patricialeeb_stanleymoore

We really enjoyed our one night stay. Site 51 is a pull-though with easy access. There are lots of shaded sites (ours had partial shade), cute cabins, and a hitching station for horse-drawn buggies, which are actively used. There's a frozen custard stand/kiosk near one of the entrances that's open from noon until 9 pm(!). The office staff is friendly and helpful, offering tips on where to go and general information about the area. We were a bit concerned about the fairly busy road not far off, but it gets quite quiet at night. Lots of horse-drawn buggies and small carriages passing by, so much so we became very accustomed to the clip-clop of trotting horses. There's a very large flea market a few miles away, we spent a few hours there the next morning and even found some useful hardware for our RV! It's not far from Elkhart. We'd gladly stay again.

NOTE: Fee posted is the senior rate.

This was just a quick overnight tent camping trip the night before the Blue Origins launch (side note: even though we found an overlook just a few miles from the launch site and had binoculars, we didn't see a thing other than the rocket contrail. And it was over and done in not much over 15 minutes).

Check-in: sites are on a first-come, first served basis. It's a popular place, easily accessible from El Paso and Las Cruces, and fills up quickly, so get there early if you can. Stop at the visitor center to pay the entrance fee. If you have a valid National Park pass, you can get a handy hanger there for your rear view mirror in which you insert the card and leave facing out. The tent sites are positioned surrounding an open gravel parking area just downhill from and next to the paved parking area. Each tent site has a small clip on a post holding a laminated card with "occupied" printed on one side, and "unoccupied" on the other. Find an unoccupied spot, flip the card, put some stuff there in case people don't notice the "occupied" card, go pay the camping fee at the kiosk in the paved parking area.

The campsite was great, the surroundings gorgeous. We wandered the closer trails and checked out the visitor center. The pit toilets were very clean, the trails well marked and the visitor center has an extensive display about the plants and animals of the area, really informative. We were there in the monsoon season, so it was as lush and green as it gets. I recommend you bring some form of shade. Each tent site has a picnic table. No fire rings.

June and July are the rainy months, come prepared for rainstorms.

We'll definitely camp there again, but I'll bring earplugs. The campsite is very close to the highway. so you'll hear trucks laboring up the grade and the air brakes as they descend, and just regular car noise as well, all night long. If you're at all sensitive to road nose, that's something to be aware of. Also to my surprise was a lot of jet noise at night. Like, every 10 minutes a low flying jet. I can't figure this one out, the closest airports capable of handling that kind of aircraft are ELP/Biggs Field in El Paso, and those just aren't that busy (our apartment overlooks both, we have a very good idea of air traffic on our area, :->).

Anyway, the area is gorgeous, we'll be back for a longer stay (me with earplugs, lol).

Tip: When approaching this campground, be sure and take the first exit onto it. We mistakenly took the second one, and after checking in at the office, had to circle out back onto the road and re-enter to correctly approach our RV site.

It's mainly seasonals who are obviously all local, and all clearly have been coming for years. It has a little pool, a catch-and-release fishing pond, a nice big field for kids to romp, a slightly worn basketball court. It's really sort of a summer camp. And since it was the weekend it was bustling. We just needed a one night stay on our way through Indiana to Wisconsin, and this was one of the few options available over the weekend. The non-seasonal site that we were in was water and electric only. Given it's remoteness, you can't do a quick dash into town in case you forget something so if you're going to be there for more than a couple of days, keep that in mind.

Pros:
Pleasant landscape.
Fishing pond.
Well maintained pool.
Kid's activities, at least on the weekends.
Very friendly people -- the part we enjoyed most.
Goats you can pet! And plump chickens roaming around which we found charming.

Cons:
It's out in the middle of nowhere amid large scale ag operations.
Sandwiched between a very busy highway and a corn field. So, road noise.
The roads are unpaved and everyone buzzes about in golf carts so it's very dusty.
The roads are also narrow, which made backing our 39' toy hauler in quite challenging. We had help from the aforementioned friendly people.
When we checked in we were informed our site was 60' long. It most definitely was not. We barely fit and had to park the truck elsewhere.

We stopped in the area to find a mechanic shop, as our truck sprang a leak in the power steering/braking booster system, and Madison was the nearest town to the state park we were previously parked in. PLEASE NOTE: the nightly rate is an average. It's $61 on the weekends, $53 weekdays, and that's with a Good Sam discount.

Pros:
Grounds and facilities very well maintained (roads and pads all gravel)
Friendly staff
Nice little pool and playground for kids
Spacious off-leash dog run
Free cookies and popcorn in the office/convenience store.
Almost all pull-through sites, all sites very level and all RV sites FHU
Laundry on site
Very convenient to Madison, a great mid-size city worth a multi-day visit, and a number of really charming villages in the surrounding area
A Kwik Trip right across the street for fueling.

Cons:
Sites rather close together
Little to no shade
Relentless traffic noise from I-94
Campground WiFi a bit slow even when not crowded.

We wound up staying for 12 nights. On the whole, I'll say it's better for shorter stays. Giving it four stars though, for convenience and the other pros mentioned above.

This place is vast and wooded with quirky art installations scattered around. This is a concert venue as well as a campground, so I imagine it can get full during those times, but in between there's 800 acres of room. It's right beside the Suwannee River (yes, the one from the song, look it up if you aren't humming it already), with hiking paths all around. One of the roads inside the park leads to a canoe/kayak launching area where you can rent either. You can also rent golf carts, and there's a diner-type cafe on site. We attended an RV rally here and so loved the area we extended our stay for another 5 days. The town of Live Oak is just down the road if you need groceries and other necessities. We plan on coming here again.