Monday, September 15, 2014

2014 Chicken Whisperer Fall Tour Complete



I was hoping to post more frequently so my posting wouldn’t be so long, but it’s hard when you’re traveling from stop to stop daily. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip and I will be sharing more about our personal experiences in later posts, but here is a description of the second half of our journey. 

Our campsites included…

Lamb City Campground – This was a very nice campground with a huge HUGE playground area! There’s actually more than can be seen in the pictures. It’s a gated community and you get a card when you check in. We had a pull-through site with full hook-ups. It was level and shady. We enjoyed a picnic at the playground. Caleb and Lily Anne met a friend and had a great time playing in the sand together. We just stayed overnight, but it was a wonderful experience. The best part was the price. We paid about $30 for the night!

http://www.lambcity.com/



Greenwood Lodge andCampsites – This was a large campground with beautiful scenery. They needed better signage, but our GPS found it with no problem. There wasn’t a playground, but we enjoyed some fun family time anyway. Daddy taught Caleb how to play horseshoes. Lily Anne LOVED throwing the ball. There were a billion rocks to climb and I think we climbed up and sat on all of them! We also found a grass hill to roll down as well! We had a pull through with only water and electric. We only stayed one night, so we dumped at the dump station the following morning.  I think it was about $45 for the night.


http://campvermont.com/greenwood/



Coldbrook ResortCampground – This was a large campground as well. We had a back in site, which was fine because we had to unhook anyway. As soon as we got there, we took a hike (and I mean HIKE… it was very far away) to the playground, which was a disappointment, mainly because Lily Anne couldn’t do anything except swing. The bars on the ladders to get up to the one slide were too wide for her to climb on her own. We had to lift her up. We were required to stay at this campground 2 nights since we came in over a weekend and it was about $42/night with full hook-ups. Luckily, Daddy found a Children’s Museum close by the Tractor Supply event. The museum was nice, not the most appealing to Caleb’s interest (other than the trains… you know the same ones we have in the camper.) It also seemed small. I looked around to see if there were stairs to find more activities, but I couldn’t find anything. When I told my husband about the museum, he told me there was a second floor that we never got to see. Oh well…

http://www.coldbrookresortcampgrounds.com/


Crow’s NestCampground – This was a nice campground and the owner was very friendly. The playground was nice although I have a couple of complaints. First, the digger is so high, even my feet had trouble touching the ground. This was disappointing because it’s always one of Caleb’s favorite things to play with. The second complaint was about a plastic slide you can’t see. I think it was put together wrong because the ladder for a child to climb up was under the slide, so Lily couldn’t use it unless we put her in it. Also, the laundry set up was a little weird. They had one washer and 2 dryers set up in the women’s bathroom and my husband said they had one washer and dryer set up in the men’s bathroom. We’d never seen that before… makes it hard when I have to do laundry with a 1 year old and a 3 year old running around the bathroom. We had a pull thru site with full hook-ups although the set-up was a little funky, it worked. We paid about $42/ night.



Friendly BeaverCampground – This park really caters to children! Just look at the playgrounds and you’re not even seeing everything they have to offer! Of course where does my son end up… in the dirt, as usual. They also had two ponies on site as well as goats. The kids had a great time feeding the goats. I thought it was clever that the campground sold the goat pellets by the ice cream cone. We had a back in site with full hook-ups and paid about $44/ night. There were a lot of seasonals and some full-timers living in the park. The second night we were there another site started blaring music starting around 10:30pm. The kids were already asleep and we were working so while we made note of it, it didn’t really bother us until it continued well past quiet hours, which started at 11:00pm. It seemed to get louder and louder and more and more up beat and obnoxious. We tried calling and emailing the campground, but we got no response. The website told us to find a Camp Host if there was an emergency by looking for a sign in front of a camper. It was getting close to midnight. We were already dressed for bed. We didn’t want to get out and drive around looking for a sign in a large campground. My husband finally looked up the owner of the campground in the white pages. We were hoping he was calling the right person at this hour. Luckily, it was. She said she would take care of it and about 10 minutes later the music FINALLY stopped. We were later emailed by the campground that they had previous problems with the campers at this site and they asked them to leave. It was nice that they followed up with us even though we weren’t there anymore. Other than that, the only complaint we had about this campground was the roads… super bumpy! I’m not sure if it’s because it’s the end of the season and they’re waiting to grade them until after winter, but they were pretty harsh.

