Campground Review – Kendall Campground USACE Jamestown KY

Kendall is a United States Army Corp of Engineers campground.  USACE campgrounds are most often built as a recreation feature upon completion of a flood project such as the building of a reservoir, dam and/or hydroelectric powerhouse facility.  Such is the case here.  Kendall campground is laid out immediately adjacent to Wolf Creek National Fish Hatchery (and Visitor Center) and just a few hundred feet downstream of the Wolf Creek Dam.

There are actually two campgrounds here, Kendall and the Kendall Annex.  Kendall has 77 electric only sites laid out in two heavily wooded loops with 2 bathhouses and 2 dump stations. The sites are packed gravel, mostly 50-60 feet long, and level.  There are a few pull through sites but the vast majority are back-in sites. 

The annex loop is about a half mile to the north (you will pass the road to the annex when you come to the main camp entrance or the Visitor Center).  The annex has 40 electric only sites, a dump station, a bath house, and a free laundry facility.

Site 13 at Kendall Campground-Wolf Creek Dam-Jamestown, KY

The video below shows water being released through the sluice. Even though the lake level is down, they release water that subsequently hits the concrete wall and forces the water up into the air. This aerated water is then sent downstream to keep the fish healthy.

From the main Kendall camp it’s a short walk to the dam, splash pad, the snack bar, the hatchery, and the Visitor Center.

The pictures below show us enjoying our walk to the snack bar.

We’ve stayed here twice (once in 2020 and now in September of ’23) and appreciate the calm quiet. Now that school is back in session, campers here are mostly “senior citizen” fishermen (and women). However, when Thursday afternoon came around, the families with all their little ones came in and “took over”! The rest of the weekend was filled with kids on bicycles (w/ training wheels), tricycles, skateboards. And dogs along with Mom & Dad riding their golf carts all over. The lesson learned is … don’t go camping on a weekend!

And remember, all the Army Corp campgrounds qualify for the “America the Beautiful” Senior Interagency Lifetime 50% discount. This park, and the next one we are going to camp at (Defeated Creek TN) cost us only $18/night vs the standard $36 nightly fee while Maumelle in Little Rock is only $12/night with the Senior Interagency Lifetime Pass.

Seniors can buy the lifetime discount pass for only $80.  When we bought ours a few years ago, the cost was only $10, but they’ve since raised it to $80.  If you think you MIGHT camp a couple nights in a National park, US Forest Service park, or other national inter-agency park, you’d better buy your pass now before they raise the price again. Here’s the discount pass link again.

Here at Jamestown, there’s the Wolf Creek Dam that holds back the water that forms the man-made resevoir Lake Cumberland. Not only does Lake Cumberland provide miles and miles of recreation water, but also flood control and electric power for the area provided by the six hydro-electric generators. Although the powerhouse is only open on a very limited basis for pre-arranged tours, you can drive across the top of the dam on U.S. Route 127 and get a pretty good view of the dam from either side. Continuing on down south on 127 will get you to a couple different routes to Dale Hollow Lake State Park at Burkesville KY where we volunteer camp hosted spring of 2021.

Here’s the link to the Wikipedia link about Wolf Creek Dam and some pictures of the dam from the overlook on the south side.

Here’s a link to The Visitor Center and National Fish Hatchery. They have some nice interactive displays inside not only about the hatchery, but also about wildlife in the area and a little about the dam & powerhouse. Here’s a few pictures from inside. Click on any of the pictures to get a larger view.

And lastly, if you’d like to get more of any idea of the layout and the sites at Kendall, go ahead and watch this short video shot by the dashcam as we head to the dump station.

That’s all for now. Until next time, be good to one another and to yourself.

A great trip back home

We left our new “Lighthouse friends” on Sunday and headed down U.S. 23 a couple hours to Tawas Point State Park where we camped for the next two nights alongside our long-time friends Norm and Alice.

