A Busy Weekend At the Campground

After a couple of days of playing tourist, yesterday was more of a “taking care of business” day. We drove about 25 miles to Mansfield so Greg and Jan  could pick up a couple of prescriptions at WalMart, and so we could stock up on some things we needed. A lot of fulltime RVers use WalMart and Sam’s Club pharmacies for their prescriptions, because they can be filled nationwide. While we were there, we also bought a Homedics ParaSpa hot wax machine. Several people have recommended one to help ease the pain in my hands when the arthritis kicks in. Getting old is not for sissies, I’ll tell you that! :( 

We stopped for lunch at a place called Cheddar’s, a small chain restaurant we had never tried before. It was very good, and our waiter, Wade, had a great personality and was a lot of fun. After lunch, we headed to Sam’s Club to make another deposit to the local economy. Then we drove to the Richland County Fairgrounds to check it out as a possible rally site. The buildings and grounds looked a lot nicer than the fairgrounds in Medina we saw on Friday, but the opportunities for RV parking did not seem very good at all. We only saw a few electrical outlets scattered around on poles, and most of those were only 20 amps.

Our next stop was the historic Mansfield Reformatory, which housed over 155,000 convicted lawbreakers between 1896 and 1990. Today the old Gothic prison is a museum, and it has been featured in such movies as The Shawshank Redemption, Air Force One, and Tango & Cash, as well as television shows, documentaries, and even music videos. I wanted to tour the museum, but this time of year they are only doing Halloween Haunted Prison tours, so we’ll come back another time.

We drove around downtown Mansfield for a little while, checking out all of the old industrial buildings, many of them in disrepair, and others resurrected as shops and boutiques. Eventually, we headed back to the campground, enjoying the scenery along the back roads we traveled. The leaves have turned even more colorful in the few days we have been in the area.

It’s a busy weekend here at Smith’s Campground & Cabins, where folks are taking advantage of the fantastic weather and the three day holiday weekend to get in one last outing for the year. When we arrived here on Tuesday, we pretty much had the campground to ourselves, except for our hosts, George and Amy Smith, their family, and a handful of regulars.

But by yesterday afternoon, the place was packed with weekend campers, kids, and dogs. We usually try to avoid campgrounds like this on holiday weekends, because sometimes the crowds are just too loud and the pace is too hectic for us. (Yes, we are official grumpy old farts.) But we’re enjoying this weekend and all of the activity. It’s a friendly crowd, and most of these folks have been coming here for years and years. Everybody is having a great time, and everybody we have met is friendly and polite. Unlike some campground crowds, nobody comes walking through your campsite, the dogs are not barking all day long, and when the 11 p.m. quiet time comes around, it’s actually quiet. George and Amy run a first class operation here, and you can bet we’ll be back again.

Yesterday afternoon, they had an old fashioned trick or treat for the kids, and there were little munchkins everywhere dressed as ghosts, goblins, pirates, ballerinas, and just about anything else you could imagine, going from RV to RV collecting candy and goodies. The adults were all sitting outside in lawn chairs, watching the parade of costumes going by. Later, after it got dark, there was a kid-rated Halloween movie in the open air pavilion.

We sat outside with Greg and Jan and enjoyed a pleasant evening, watching the river flow past and the moon rise over the trees. What a great end to a perfect day!

Today we plan to finally get our Sea Eagle kayaks wet. While we were at the Thousand Trails in Orlando, Florida, last year, I bought Terry a 385 Fast Track for Christmas. The day it arrived, the weather turned cold, and it stayed cold the rest of our time there. Since then, we either have not had the time, or the weather, to go paddling. The Mohican River flows right past the campground, and there are kayak and canoe liveries all along the river. We actually have a great launching spot right in front of our motorhome, but I think we’ll go upriver about four miles and launch there, then float down to the campground. With any luck, we may see the bald eagle that we spotted flying above the river a couple of days ago!

Thought For The Day – Birds of a feather flock together and crap on your car.

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