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2023

Spots in Dakotas, Missouri, Corn Belt

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  • Alley Spring Campground
  • Ozark National Scenic Riverways, Eminence MO
  • 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).

  • Sulphur Lake Campground
  • private business Williamstown, OH
  • non-descript but sort of pretty, nice manager, overpriced

  • Crab Orchard Campground
  • Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, Marion IL
  • 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.

  • Lambert's Cafe
  • private business Sikeston MO
  • 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.

  • Harmonie Campground
  • Indiana State Parks, New Harmony IN
  • 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.

  • Pikes Peak Campground
  • Iowa State Park, McGregor IA
  • Beautiful location high on the bluffs above the mighty Mississippi. Nice set of trails with awesome vistas on the river bluffs

  • Roaring River Campground
  • Roaring River State Park, MO
  • Fifth spring in a row! Also a fishery. This may be the fishiest yet! Quite large, there is a lodge with a nice restaurant up the hill. There is wifi strong enough I could use it from my van ... but it only worked for the last 6 hours of my two days there. There was live bluegrass music in the Lodge on Friday night!

  • Extended Stay America Hotel
  • private business Kansas City Mo
  • $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.

  • Devil's Kitchen Lake Campground
  • Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, Carbondale IL
  • 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...

  • Kankakee Campground
  • Kankakee State Park, Kankakee IL
  • large and pleasant, had to check in with the host

  • Leach Park
  • city park, Spencer IA
  • very user-friendly, downtown right across the bridge, and next to a rec complex with bike paths, tennis courts, swimming pool, etc.

  • Fort Buford Historical Site
  • North Dakota State Parks, Williston ND`
  • 12 miles south of US 2, the east-west highway I've been driving for five days. Totally worth the detour.

  • Badlands Interior Motel and Campground
  • private business Interior SD
  • 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.

  • Lane Spring Campground
  • Mark Twain National Forest, Rolla MO
  • 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)

  • Van Meter State Park
  • Missouri State Parks, Marshall MO
  • 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?

  • Colman City Park Campground
  • Colman Municipal Golf Course, Colman SD
  • 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.

  • Elk Point Park Campground
  • City Park, Elk Point SD
  • A large grassy lot between the city park playgrounds and I-29. All sites have hookups, but it's only $10. High school football practice is happening 300 yards away. Also, Lewis and Clark camped here! ... or somewhere rear here since the river has changed course many times since 1804.

  • The Bay Casino Campground
  • Army Corps of Engineers, Mobridge SD
  • Allstays calls this Indian Memorial, an ACE campground. The signage is in the standard ACE font and color, and it just has the distinctive well-engineered style, so I am calling it ACE also. If so, then clearly it has been leased back to the tribe. It's on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Nice place!

  • Cottonwood Lake
  • city park, Merriman NE
  • Very low tech, just pull the van up to a picnic table and hang out

  • Silver Mines Campground
  • Mark Twain National Forest, Fredericktown MO
  • 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!

  • East Totten Trail Campground
  • Army Corps of Engineers, Coleharbor ND
  • Right on the lake! Spacious, level, wide-open sites. Stupid reservation-only Army Corps sign-up. Bar and Grill 400 yards up the hill.