jeffsturm

Great option for a free overnight spot if you're visiting the Evergreen Aviation Museum. We arrived in mid-afternoon and spent the remainder of the day visiting the museums (one building is air and the other is space). We spent the night and visited the waterpark the next day before moving to the RV park next door for the remainder of our stay in the McMinnville area.

The museum allows you to park your RV in the large back parking lot, close to the Boy Scout park. The parking lot is well-lit and pretty level. We checked in with the museum staff and didn't have a problem. Very convenient and a cool place to walk around and explore after hours.

We escaped the late-September heat with a trip to the beach at Holland State Park. I grew up in the area and this was my first return to Holland State Park since the late-1980s. If you’ve never been a Lake Michigan Beach, it is a wonderful experience and one you won’t regret. Holland State Park was every bit as enjoyable as it was when I was a teenager. We debated between the Beach Campground and the Lake Macatawa Campground and since we were meeting another full-time Airstream Family, we decided on Lake Macatawa because of the bigger sites, newer restroom facilities, and individual fire pits. The Beach Campground, while closer and easy walking distance to the beach, is located in what is essentially a large parking lot and does not offer a view of the beach. The Lake Macatawa CG is approximately one mile from the beach and is an easy walk/bike via the Ottawa Beach Road bike trail.

We stayed in the newer Pines Loop of the Lake Macatawa CG. The sites are all very large and provide ample opportunity to spread out. While the loop is called The Pines, it isn’t really in the woods; there are several pine trees scattered around, but they don’t provide much privacy between campsites. Most sites are a combination of sand, dirt, and grass. You do hear a fair amount of background noise from Ottawa Beach Road, the Lake Michigan channel (boats), and the nearby restaurant (ventilation and A/C), but it wasn’t overwhelming during our stay—it may be a different story in the middle of a summer weekend. The highlight of the Pines loop is clearly the Bathhouse. It is the nicest State Park Bathhouse we’ve seen in 16-months of fulltime travel. We never visited the other bathhouses, so I can’t comment on them.

Like most Michigan State Parks, the sites in the Lake Macatawa CG had electric (we managed to secure 50amp sites for us and our friends), but no water or sewer hook-ups. If full hook-ups are a priority, then head down the road to the Beach Campground which has several with water and sewer. The Lake Macatawa dumpstation has two holes and can be accessed from either direction. It is small and quickly fills up during the checkout window.

If you’re not a state resident, Michigan State Parks can be pricey because of the daily access fee. A non-resident pass can be purchased for a little over $30 and will pay for itself with a few uses.

There are several dining options nearby and downtown Holland is less than 6-miles away and provides a great brewery (New Holland), some good dining, and lots of shopping. The local Farmers’ Market was one of the best ones we’ve visited and is well worth the drive (close to downtown Holland).

Arrival was simple. Staff were friendly and the site was exceptionally clean when we arrived (it looked like the staff had raked it that morning). Site 19 was pull-through and didn't require any blocking to level the trailer. Overall, you can tell that they care about their campgorund and take pride in it..clean and well maintained.

Really enjoyed the easy access to a fairly nice beach on Lake Cushman. Spent the day at the beach playing in the water and testing out the rental SUP (on-site rental facility at the beach for kayaks and SUPs). There was a roped off wading area that was great for smaller kids. We were here Sun-Tues in August, so the weekend crowds weren't an issue.

We needed a place to stop for the night. We wanted a pool for the little to burn off some energy.
The showers were passable in cleanliness. The pool was OK, not great.
We were parked next to a family who had decided to have a reunion. Thankfully they were respectful when the sun went down, but when we arrived we feared we were in for a long and loud night. I think that next time, we will find a way not to need to spend the night in Caspar.

We used to live just down the road from this dump station and it's fine as far as dump stations go...Fantastic view of Olympic Mountains, Sinclair Inlet, and the Bremerton Waterfront (ok, maybe the Bremerton Waterfront isn't that fantastic) to sweeten the joy of dumping your poo at a wastewater treatment plant.

In all seriousness though: It's located a little out of the way on Beach Drive in Port Orchard, WA. I doubt many people would be rolling through here on a regular basis. We mooch dock in our old land lords' yard about a mile up the road so it's super easy for us.

Logistically, it's easy to get into if you're coming from the "West" (i.e., from Port Orchard). However, if you're a bigger rig you'll have a little trouble coming from the "East" due to the lack of adequate shoulder--you should be able to turn around in the ferry parking lot across the street if it's not too crowded.

We were planning on spend three nights in Independence, MO to visit the Harry S. Truman sites (NPS Historic Site and the Truman Presidential Library and Museum) and Kansas City and there aren’t a lot of convenient camping alternatives. We were visiting in mid-November and the nearby county parks were closed for the season, so this left Campus RV Park as our only reasonable option.