The four of us at Tawas Point

We became good friends back in the mid 70’s when Norm and I began working for Xerox fixing copiers in downtown Detroit.  We married our (now still) sweethearts the same year, bought our first homes the same year, and each helped to bring two beautiful babies (a boy and girl each) into this world.

During our time together at Tawas, we ate, we drank, we rode our bikes to the lighthouse and we drove into town for ice cream 🍨 of course!

Don’t we look smashing?
Tawas Point lighthouse undergoing repairs

We could’ve easily spent a couple more days with Norm and Alice at Tawas, but we had to continue toward home as we needed to get our house in Ohio ready for the traveling nurse who would be renting from us starting September 1st.

A few months ago when I had written about our upcoming volunteer gig at the lighthouse in Rogers City, I got a message from one of my grade school friends.  Kevin told me that they now live on a lake at Oscoda, Michigan.  We made plans to meet up for lunch as we would be passing through on our way home.

Kevin and Colleen

Although our visit was brief, it was great to meet up and renew our friendship.  We committed to being up in their neck of the woods again and making a point of looking them up for a longer visit next  time. Thanks for reaching out to us guys!

We tried to meet up with a couple other schoolmates from the Class of ’72, Tom who was actually camping at Tawas Point the week before we got there and Diane who is now living at Hubbard Lake. Unfortunately, although we messaged each other trying to make it work, it just didn’t work out. Thanks for reaching out to us guys … hope we can try again sometime.

Although we could’ve driven straight through from Oscoda Michigan to Mt Gilead Ohio in one stretch, we decided to boondock at one of our preferred dry camping locations.

Our stop for the night at Cabelas

Cabela’s at Dundee Michigan has HUGE parking lots and the one in the back of the store by the loading docks allows us to park alongside a very large retention pond that makes for a quiet and beautiful rest spot. Although there were a few trucks parked a few hundred feet away, they never kept us from a restful night.

Since we only had about ten days to get the house ready for Tara (the traveling health professional) and we needed to pack the coach for our upcoming trip to Arizona, we were going to park it at David and Lisa’s house.  Turned out however they were having a big garage sale this weekend.  So instead we were lucky enough to snag a site at Mt Gilead State Park, for the weekend. It’s a great little heavily shaded campground with both paved full hook-up sites and gravel electric only sites.

The next few days kept us busy between me going back to work M-W-Fridays, moving our personal items out of the house and into storage in preparation for our renter, and moving other “stuff” from the house to the coach in preparation for our 6 month stay at Rovers Roost in Arizona.  The final day Kathy kept busy dusting, vacuuming, and mopping while I got a badly needed haircut, took a bunch of broken-down cardboard boxes to the recycling center, and dropped off a few things at the local Goodwill store.

After the garage sale we moved our home on wheels up to David and Lisa’s just outside of town (Mt Gilead) where up on the hill it’s always breezy and there’s a nice oak tree right outside our windshield that shades the morning sun from heating the coach too early in the day.

There’s always a little anxiety about change and moving down the road. But we make a plan and start working through it. So far things are working out nicely.

Thanks to David and Lisa’s hospitality, we’ll be here for a few weeks before heading to Arizona for the winter. We’re looking forward to a relaxing, enjoyable (and uneventful) trip west. Stayed tuned for more.

Campground Review – Cabela’s Sidney Nebraska

After spending two wonderful cool fall days and nights at Historic Fort Robinson State Park we made our way down U.S. 385 to our next stop at Sidney Nebraska.

This location is the World Headquarters for Cabela’s and has two very large multi-story office buildings behind the store, loads of customer parking out front and lots of free truck and RV parking along with free dump station and fresh water fill for the RV’ers. Thank you Cabela’s!

This Cabela’s also has a full hook-up campground (for a fee of course) but if you can get by with out needing hook-ups and you can sleep to the constant hum of diesel truck engines and their refrigerator trailers running all night … well then – free is good!

