about an hour away.  Grayling has a catholic church (St. Mary’s), a bakery with awesome cinnamon bread, and a quilt shop (The Ice House) that I have to get back to visit!

We’ll definitely stay here again sometime – it’s a really nice state park that we can actually get into – I’m glad we gave it a try!

The big wheels at the entrance are a tribute to the logging industry that was the lifeblood of this area of Michigan at one time.