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Brian Swartzfager

3 years ago
4/5

Campsite: Whistle Stop RV and Antiques

We stayed here for one night while traveling between Abilene, Kansas and Denver, Colorado. The staff initially put us in site 41, but as we pulled in we realized there was no way we were going to avoid scraping our brand new roof on one of the tree branches on our way out (our rig is just under 13-feet tall). We asked if we could get a different spot and that wasn’t a problem (they were willing to call a camper and have him move his truck so we could have more room pulling in, but that wasn’t necessary).

The roads in the campground are gravel. There was (what looked like) a brand new section of pull-throughs that was entirely gravel, but in the older rows of sites the surface was grass with some patches of dirt. Our site was a bit off-level side-to-side, but nothing that a block or two on the low side couldn’t solve. The sites in our row were buddy sites, but while the sites were close they weren’t tight.

They were in in process of remodeling the office building during our stay, so the only service being provided out of the building was checking in campers. There is a lot of open grassy space, particularly near the front of the campground, for walking dogs, though our dogs did pick up some burrs in their pads. We didn’t notice any road noise from nearby I-70, nor from the traffic visiting the Walmart across the street from the campground.

In terms of cell service, the speeds I got on my Verizon Jetpack with MIMO antenna when we first arrived were low - 4Mbps down and 7Mbps up - and they got worse as the day went on: we could not stream video and certain webpages took forever to load. However, I did see decent bandwidth early Sunday morning, with one (brief) reading of 34Mbps down and 17Mbps up, so maybe Verizon is a bit congested. The one speed test I performed on my AT&T phone showed 170Mbps down and 21Mbps up. The campground WiFi was good enough for basic web surfing but struggled when uploading photos.

We’d stay here again if we were in the area.

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Brian Swartzfager

1 year ago
3/5

Campsite: Saddleback Mountain RV Park

We stayed here one night while traveling through west Texas. If coming from the west, the campground entrance is just off the exit ramp: you make a right turn at the first entrance to a gas station with overnight tractor trailer parking, then make the immediate first right. To drive to the office building, take the first left at the restaurant and drive over the large gravel stone surface to the small building with the red roof and porch. If you haven’t already pre-paid for your stay, there are payment envelopes and a drop box under a whiteboard that (at least when we visited) had a phone number to call for questions.

Apparently they don’t assign sites, so you can choose your own. All of the sites are pull-throughs of varying lengths, with gravel surfaces and full hookups. The sites closer to the interstate seem to be longer and have desert landscaping between sites; the sites further from the road seemed smaller with little or no landscaping, though most had at least one adjacent tree. We picked site 7, the end site on the first row, which was easily long enough for our 37-foot fifth wheel and 21-foot truck. In retrospect, it wasn’t a great choice because of all the road noise from I-10, which was clearly audible from inside our rig even when closed up. But it did give us a view of the 24/7 automated ice vending machine which sits at the front of the campground out our kitchen window, which was unique. Our site was mostly level, though we did put a board under the camper wheels to help. The hookups are more towards the back of the site, which could require the use of extension cords or hoses depending on your rig.

Unless your dog is a fan of walking and gravel, this is not a great campground for dogs. There is some shrubbery near the restaurant, but you have to walk over to the front of the gas station to get off the gravel and onto some grass.

In terms of cell service, the best speed I got on my Verizon Jetpack with MIMO antenna was 70Mbps down and 22 up, and I had no issues with streaming video. The one speed test I rand on my 5G AT&T smartphone showed 153Mbps down and 6 up. There is no campground WiFi: the only amenities are the aforementioned ice vending building and a few dumpsters for trash.

Full-hookups for $20 is hard to beat, but with both the road noise from the interstate and the engine/generator noise from the tractor trailers parked overnight just outside the campground, it wasn’t a good place to get a good night’s sleep.

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Brian Swartzfager

11 months ago
5/5

Campsite: Dorchester Park & Campground

The campground is part of a 40-acre municipal park. Most GPS and map apps will direct you to the north entrance, which is the safer entrance for taller RVs.

The older section of the campground has a total of 26 water and electric and electric-only campsites divided into two loops. There are a few randomly placed pull-through sites that are meant for overnighters; the rest are back-in and tent sites. They all have grass lawns with gravel pads (except for the wheelchair accessible site which has a paved pad) and most of these sites are at least partially shaded.

The newer section of the campground (where we stayed) has 14 long, spacious pull-through sites with full hookups arranged in a branch layout, with an equal number of sites on each side of the gravel road that cuts through the middle. Despite what the map posted by the entrance to this section currently shows, the road does not form a loop: visitors with large RVs should park nearby and check to make sure a spot is available rather than run the risk of needing to back up and turn around at the end of the road. These sites also have gravel pads and grass lawns, as well as a picnic table and in-ground fire pit. The newly planted trees between the sites are too small to provide any shade, but the sites on the left get a bit of late afternoon shade from the trees bordering the older campground section. Our site (D34) was fairly level but we put a board under our driver side wheels.

There is no campground office: once you pick your site, head over to the bathhouse/shelter across the road from the older campsites, find the podium below the bulletin board, open the lid and fill out a payment envelope (tearing off the vehicle dashboard receipt) and insert it into the nearby mail slot. This is a first-come, first-served campground, and you can stay as long as you'd like: there were 3 or 4 over RVs who were there the entire length of our 42-day stay.

The municipal park has a lot of outdoor amenities. The fishing lake is the dominant feature of the park, home to ducks and geese and encirced by a walking trail with benches. The park also has a baseball field, a disc golf course, two sand volleyball courts, two tennis/pickleball courts, basketball hoops, and multiple picnic area and recreational shelters. Campground-specific amenities are limited to the aforementioned bathhouse with showers, the dump station in front of the bathhouse, and the sheltered stack of firewood available for free (donations encouraged). Trash cans for recyclable items can be found near the dumpster. There are plenty of open spaces to walk dogs, but no enclosed dog park.

In terms of cell service, the best speed I got on my Verizon Jetpack with MIMO antenna was 36 Mbps down and 7 up, and we had no trouble working remotely or streaming video.  The best speed test I ran on my 5G AT&T smartphone showed 54Mbps down and 6 up.  There is no WiFi at the campground.

The main downside to this campground is that it's not located near anything particularly interesting, and the closest decent-sized city is Wausau 40 minutes to the east. That said, groceries and gas can be obtained in nearby Abbotsford (

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