CAMPGROUND REVIEW - Bear Lake Rec Area, Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest, Wisconsin

In my last blog, I mentioned that we were going to leave Veterans Memorial Campground in Forest County and hopefully find a spot for the weekend in the Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest. We had three campgrounds in mind all in a row ... basically in the same direction as heading home. One was a National Forest campground, one was a township park, and one was a county park.

We are fortunate to live close to what is called the Lakewood District of the National Forest. We have a wide variety of national forest campgrounds to choose from.

The only problem was, it was Friday afternoon and we weren't so sure we were going to find an open site. 

We buzzed through Laona, heading south on 32 towards Wabeno.  We hopped onto the little road cutting into Blackwell, then on Goodman Park Road, heading towards Bear Lake Recreational Area. There are signs, but they are pretty tiny. Got to keep your eyes open.

Some of the sites are reservable through recreation.gov. The rest of them are first come first serve. The only problem is, you have to be in the park itself actually to see if any of the first come first serve are occupied or not. 

https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/251942

The campground itself has 22 campsites and then five walk in sites for tenters out on the peninsula. There are only pit toilets and one hand pump. No electric no water no faucets no dump station. It's rustic camping through and through.

I copied these from the book available at the National Forest office near Lakewood. It's a handy booklet of all of the National Forest campgrounds in the area. If you stop in there, you have to ask for it because they keep them under the counter!!! In the display racks on the walls they have individual pamphlets for each campground. But this booklet is really helpful because it includes information on all of them!!!

We pulled in and the campground host greeted us right at the entrance to the park. He was walking somewhere and stopped to chit chat with us. He actually knew that there were three sites available that we could choose from. One is very awkward and up a hill and really made for just tenting. I think it's number 12? 

Anyhow, we went over to check out the other two sites that were available. They weren't water side sites but they were absolutely beautiful. We had a choice between 7 and 9. We chose 7.

The rate is $15 a night. With our Senior Access America the Beautiful Pass we get it for half price at $7.50. 

Look how beautiful!!

Serene beautiful green woods, we couldn't see anybody from our campsite on either side. There were birds and chipmunks and soft breezes blowing through the leaves. Who could ask for more?

It really didn't take us long to get completely set up. This is really nice. The little cargo trailer was situated right in the sunshine. That worked out great because of the solar panel on the roof. That charges up our "Blue Eddie" power station. (Bluetti AC200L). It's a backup power source for our motorhome as well as power for charging our e-bikes or anything else we want to run.

We rolled the awning out, set out the lawn chairs, and made ourselves at home.

As we were relaxing, we noticed quite a few wasps. Steve peered down underneath the picnic table and what did he see??? Ack!!! A wasp nest!!!

A few squirts of wasp spray calmed them down. Then he took our little campfire shovel and scraped it off. Flung it off into the woods and we were safe again.

Kicking back on the lawn chairs for the afternoon was absolutely enjoyable. It was so peaceful and quiet, quite a contrast to where we were the previous two days.

We decided to cook out for dinner, so Steve started the campfire. These national forest fire rings really don't allow for a lot of air flow to get a campfire started. The high walls are all solid metal. But Steve had a fire going in no time. Do you wonder how?

A favorite YouTuber that we watch called Kenny of All Trades, always uses these little Duraflame fire starter blocks. He just piles his wood chunks into the fire pit and lights one of these. He sets it down inside and it takes off. No kindling, no newspaper, no lighter fluid, and most of all no gasoline!

These can be found at Walmart or Cabela's or just about any place that has camping gear.

On my video, I timed how long it took to get from full chunks of firewood to the point of beautiful coals suitable for cooking. I think it was 20 minutes. I don't have that video edited yet. When I do I will post it here.

We tossed on some bratwurst and had a real picnic type dinner. They were cooked perfectly over the fire and it just seems like a "summer meal" to me.

We sat around the campfire for the rest of the evening. We decided to do a tour of s'more treats that the grandkids showed us a couple weeks ago.

Fill a sugar cone with alternating mini marshmallows and chocolate chips.

Wrap them up in tin foil. Granddaughter Claire decided to put a fudge stripe cookie over the ends to hold the contents inside of the cone. We didn't have any cookies this time. But we just wrapped it up as carefully as we could.

We set them side by side on the grid over the campfire. Rotating them a couple times and checking them once in a while.

Soon the inside was melted down to an ooey gooey delicious mess of s'more. 

They're really pretty easy to eat this way. Compared to regular s'mores in graham crackers where stuff falls out the edge. This way the cone keeps everything in one spot.

After our treats, it was time to toddle off to bed. We slept in the cool peaceful quiet woods and got a great night's sleep. 

The next morning, we were deciding if we should stay another day or not. Steve's brother needed us to sign some important paperwork. And we had just seen a special bargain come available on Marketplace that was for sale near his brother's house. 

So we put two and two together and headed on out from the campground.

You will have to wait till the next blog to see what it was we bought. It was something for the motorhome and it was something I really really really wanted!