We arrived mid-afternoon, the four of us grocery shopped across the street at Walmart, ate dinner at a nice little Mexican joint just down the street, and then settled in for the night. We really were not bothered by the trucks and we have ample fresh water/waste water capacity along with plenty of solar and batteries to run the TV in the evening and the furnace in the morning to take off the chill.

We did just fine, but it is fall and the temp got down to 49 degrees last night so all our windows were closed and the hum of the motors was dampened somewhat. If it was summer, the noise might be too loud.

As always, you can click on any of the thumbnails below to see a larger image

In the morning we went on into Cabela’s and did a little shopping (mostly looking). They have SO MUCH STUFF! It’s fun to look at all their offerings from knives, to tents, clothing, shoes/boots, camping supplies, guns, and more. It’s always great to look at their wild game displays too.

After Cabela’s we decided it was time for a late breakfast and Kathy found this great little place that serves breakfast until 10am, then closes until they open for dinner at 5pm. It’s family owned and operated by the same family since the beginning. We enjoyed great atmosphere, super service and outstandingly tasty food!

Campground Review – Angostura Lake Recreation Area SD

We knew that after Spearfish SD, we wanted to work our way down by Custer State Park. This was so we could meet up with our friends David and Sue once they finished their volunteer gig there on October 1st.

Our plan was to hook up with them and we’d mini-caravan together on our trip back to Rover’s Roost by November 1st. David and Sue are leaseholders there as well.

We had considered staying in Custer State Park, but we were reminded that during the time we would be there, the annual Buffalo Roundup would be taking place and the park would be mobbed with about 25,000 EXTRA visitors, all coming to see the excitement of the roundup.

If you’d like to see and learn more about the Buffalo Roundup, follow this link.

We really wanted to avoid the crowds and the noise of a busy state park, so we looked for another opportunity south of there since that’s the direction we’d all ultimately be heading.

I use a number of apps and web sites when looking for a place to camp. We have found that there are some nice city or county parks in little towns off the main interstates. We also like state parks and Army Corp of Engineers campgrounds as they are less “commercial” like RV parks and more like campgrounds were meant to be.

This time, I used allstays.com to search an area south of Rapid City somewhere between Rapid and the Nebraska state line. I found Angostura Lake (resevoir) Recreation Area.

We’re now completing 2 weeks here at the park and we’ll be here a couple more days, leaving for Nebraska on Friday.

The park has four campgrounds within it’s boundaries and we just lucked out that we were able to get one of the Camp Host sites with full hookups because it’s the end of the busy season and the hosts have left for the year. All of the other sites have electric only so you have to go to the dump station to empty your waste tanks and take on fresh water.

We’re in the Cheyenne Campground at the top of the hill overlooking the lake. I guess if it was mid-summer we might have preferred one of the other campgrounds down by the lake but then we’d be putting up with more crowded conditions too.

The fact that it’s fall and we are up and away from the lake has afforded us the luxury of having an otherwise vacant campground around us most days.

Here are some pictures of the Cheyenne Campground in Angostura Recreation Area

If we’re sitting outside and see someone walking by we’ll always wave and say hello and sometimes they’ll come on over for a short chat. Sometimes we’ll meet other campers as we take our daily walks and we’ll strike up a conversation. Sometimes the folks we meet and talk with are full-timers like us and often-times they are Weekend Warriors or on an extended vacation from their Sticks-N-Bricks home.

New friends Clark and Anita that camped next to us at Angostura for a few days (their great Oliver trailer in the background)

Today, we had something unusual and unexpected happen. It was about 8:30 am or so and Kathy and I were sitting here having our morning coffee and watching the news on TV. A knock on the door. Who would be knocking on our door?

As Kathy went to the door to open it she looked out the window and remarked “I know this lady”.

Kathy opened the door and the lady apologized for knocking so early, but explained that they were leaving the campground and heading to Cody Wyoming but she just HAD to come over and say hello before they left.

