Oak Mountain State Park

Today was a moving day.  We’re now settled in at Oak Mountain State Park.  We paid for three nights, but who knows how long we’ll stay.

We had a beautiful day for traveling even if it was on the cold side.  Because overnight temperatures were forecasted to be about 27 degrees last night, Gene unhooked our water and sewer lines late yesterday afternoon.  That only left the electricity for this morning.  Getting the car hitched was a cold job. We definitely needed gloves to handle all those icy tow bar parts.

We took I-65 the 60 or so miles to the Oak Mountain exit.  There were a few rough spots, but for the most part I-65 is in good condition except in Birmingham.  Through Birmingham was the roughest ride we’ve had in a long time.  Plus there were a few miles of construction.  By the time we got to our exit we were more than ready to be off the interstate.

Oak Mountain State Park covers nearly 10,000 acres just on the outskirts of Birmingham.  It seems this park has it all--hiking trails, mountain biking, horse trails, golf course, a lake for canoes, kayaks, and pedal boats, swimming, and two fishing lakes.  They have cabins as well as a large campground for overnight visitors.

The campground has over a 100 sites, most of which are RV sites with full hook-ups and free WiFi.  The campground is wooded, but there are sites that are more open than others.  The sites are spacious like you would expect in a state park and this campground will accommodate big rigs.  The interior roads are paved and the parking pads are gravel and most are pull-thrus.  I didn’t walk around the campground too much, but of the few sites I saw many had pretty good sized ruts in the parking pads.  The site we’re in does, as well, and it’ll be a rough spot to get over when we’re ready to leave.  The sites are nearly level.

The campground is situated on one end of Beaver Lake.  I walked down there this afternoon to check it out.  With the rain this week, there seems to be plenty of water in the lake.  Some sections of the lake trail are too wet to walk on.  We’ll save that trail for a few days.

At the very end of the lake it looks like it may be out of bounds a little.

I think that’ll do for today.  Thanks for tagging along.

North Pole Campground and Wilmington, New York

We are all set up and settled in for our stay at North Pole Campground. We had a couple issues yesterday afternoon, but we solved one of them (at least for the short term) and decided to adjust to the other. Our first problem and definitely the more serious of the two, is electrical in nature. We have inside our Montana a voltage indicator. It will alarm if the voltage coming in is either too high or too low. Either way, it is not good on the appliances, especially the air conditioner. When I turned the air conditioner on, the alarm sounded—showing a voltage reading of 102. Gene called the office and they sent out the campground “electrician”. I don’t really know what all went on out there at the electrical post, but the conclusion was that there was 120 volts coming out of the post so it’s our problem. It is a little better today, so we have decided not to move to a different site. Our other problem involves those $298 digital converter boxes. We have cable here and they don’t support cable. The only thing we could do to have any TV reception at all was to disconnect the boxes.

Ausable River at campground

Today we strolled about the campground and about town to get ourselves oriented to the immediate area. This campground advertises as having the “best rating in the Adirondacks”. If it doesn’t, it should. It is a wonderful campground. It is fairly large as campgrounds go, but there are not so many sites. The reason—because all the sites are huge with lots of trees all around. The campground is spread out on both sides of the road with RVs and tent sites in both areas. The tent sites are the best we’ve seen in a long time. We are on the side which has hiking trails at the back of the campground. One of these trails connects to the trail up Whiteface Mountain—a popular Ski Resort named best in the East 3 years in a row and the site of Olympic Ski competition in the past. At the back of the campground on the other side of the road is the Ausable River. About a half mile away the river has been dammed to create a small lake right here. The campground has canoe and paddleboat rental and there is a small public beach on property adjacent to the campground.

Ausable River below the dam

The campground office opens at 8 AM with freshly brewed Green Mountain coffee. I think sitting by the lake drinking a cup of Vermont’s finest should become my regular morning routine.

Fisherman on the Ausable

We continued our stroll to “downtown” Wilmington. It’s really not much of a town at all, just a crossroad, not even a traffic light. We can actually walk from our campground to anywhere we want to be in the village of Wilmington. At the crossroads, a mere half mile from our campsite, is the Whiteface Mountain Veteran’s Memorial Highway. With the smell of hot brakes in the air, it conjured up memories of the road to the summit of Mt. Washington. As we crossed the bridge we could see the Ausable as whitewater beyond the dam. We found the small grocery and the public library. We’ll have to go to Lake Placid (13 miles) for a large grocery and fuel. It is a charming little community nestled in the mountains with a river running through it. This is wonderful.

Junius Ponds Campground and Cabins

We have made Junius Ponds in Phelps, NY our home for a month. We have been pleased with the campground, facilities and location. We wanted to tour the Finger Lakes, visit Niagara Falls, and do some biking along the Erie Canal. This campground is located at the northern end just about halfway between the two largest finger lakes. That gives us good access to our primary goal for being here. We are about 125 miles from Niagara Falls, but just a mile from I-90 which takes us there with little time and effort. We are a little farther from the Erie Canalway than I would have liked to be in order to bike there more often. However, we have access to other bike trails close by. There are several other campgrounds within a 30 to 50 mile radius of our location, but for what we wanted to do in the area, we think this worked out well.

Junius Ponds is a large campground with about 150 sites. At least half of those sites are rented to folks staying for the season. They have a more permanent look with flower gardens, yard art, and even a few fences.

The sites are nice. They have both back-ins and pull thrus—all large sites with lots of grass. Some sites have trees and some don’t. All are very well maintained.

The facilities are great. There is a very nice pool, a small store with your basic “camping” foods—mayo, hotdogs and a few canned foods as well as a basic supply of hardware—water hoses, sewer hoses, and campground t-shirts, 4 small cabins similar to KOA Kamping Kabins, a pond for fishing, and a playground for small children.

The campground has several organized activities each week—bingo on Tuesdays, breakfast on Saturday, and dinner a couple nights a week. There is a pavilion for these large activities and it is a great way to meet your neighbors.

There are a couple areas where there could be some improvement. With so many campsites and the number of people here, especially on the weekend, there is not enough bathroom/shower capacity. There are only 8 showers (4 each for men and women) and only 12 toilets (6 each). Even though most people use their own facilities in their campers, there are still a large number of tents and pop-ups on the weekends that warrant more bathhouse space. There is only one shower house located roughly in the center of the campground, but it is a long walk for the tenters who are on the perimeter of the park.

My chief complaint has been the laundry facilities. For this large number of seasonals, there are only 2 washers and 2 dryers and one of the dryers does not work. I finally figured out that the best time to do laundry is very early in the morning and only one load a day. I wait for a sunny day and hang my clothes on a line to dry.

There are always some negatives about any place and there are a lot more positives about Junius Ponds than negatives. If my greatest worry is laundry, then life is good indeed. I would recommend this campground for anyone visiting this area.