Beautiful location high on the bluffs above the mighty Mississippi. Nice set of trails with awesome vistas on the river bluffs
What a great place! Walk over to the golf course clubhouse to check in, she gives you the wifi password, then you pretty much park on the grass anywhere you want. The wifi was great, it happened that I parked 30' from the bathrooms What with food at the clubhouse, good wifi, and a short walk to the shower, I literally could live here a while.
Used to be a state park, but they gave it to the Feds for some reason. [After my experience the next few days with state parks, I can see it. The layout is quite similar to Bennett Springs and Roaring River.] There's a loop with hookups and a small loop without, which for some reason was where everybody was. I was the only person in the huge expanse of the main loop. My site had pretty good shade in the morning, most didn't. Showers are a short drive down the road, but that's way better than no showers.
12 miles south of US 2, the east-west highway I've been driving for five days. Totally worth the detour.
Another very nice, well maintained campground built around another gorgeous freshwater spring. The one has Alley Mill, a grist mill driven by the outflow of Alley Spring - now a park info center. The mill is a short walk from the campground. If you hunt around for it there is swimming access to the river (swinning in the spring outflow, that's a no no in all these parks).
Cedar Pass CG in Badlands NP was full on Friday night, so here I am. It is in the town of Interior, at the edge of the Badlands, so the name makes more sense than you would think at first. Six rows of sites, the hook-ups for the big boys are on the inside and the tent sites are on the edges. Some sites have picnic tables, some don't. I decided I'd rather be on the edge with an unimpeded view of the Badlands than in a couple of rows with a table. The shower was nice and very welcome. Things are well-worn but well maintained also. Nice place, and a godsend when the Park is full.
It would be an insult to campgrounds to call this one. it's just a gravel road in the bottomland (right inside the levee in fact), with turnouts where you can pull off and park. Random OHVs roar past well into the night. It is the road to the Little Heart Gun Range.
real nice find! Crab Orchard is a pretty big place, with four campgrounds. The other campgrounds have full hookups for the big boys and cost more. But E Loop is the oldest and has become the bastard stepchild in the corner. Electric only inside the loop, no hookups outside. Its bathroom is kinda gross, but hey, $5 for overnight and a shower ain't bad.
Signage is very poor ==> hard to find. I ended up going to the river level loop with hookups and the camp host who directed me up the hill to the non-hookup sites on the bluffs. Nice big sites. There's a trail down to the swimming hole by the old dam. Very cool!
Really pleasant little park south of the Missouri, on a plain that used to be a Missouri Indian settlement. Deluxe shower building, well-maintained nature trails, nice picnic area, what's not to like?
If it were 30° cooler, this would be spectacular, but it's just too hot tonight. It's set up as a tents-only area on a little peninsula on the lake, but there's no one else here, so I'm hanging in the parking lot. The bathroom (with shower!) seems to be of recent construction and is very nice. The stifling heat and stillness became kinda neat after a while...
Fourth spring in a row! This one has a fishery. It's very spread out. Long drive up the hill to pick a site, drive back and check in, then later drive back to fish or walk or just see the sites. Swimming not allowed in the park, but just outside and across the bridge is river access where you can swim. Despite the reliance on driving, a very nice place. People were catching lots of fish!
Cafe conjures up an image of a modest little restaurant. This place is HUGE! A multiple tour bus handling, multi-roomed dining hall and entertainment complex. I was kinda put off by the style, but the servers were nice, the food was good and plentiful, and it was fun! As part of their hillbilly hospitality thing one is welcome to sleep in the parking lot! For all my snobbishness about it, it was actually very pleasant. Everything about my night and morning in Sykesville was very nice.
Right on the lake! Spacious, level, wide-open sites. Stupid reservation-only Army Corps sign-up. Bar and Grill 400 yards up the hill.
Way overpriced and has stupid rules. The park borders the Wabash River, but the campground itself is miles from the river. There is a public swimming pool that is an additional charge on top of the camping fee.
$60 is pretty cheap for the suburbs of a big city, and this was a pretty cheap hotel. Wifi was crappy, tv was crappy, my doorkey was crappy. But the bed was fine and it served its purpose.
Not real happy here. I am tired and there's no other good options around here, but this is a lot to pay for a place to park. Once I get past check-in, it turns out that the mosquitoes are almost too vicious to deal with. Despite the heat and humidity I live with all doors closed. On the other hand, it's nearly full moon, and along with mosquitoes they have fireflies! So I bundle up i my long pants and hoodie and go on a delightful moonlight walk around the gravel roads of the park. Staying in the open fields of course - the bugs are truly unbearable when you venture into the wooded areas.
non-descript but sort of pretty, nice manager, overpriced
Third spring in a row! The campsites are nice, but the place is very remote and I didn't feel good about my neighbors, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I might've. There looked like very nice sites next to the river at the end of the loop (next to the sketchy people)
Turned out to be a delightful stop! A large grassy area in the back corner of the fairgrounds. $10 for hookups, $5 without. A one person bathroom with a shower. Perfect with on one else here, probably less so if it were busy.
These federal parks along the Current River are national treasures. I had a great time here tonight.