Turns out that the folks that pulled in to the site next to us last night were actually from Ohio. Not just Ohio, but the same county where we used to live. Further, she (Janet) used to do Kathy’s mother’s hair when Lois lived in the local nursing home!

Not only that, but Janet and Homer’s daughter (Staci) and her son (Sammy) were traveling with them and I had sold Staci her home in Cardington back when I was a Realtor in Morrow County. What a hoot!

Janet, grandson Sammy, daughter Staci, and Homer all from Cardington Ohio

We had a nice conversation (although short because they were anxious to get on the road) with them and wished them well on their trip over to Yellowstone and eventually down to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

As we’ve said before … this mobile lifestyle has afforded us the opportunity to see so many places and things that we would never see if we still had our Sticks-N-Bricks home. But far more meaningful to us has been all the people we’ve had the opportunity to meet along the way. Some of these folks are “passing through” like Janet and her family so our visits are short. But there are others who we get to spend more time with through our Workamping and volunteering gigs, so more meaningful relationships develop in those situations. We are so thankful to be able to be exposed to these situations and to meet so many wonderful people. Who knows how long this lifestyle will continue for us? But in the meantime, we’ll make the most of it.

Thanks again for riding along – we look forward to connecting with you again in our next post when I’ll share with you a little about the City of Hot Springs South Dakota.

Herb and Kathy

Our Trek West (Installment 3)

It was a long drive (335 miles) down US-35 from Miles City Iowa to Kansas City Missouri. Normally we don’t push it this hard (we are retired after all) so we usually take our time.

We were on a schedule to get to Spearfish (South Dakota) before the Labor Day holiday weekend to make sure we could get a spot in the city campground and spend a few days with our friends Matt and Sherry before they were to leave Spearfish for points south.

But we wanted to stop and visit our friends Ron and Judy who live at Lee’s Summit (a Kansas City suburb) They had put us on to a great little city park just a few miles from their home. Once we were in the park and settled, Ron came and picked us up at the campground and took us back to their home where Judy had prepared a wonderful dinner for us.

Our nice shaded site at the Lee’s Summit City Campground

We had first met Ron and Judy when we all worked as volunteers at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta in fall of 2019. We met up with them again when we were all at “The Big Tent” RV Show in Quartzsite Arizona in January of 2020. It was great to hook up with them again.

Our friends Ron and Judy

Kathy and I had also planned to meet up and visit with Carl who we had met in February of 2020 when we traveled with about 50 other members of our Escapees RV Club down into Mexico. While in Mexico, Carl had told us about his family’s mausoleum in Holden Missouri (near Kansas City). I was intrigued and wanted to see it if we were ever in that part of the country. Now was my chance!

We had told Ron and Judy about this over dinner and invited them to come with us the next day. They jumped at the chance as well. After all, how often do you get an invite to tour a mausoleum?

The next day the four of us jumped in their car and headed to Holden Missouri, about 30 minutes from the campground.

Carl was expecting us and gave us the “Grand Tour”. His Great-Grandfather built the mauseleum in the early 1800’s for his family, both those who had pre-deceased the construction and those that were to come in the future.

Carl aquuired the mauseleum from the family trust. He didn’t set out to own it, he was doing some family genealogy work and as a result of his research, he came across the mauseleum as part of the family history.

The more he looked at it and saw what a state of disrepair it was in, the more he was drawn to do something about it.

The roof has been replaced to stop any further water damage. Electric has been installed as well as a security system. Carl has opened the building and the surrounding grounds to the community for public events like craft fairs, scout campouts, church picnics and such.

There were 23 occupied crypts when Carl took possession and he has taken all the legal and ethical steps necessary to move the occupants to other locations. All the remaining caskets are now empty.

