Season's End

Well, our last trip of the season is over and Mobile Mansion II is back at the storage lot, winterized, and in hibernation until next year. Just as we did last year, we went to the Dam West Campground on Carlyle Lake in Illinois to winterize the Wildcat. The campground is just 70 miles from our house and it is our favorite local campground. This is a COE campground so with my America the Beautiful pass we get full hookups for just 12 dollars a night. What a bargain.

This is campsite 86 at Dam West.

For the most part we had good weather for this last trip and many of the trees were still displaying their beautiful fall colors. This has been an unusual year for fall colors. Some trees are still green, some are at the peak of their fall color, and others have already lost all of their leaves.

This is the main road in the campground.


The picnic area looking toward the lake and swimming beach.

While I was hiking along the lake one morning I was treated to a sighting of American White Pelicans. I assume the birds were resting for a few days at the lake on their migration to their southern range in the Gulf of Mexico.

American White Pelicans aren't seen in the midwest very often.

With the end of this travel season I guess it’s time to start thinking about what places we want to visit next year. It’s a given that we will take at least three trips over to Lake Carlye again.

Sunset on Lake Carlyle.

What is the orange and blue cord going around the WC ???

You are so lucky to have campgrounds with so much in the way of views, colour and space for such little out lay
Great pictures also.
Sean

We get white pelicans on a small lake a few miles from our home for a few days in the fall. We've never noticed them in the spring on their return up north, but we probably have never driven by that lake at the right time. Grand Lake in NE OK has a white pelican festival in the fall. We've also seen them below the Keystone Lake dam west of Tulsa. They're pretty to look at.... and very graceful.

Thanks for the photos.

WOW, what a beatuiful CG, and for $12.00 what a deal. Thanks for sharing the pictures. Bummer you had to winterize already...

Timflood wrote:What is the orange and blue cord going around the WC ???

Those are rope lights Tim,if I'm not mistaken.Beautiful campground,Looks very peaceful.

Sean wrote:You are so lucky to have campgrounds with so much in the way of views, colour and space for such little out lay
Great pictures also.
Sean

I am very lucky to have so many beautiful campgrounds close to where I live. Within an hour and a half drive of my house there are 11 Missouri State Parks, 2 Illinois State Parks, and number of Corps of Engineers and National Forest Service campgrounds.

Nice campground hope to make it up there & see some country.

Even though our Cat is winterized, we don't consider the season ended. Give us a good forcast for a few days, and we can de-winterized it, and winterize it again when we get back home. We'll be de-winterizing it before we leave for Florida the day after Thanksgiving - or at our first campground along the way. And we might have to winterize it at our last campground on the way home.

Then again, the middle of January, we'll be doing the same thing. I guess being retired we have more time for winterizing and de-winterizing.

Tater

Out here, we don't winterize.. We keep the batteries charged and ready to go. Only thing is, during the winter, in very direction except south, the weather is cold. The best areas to camp are here. Going North, is Oregon, and it gets cold there in the winter, Going West, is the coast, which is cold and wet during the winter, and East is cold and dry during the winter within 50 miles. So, we can stay in our house and day trip in a 50-75 mile radius. Winters are mild here. Going south is not an option.

Spectacular pics! Thanks for posting them.

Very nice.

LOVE Dam West Campground!! Already picking out a couple of sites for the Spring.

We were camped at North Sandusky that week until Monday the 1st. Great weather and no rain. CG was packed. It's only been a couple of days and I am ready to go again. Not this weekend but possibly next. Gun creek is still open, but thinking about Hazlet State Park at Carlyle!

It really is great having so many places to camp, so close to the house. We are going to Destin over the X-Mas holiday and will be checking out CG's in Alabama and TN, because we are going to pull the Cat to destin in May!! So excited!

jakomom53 wrote:We were camped at North Sandusky that week until Monday the 1st. Great weather and no rain. CG was packed. It's only been a couple of days and I am ready to go again. Not this weekend but possibly next. Gun creek is still open, but thinking about Hazlet State Park at Carlyle!

It’s been a couple of years since we’ve camped at Rend Lake. The last time we were there we had a full hookup site (#120) on the Dogwood Loop at South Sandusky. That site was a pull through and it had the electric and sewer on the wrong side of the trailer. The sewer and electric were on the same side as the picnic table, lantern pole and fire ring, while the water hookup was on the correct side. Kinda strange. That site wasn’t level either. I had to put two 2X4’s under each wheel on the slide out side of the trailer. Even so, it was a very nice campground.


Look just to the right of the concrete patio and you can see where my sewer hose was hooked up.

We didn’t check out all the campgrounds at Rend Lake, but of the ones we did, I was more impressed with the campsites at Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park than the COE campgrounds. We really enjoyed Rend Lake and I know we’ll make it back there again in the near future.

We stayed at both - Wayne Fitzgerrell SP and the COE, but the last couple of times it was WFSP. For some reason we preferred WFSP.

We were afraid the white pelicans that migrate through here and stay at a little lake nearby had come and gone.... and we missed them. But, not so - today we drove by that little lake and there was a small flock of white pelicans. They'll probably be gone within a week. Especially since it's supposed to get down to about 39 deg tonight.

Tater

Scruffy and Tater wrote:We stayed at both - Wayne Fitzgerrell SP and the COE, but the last couple of times it was WFSP. For some reason we preferred WFSP.

We were afraid the white pelicans that migrate through here and stay at a little lake nearby had come and gone.... and we missed them. But, not so - today we drove by that little lake and there was a small flock of white pelicans. They'll probably be gone within a week. Especially since it's supposed to get down to about 39 deg tonight.

Tater

I think this was the first time that our timing was right to see the White Pelicans in our area. It’s always a treat for me to see some of the migratory bird species as they arrive in this part of the country.

During the winter months, many Bald Eagles migrate from the north and winter in the St. Louis, MO region. The eagles spend the winter around the locks and dams on the Mississippi River. Many of the fish are stunned after passing through the dam and float near the water’s surface where the eagles can snatch them.

The photo below was taken at the Corps of Engineers Lock and Dam #24 on the Mississippi at Clarksville, MO.

It was a cold overcast January day, but it was worth it to see the eagles.

What a beauty! We used to watch them at Lake Keystone in OK, but never that close..... even with binoculars.