Stamp & Camp with Mary - January 3, 2019 - Few More Campground Reviews.

It has been awhile since I reviewed our campgrounds.  We had taken a few weeks and visited Kayla so was busy in Southern CA and now back in Arizona so thought I would tell you about some of the places we have been and what we have been doing.

1.  I left you last time as we were going to Leaf Verde in Phoenix Arizona, well really Buckeye but close enough.

This is a Coast to Coast Good Neighbor Park, which means that we have to call for a reservation and that they give us a percent off of their regular rate for a week, I didn't know until Don called to reserve it that the Coast to Coast rate was only for 7 days, we had to pay their normal rate for the other days.

LESSON LEARNED: Also be careful when making reservations that it is for the time you really want.  We had a reservation for our Campground in CA for Dec 17 and Don thought he made the reservation here for us checking out on the 17 but the tag said check out on the 16th. He said that just meant that was our last night as he told them through the 16th. Long story short we had to get another night as we were suppose to be out by 11 AM on the 16th.  Same this time, thought it was through the 7th but check out is the 7th.  He has to go plead for another night.  Both Reservations were made at the same time and he used the same wording through that day and I am sure they thought check out that day.

This really is not the kind of campground we like.  More of a parking lot rather than a campground no trees or even palm trees here. Just rows and rows of campers and RVs. The facilities are well kept up and the folks here are great.  This would be my definition of a Snow Bird Campground. Folks come for a few months during the winter, their friends are here and they keep coming back.  They have some things scheduled to do and we have taken them up on a night of music and a card making class.

At first this was not a park we thought we would come back to but it has grown on us and if we are in the area we may stop by.

They have a few Pickleball courts (maybe Don and I will try that someday).  The pool is heated to 90 this time it is to cold to use it even then.

2.  We left Leaf Verde and headed to Redlands CA to visit Kayla, we were going to stay in a Coast to Coast Park in Redlands (well really close to it)  Fisherman' Retreat, it is a Halo resort and has another one is Yuciapa CA. First off it is located in a beautiful area the San Timoteo Canyon it has trees and 3 fishing lakes.  If you are a fisherman you may enjoy this campgrouund, we really didn't.  

First off when we got there they charged us an additional $4 per night.  I asked what it was for and they couldn't answer that other than everyone paid it.  I asked if it was for internet - no that was a different charge, that is was on the Coast to Coast site and we needed to pay it.  So I thought it was for a nice site and maybe they were upgrading some of their facilities.  Not really this was the second worst campground we spent time in, first was the GA one.

What was so bad.  How about the size of the sites.  They did have some sites that had a concrete pad well the extra $4 was not for that for us.  We had a gravel site and once we got our 24 Ft camper into the site we had about 2 feet from the trailer in the back. 

Our truck just barley fit into the  site and had one end out on the road.

We did have a great walking area around the 3 lakes, and saw a lot of folks fishing.

Used the bathroom closest to us and it really was not a very good bathroom.  No heat so you could not use the showers this time of year, high ceilings and spiders and webs and dirt all over.  I saw a lady heading that way to take a shower at night and told her to look a the other restroom as this one was not heated and was super cold.  Later that week I went to the other one and realized no heat in that one also.  I hope she got a place to shower and stay warm.  The other bathroom was a little bit cleaner, by that I mean it was recently painted in the last 10 years, some of the fixtures were cracked and broken but a little better than the other one.

So not really impressed they charge us more money to stay in the worst sites and don't even have heat in their bathrooms, the sites are so small you really have no room to be outdoors.

They do have other building in the area a cafe that is open only on weekends.  The craft building really needs to be redone.  They do have a new playground for the kids.  Not many washer and dryers but we did't use them as we did our wash at Kayla's .

One thing is they are gated and have armed guards patrolling.  Makes me wonder why they needed armed guards there and if they had a lot of problems, I can see if they were not gated and allowed everyone in.  I was impressed that the guards did stop a few campers speeding above the 5 MPH posted limits.

Another down side was it was about 100 yards from a double train track and the trains seemed to run every 30 minutes or so, after the first night I did not notice them unless we were there in the day time.

We would give it a strong 3 or 4 as it did have fishing and nice folks around it.

3. We are back in Leaf Verde Arizona, it is cold and raining right now and hope that it gets warmer.  We have to find a place to store the RV for a week as we head back to Wyoming to do Doctor visits and even have a fun night of stamping with friends.

I really hope you are enjoying these blog posts, please share with your friends.