In looking at the pictures below (click on any thumbnail to open a larger view) you’ll notice that the entire structure is made of concrete. The walls, floors, stairways, and ceilings are all concrete. The crypts are also concrete with ornamental marble fronts that have the deceased name and dates engraved.

Now it was time to continue our trek west. We said our goodbyes to Carl and Ron and Judy and headed back to the campground for the night before starting our travels to Spearfish South Dakota the next day.

More to come in Installment #4 in the next few days.

Bless the Simple Things

We took a walk this morning from the campground over to the city park and back around through the hatchery.

Had fun feeding the fish like so many thousands of others have done this summer.

Couldn’t help but catch a short video of this little fairy enjoying life and her time with Mommy & Daddy at the hatchery.

It’s been really great to volunteer here this year and meet all the folks from all over the country (and some other countries too!). They all marvel at what a beautiful facility it is here and the fact that it’s a FREE attraction makes it that much better!

Some families .. local and otherwise come back time and time again .. especially if they’re lucky enough to have little ones. Both the kids and the adults get such a kick out of feeding the fish and the ducks.

Next time you find yourself in the Dakotas, make your way to the northern Black Hills and be sure to visit the cities of Deadwood and Lead. Then head north on Route 14a through beautiful Spearfish Canyon stopping along the way at Cheyenne Crossing, Roughlock Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, Devils Bathtub, and then end your day trip at the wonderful little town of Spearfish. Here you can enjoy a picnic lunch at Spearfish City Park and then walk over the footbridge to visit DC Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery. Although we will be off to some other destination yet unknown, we’ll be here with you in spirit. Have fun!

Our traveling friends Mike and Dawn regularly post You Tube videos and Dawn writes some of the most beautiful and thought provoking blog posts. I wanted to share with you one of her “Sunday Snapshots” posts that made me think back to my earlier days with my Dad.

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We’d love to hear from you. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page, you can send us a note. Again, thanks for riding along. ’til next time – safe travels.

Bike Week at Sturgis

Well, here we are at Spearfish South Dakota nestled in the cradle of the northern Black Hills. The DC Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery and Archives actually sits in Ames Canyon at the south end of town right next to the beautiful Spearfish City Park and across the street from City Campground.

We’re continuing to enjoy our stay here and as the end of our time here nears, I thought I had better share with you some of our experiences here.

As I’ve said before, the friends we’ve made here and the relationships we’ve developed will stay with us as we continue our travels and we look forward to meeting up with these great folks again “on down the road”.

As non-bikers (motorcyclists) we weren’t really all that excited about visiting Sturgis during Bike Week. It’s only about 20 miles down the road, but the thought of fighting all the traffic (both road and foot) didn’t really get us enthused.

But … since we work at the hatchery 3 days on and 3 days off, what’s a person to do during the 3 off days? Matt and Sherry had been there last year, convinced us to go along with them, and after all … no grass to cut, no house to maintain, … so what the heck … go have some fun!

Estimated attendance was about 500,000 people over the 10 day time span of the rally with an economic impact to the area of over $800,000,000! (yea, that’s $800 MILLION!)

The pictures below show just SOME of the sights (and bikes) we saw along the way on Wednesday (mid-week) of the rally. There are other sights that we saw that would not be appropriate to share here on a public forum.

As always, if you click on any of the thumbnails below, you’ll be able to see a larger view of the image

Here’s a video of our campground during the rally. Although it was at full capacity with over 80 full hook-up sites and host to hundreds of tent campers scattered throughout the grounds, it was really a pretty calm environment for us – even during Bike Week. We’d hear the rumble of all the powerful bikes coming and going during the days, but at night it quieted back down.

Spearfish City Campground during Sturgis (79th annual) Bike Week

The park quieted right back down after Bike Week was over and we had the park nearly to ourselves again.

All in all, it was a great experience to be able to go to Sturgis during the rally and see all the beautiful bikes, eat some great food, and watch all the “different” people walking the curbs and sidewalks.