http://www.friendlybeaver.com/

http://www.friendlybeaver.com/


Sandpond FamilyCampground – I didn’t get a map of this campground, but it seemed pretty small. Again, a good amount of seasonal and full-timers, but it was well taken care of. There is a beautiful lake with a beach on the property that I didn’t get a picture of. Below, you can see the playground. It’s probably one of the smaller playgrounds, but both Caleb and Lily Anne had a blast, even though it sprinkled on us part of the time. Like I said before, give this boy some dirt and he’s happy. Give him some trucks in the dirt and he won’t want to leave… literally! We had a back in site that was a bit tricky to maneuver, but we handled it with no problem. (Great team work!) We had full hook-ups and paid about $35/night. We just stayed one night.

http://www.sandpondcampground.com/


Augusta / Gardiner KOA – This campground was overall pretty nice. I’m not sure why I don’t have any pictures, but they had a small playground... one slide, a couple of swings, a pretend helicopter, a seesaw, but they had a large grassy area to run and play. We did laundry here, which cost $1.50 for each the washer and dryer. The owner is friendly, but very dry. If you question her on anything, she’s kind of snippy. We called to make reservations over the phone. We have a KOA membership in my name, but we wanted to use Andy’s credit card to purchase the site because this is for his business. She was very short in telling us that we couldn’t do that even though we’ve stayed at KOA’s many times before and done just that. She told us that if we were going to have attitude with her that we just shouldn’t stay there. (Definitely doesn’t have “The Customer is Always Right” mentality.)  In person, I told her we had moved past our issue and went ahead and checked it. She told us that our KOA membership had earned enough points that she could write us a certificate to get $10 off. That was nice… with that, we paid $36/night and we stayed one night. We had a pull thru site here with full hook-ups. The site was slightly unlevel where the camper sat, but it dropped off just a couple feet outside our door. The picnic table was so unlevel that my water bottle wouldn’t stand up without me holding it while we ate.

 Holden FamilyCampground- This was another quick stay and move out the next day, but we did enjoy playing on their large playground equipment. It was really geared to older children, but the kids had fun swinging, climbing ladders and slipping down slides. We got a quick load of laundry completed and Caleb and Lily enjoyed playing with their wooden train set outside our camper on the concrete pad.
Holden Family Camgound – This campsite is a small campsite, but well taken care of. They even had their own older motor grader to keep the roads smooth and it showed! Caleb was so excited to see the motor grader up close. To watch him see the levers inside the cab and touch the blade and tires, you’d think he’d just met a movie star! The playground was small but the kids still had fun. We did another Walmart run to stock up on groceries and found a local seafood place to get some Maine goodies for dinner! We had a pull thru site with full hook-ups and paid $36/night for our last night on the Chicken Whisperer Tour!




The 2014 Chicken Whisperer Fall Tour was a successful event with stops from Virginia to Maine! We got to add 9 stickers to our United States map during the tour and we’re looking forward to adding more on the way home! Caleb and Lily Anne are traveling many miles across this beautiful country and learning a lot along the way. What a wonderful experience for all of us and many of you made it possible by showing up to the Chicken Whisperer events! We’ve met some awesome people and were looking forward to meeting more chicken lovers during the 2015 tours! 

Thank you fans and Thank you Tractor Supply Company for making this possible for our family!



Stay posted as we have a fun and learning packed trip back home. Statue of Liberty… HERE WE COME!



God Bless your Learning Journey,


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