The campground is fairly typical for a mid-range, private RV park: the sites are fairly close together and the facilities are clean, but a little dated and spartan. Our site was level, but not very long—the front-half of our truck stuck out into the road, but this didn’t seem to be an issue since the road in about 3x normal width and we took our parking cues from everyone else.

The rest of the campers appeared to be a mix of people passing through and long-term working visitors (lots of trucks that left early and returned late every day of our stay). With the exception of a couple of trains each day, the RV Park is fairly quiet and located next to a LARGE LDS Temple that is pretty cool looking at night. One of the other RV Park Review sites said that Campus RV is in a rough neighborhood, but I don’t agree. Across the street is an industrial area and the homes in the area appear to be older, lower mid-class with a couple of large, multifamily places. We always felt safe.

It is a 10’ish block drive to the Harry S. Truman National Historic Site Visitor Center (corner of Truman and Main St). The Truman home is located 5 or 6 blocks from the visitor center. The Truman Presidential Library and Museum is located several blocks north of Truman Rd and is separate from the NPS stuff. Both the NPS stuff and the Library are well visiting and I highly recommend them (our 7-yo son enjoyed both). The downtown area is very cute and the people are super friendly. There is a very nice coffee shop downtown that had great prices and fast internet.

It is a bit of drive to downtown Kansas City, but we went in to the city a couple of times, once for BBQ (Q39 – A fantastic, upscale hipster’ish neighborhood BBQ place) and once for burgers (Fritz’s Railroad Restaurant – A greasy hamburger place that a friend recommended because kids LOVE it. Our son did love it because of its kitschy railroad theme and the fact that they deliver the meals by model trains).

Pros:
- Nice location with a decent view of the inlet and the ocean.
- Although we didn't give it a try (no boat and no OR license), it's probably really great if you have a boat and want to fish.
- If you go crabbing (or even if you don't), you can get Dungeness crabs cleaned and cooked right there...although you'll get charged for it

Cons:
- Dirty. A lot of trash strewn about.
- Spaces were tight with little privacy.
- Be ready to be charged for EVERYTHING.
- Poor customer service. We got charged for an extra night and were unable to get it reversed. Overall, the staff seemed pretty lackadaisical about customers concerns.
- When the salmon are running, be ready for lots of fishermen in various stages of inebriation milling about.

Visited McMinnville for a long weekend and we spent two nights at Olde Stone Village (after spending the first night camping in the Museum's parking lot).

Olde Stone Village Village is a combination RV Campground and mobile/manufactured home community; the campground and housing areas are connected but separate. There appeared to be a lot of long-term visitors in the RV area, but everything was very neat and clean. The park has a 15-year old RV restriction, but they appeared to be pretty easy-going as they let a 25-year old conversion bus in right in front of us without reservation.

The facilities were very clean and the staff was friendly. Spaces were all concrete pads with small strips of grass between the sites. Hook-ups were in great condition and well situated. Very nice picnic table/bench.

WiFi was very strong for a campground during off-peak times; we did experience the typical late-afternoon and early-evening slow-downs. Great AT&T signal. They have a large selection of DirecTV channels, but we didn't test that out.

There is a nice playground and pool area (pool was closed while we were there). The walkway is an added bonus for those visiting the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum (and Waterpark)...it makes getting to/from the park very easy and a great destination for a late evening stroll.

We spent three days in the McMinnville area: one day at the museum, one day at the water park, and a third day visiting local wineries. As mentioned above, we spent our first day (the museum day) parked in their parking lot and the next two days at the RV Park and this worked out well for us. It's a pretty easy jumping-off point for visiting the local wineries and farms. It's across the street from an airport, but we didn't really notice the noise.

The Grand Lake side of RMNP is the place to be. So much more quiet.
This campground has lost almost all of its trees to the pine beetle. So, be aware, it is little more than a wide open field.
This site is awesome though, looking out onto a field by the river. Very pleasant. We waited somewhat patiently as the previous tenant vacated, and were rewarded with a pleasant place in the Rockies.

A very nice, clean, and open ACOE campground on the far eastern end of Lake Sakakawea (or western end of Lake Audubon…it’s actually the reservoir formed by the dam on the Missouri River, so does it really make a difference?) We spent one night here while traveling between Grand Forks and the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Park. East Totten worked out well for our plans, but there were other options in the area that would probably have been just as good. Several of the sites are located on the water and it looked like a great place to paddle around in a kayak or SUP. I had a great time sitting outside, drinking a beer and watching the birds fly around the lake at sunset.

The campground has two loops (Walleye and Pike). Walleye has electricity (including a few 50amp sites), Pike is primitive with no electricity. There are only a few water spickets in the campground and the toilets are vault toilets (no showers in the campground). There is freshwater available at the dump station, located near the turn-off from US 83. All the sites were fairly large and many of the Walleye sites were paved. There was a fair amount of road noise from US 83.