If you’re not already subscribed to this blog, you can easily do so by scrolling up to the top of any page and entering your email address in the block on the right side.

You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel (herbnkathyrv) on You Tube.

If you’re curious (at any time) to know where we are at that moment then click the button at the top right of this page labeled “See Where We Are Now“.

We’d love to hear from you. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page, you can send us a note. Again, thanks for riding along. ’til next time – safe travels.

Glacier National Park

While Kathy and I were working (volunteering) at the USACE Fort Peck Montana Downstream Campground, we took a few days to visit Glacier National Park. Although we could have driven to the park, we decided it would be fun to take the Amtrak train.

The Amtrak Empire Builder runs daily from Chicago to Seattle and back again. The number 7 train runs westbound through Glasgow Montana at about noon daily and delivers to Whitefish (W. Glacier area) about 9pm.

The “Empire Builder” route from Glasgow to Whitefish

The return (number 8 train) runs eastbound daily and departs Whitefish at 7:30am arriving back in Glasgow around 3:30pm.

Round trip tickets are $108 each, a rental car (2019 Chevy Malibu) cost us $35/day and the room at a nice new Best Western (w/ king bed, fridge, microwave) was $94/day. Although the trip by train is more than driving in our own car, the trip was far more relaxing and enjoyable.

Riding on the train allows you the opportunity to move around at will from your car to either the lounge car, the panorama view sightseeing car, or the formal dining car. They have sleeping cars too, but we didn’t have an opportunity to see those.

Remember, you can click on any of the thumbnails below to see an enlarged image

Renting the car (with unlimited mileage) we were able to drive just under 600 miles in 2 days seeing both West Glacier and East Glacier. We were not, unfortunately able to take the “Going to The Sun Road” all the way across from west to east because 22 miles of the road were still closed due to not being cleared of snow yet (this was the end of May!). As a result (as you’ll see in the video below) we had to take Route 2 the long way around the bottom of the park from one side to the other.

Our Amtrak Trip to Glacier May 2019

Thanks for riding along with us on our adventures. Soon after our Amtrak ride to Glacier (celebrating our 45th anniversary) we packed up our coach at Fort Peck and moved on east to our next Workamping/Volunteer gig at Spearfish, SD. Post on our experiences there follows shortly.

If you’re not already subscribed to this blog, you can easily do so by scrolling up to the top of any page and entering your email address in the block on the right side.

You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel (herbnkathyrv) on You Tube.

If you’re curious (at any time) to know where we are at that moment then click the button at the top right of this page labeled “See Where We Are Now“.

We’d love to hear from you. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page, you can send us a note. Again, thanks for riding along. ’til next time – safe travels.

Airstream Motorhome Exterior Tour

Are you a current RV’er?  Do you travel pulling a travel trailer or 5th wheel trailer? Or do you drive a motorhome and pull a car or truck behind?

We’ve had a fifth wheel trailer in the past and this is our 2nd motorhome.  We enjoy the freedom that the motorhome gives us, along with the ease of parking when it comes to our evening camping spot.

We’ve owned this Airstream motorhome for about two years now and although we’ve looked at other rigs out there – both newer and older along with bigger and smaller … we think this 2002 36′ coach is just right for the two of us and our full-time RV travels.

I made this video of the exterior of our coach to give others who might not be aware of some of the features of many class A motorhomes an idea of what to expect.  For those of you who might currently own a motorhome, it might be interesting for you to see some of the differences between ours and what you currently own.

Although there are a lot of similarites from manufacturer to manufacturer and model to model, there are also a lot of differences and this video just points out some of the features of our 2002 Airstream 365 XC Diesel Pusher motorhome.

I hope you enjoy seeing our coach and what it has to offer.  I’ll be publishing a companion video that will feature the interior and further explain some of the inside systems.

In the meantime, we just completed our interior remodel (paint, light & bath fixtures, etc) and you can see that video by following this link