Set the alarm early and were headed out of camp by 8:00, before the ladies across the way were up (at least I only saw glimpses of them), ran around the lake to the dump at the main campground before heading north to breakfast at Youngs Jersey Dairy, then on to Rhonda’s house to pick up hay. Her husband Max knew we were coming, but I hadn’t been able to reach him by phone, so we had our fingers crossed someone would be home. Arrived just as a large delivery truck was leaving, so I backed up to the barn and Max helped us load the pickup with a nice green grass and alfalfa mix from his hay trailer. Bales were kind of light (apparently at Rhonda’s request), and had baling wire instead of strings, but as Max said, "When someone offers you a free baler, you don’t argue." Nevertheless, it was very nice hay, though we usually try to avoid alfalfa (too rich, spoils my guys too much!), but it had enough grass in it to balance it out. Once that was done, we headed straight out to Barkcamp State Park, which I only just learned about last week. It’s a bit more expensive than we ordinarily like to pay ($21/night), but it had electricity and central water, and I have lots of laundry to do, so we figured this was our best chance at avoiding a laundromat. Arrived in mid-afternoon, got checked in at the camp store, then had to re-trace our steps back to the horse camp, which is a small area dedicated to horses in a park that does a great job of catering to a lot of difference types of recreational needs. There’s a lake for fishing and non-motorized boating of all kinds (electric motors only, that is), we saw canoes and kayaks and duck boats for rent as well as bikes for cycling around. There were lots of kids around, too, and many campgrounds around as well. When we arrived at the horse camp it was empty, so we had our pick of spots. We found Site 60 to be the best for us, lots of immediate shade, but with an opening for the satellite dish, close to the water spigot (which actually had a hose on it, OMG, they trust us not to steal their hose!!), with a couple of good trees right next to us for the high-line. The tarmac pad was a bit narrow for the RV by itself, so naturally we had to park the horse trailer next to it. Shortly thereafter, a ranger came by to tell us that we had to move that rig off the grass, "unless we could get two wheels on the pad" which, of course, wasn’t possible, which meant we’d have to park the van in a nearby parking area. We asked about the horse trailer, though, since it had all of our equipment in it, and he agreed that we could drop the trailer on the grass on the other side from where it was parked (sigh), before unhitching it, so that’s what we did. Some rules are downright silly, aren’t they? We weren’t in anyone’s way where we were, but it wasn’t in accordance with the rules, so that was it. What’s better, more tarmac so you can put two vehicles next to each other, or allowing someone to occasionally park on the grass, which would have plenty of time to recover between occupants? Anyway, we did what we were told and forgot about it, everything else about the place was nice. Started a load of laundry, settled in for the evening, enjoyed watching the horses very happily eating their new hay just outside our patio door!
Set the alarm early and were headed out of camp by 8:00, before the ladies across the way were up (at least I only saw glimpses of them), ran around the lake to the dump at the main campground before heading north to breakfast at Youngs Jersey Dairy, then on to Rhonda’s house to pick up hay. Her husband Max knew we were coming, but I hadn’t been able to reach him by phone, so we had our fingers crossed someone would be home. Arrived just as a large delivery truck was leaving, so I backed up to the barn and Max helped us load the pickup with a nice green grass and alfalfa mix from his hay trailer. Bales were kind of light (apparently at Rhonda’s request), and had baling wire instead of strings, but as Max said, "When someone offers you a free baler, you don’t argue." Nevertheless, it was very nice hay, though we usually try to avoid alfalfa (too rich, spoils my guys too much!), but it had enough grass in it to balance it out. Once that was done, we headed straight out to Barkcamp State Park, which I only just learned about last week. It’s a bit more expensive than we ordinarily like to pay ($21/night), but it had electricity and central water, and I have lots of laundry to do, so we figured this was our best chance at avoiding a laundromat. Arrived in mid-afternoon, got checked in at the camp store, then had to re-trace our steps back to the horse camp, which is a small area dedicated to horses in a park that does a great job of catering to a lot of difference types of recreational needs. There’s a lake for fishing and non-motorized boating of all kinds (electric motors only, that is), we saw canoes and kayaks and duck boats for rent as well as bikes for cycling around. There were lots of kids around, too, and many campgrounds around as well. When we arrived at the horse camp it was empty, so we had our pick of spots. We found Site 60 to be the best for us, lots of immediate shade, but with an opening for the satellite dish, close to the water spigot (which actually had a hose on it, OMG, they trust us not to steal their hose!!), with a couple of good trees right next to us for the high-line. The tarmac pad was a bit narrow for the RV by itself, so naturally we had to park the horse trailer next to it. Shortly thereafter, a ranger came by to tell us that we had to move that rig off the grass, "unless we could get two wheels on the pad" which, of course, wasn’t possible, which meant we’d have to park the van in a nearby parking area. We asked about the horse trailer, though, since it had all of our equipment in it, and he agreed that we could drop the trailer on the grass on the other side from where it was parked (sigh), before unhitching it, so that’s what we did. Some rules are downright silly, aren’t they? We weren’t in anyone’s way where we were, but it wasn’t in accordance with the rules, so that was it. What’s better, more tarmac so you can put two vehicles next to each other, or allowing someone to occasionally park on the grass, which would have plenty of time to recover between occupants? Anyway, we did what we were told and forgot about it, everything else about the place was nice. Started a load of laundry, settled in for the evening, enjoyed watching the horses very happily eating their new hay just outside our patio door!
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