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.
