Friday, June 19, 2015

Our Maiden Voyage


During our two trips south to inspect and purchase The Cabin, we drove by Lake St. George State Park.  We had never camped there, but it’s less than an hour from home and seemed a nice soft maiden voyage.  Our granddaughter Haylee enjoys camping, so we decided to invite her along.  So the first weekend after we got our RV, we went to Lake St. George.

The sites there are fairly close to the road, but the lake was beautiful.  Parking the RV was easy, as we were out in the open on a flat patch of grass.  The majority of the state parks in Maine don’t have hook-ups and this one was no exception.  Not a big deal for us at all, who were accustomed to camping in a tent right up until we bought an RV.

We got everything set up, feeling elated at being able to level the rig on the first try.  When we were settled, Bill and I agreed that, if we still had our tent, we’d still be putting the poles together and trying to find all the stakes.  We could see, over near the bathrooms, a fancy set-up with an outdoor TV, outdoor fridge, rope lights around the site, and a stereo with 2 large speakers.  Pretty snazzy!  When Bill walked by there, the gentleman introduced himself as the campground host.  Very friendly.  A campground host stays at a campground for free, usually all season, and help campers when the ranger isn’t around. 
We put our food out (carried in from KFC since we were a late arrival) on the picnic table and started our dinner.  As we started to eat, the campground host came out of his rig and began playing music quite loudly. And then he picked up a microphone and began to sing.  This was a karaoke machine!  We chuckled a bit and continued to eat.  The singing continued, with enough volume to be heard all over the park.  Luckily, he had a nice voice, but I’m not accustomed to camping and a serenade at the same time.  When the karaoke had gone on for about an hour, I decided to take a walk down to the reception hut.  The noise just wasn’t at all what I expected in the great outdoors.  I spoke to the greeter at the entrance and she seemed surprised that we weren’t enjoying the concert.  But she said she’d speak to the ranger.  The whole thing was puzzling to me, because I’m pretty sure the campground host is supposed to help with noise control, not contribute!
The concert terminated on its own, but we did see the ranger stop later on and speak to the campground vocalist.  After that, the host wasn’t so friendly towards us, but at least it was quiet.  The evening was calm, although we did hear a lot of traffic noise from the road.  We took Haylee to the beach area and she got to play on a very nice playground structure there.  She even went swimming the next day, even though the water was still cold that early in the season.  We had a campfire (with smores of course).
 Haylee thought the dinette that turned into a bed was very cool, so that’s where she slept.
All in all, it was a pleasant maiden voyage, although we decided it wasn’t really our idea of state park camping.  Not woodsy, too close to a main road, etc.  But we did get a taste of our new camping lifestyle.  Carrying our house behind us.

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