Back On Track - Blogging Again - CAMPGROUND REVIEW - Big Eau Pleine Campground

Yes yes yes, I know it's been a long time since I've blogged. I've been getting repeated requests and inquiries as to our health and our situation. Everything is fine here. We have just been so danged busy all summer that I've never gotten back around to blogging.

I keep thinking about things I want to write about, and I collect photos in to albums of topics I want to write about. But then I've just been getting so dang busy that I never get around to writing them, editing them, or publishing them. I am so sorry!

So this week, while sitting around this campfire, I decided to take a picture and start a blog again. I will go through the next couple weeks doing some Campground Reviews of places we've been this summer. Also I will do some posts on some of our house projects, although those have been winding down lately. Then also some posts on my newest fiber creations, quilts, and other fun stuff.

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So, to start with, here we are sitting around this beautiful campfire. What a perfect place to sit and think about camping and give a good Campground Review.

On last Sunday afternoon, the weather was absolutely beautiful. So we decided to load up the camper and hop in and take off to a campground that we drove through last year at this same time. We weren't able to camp there because they were updating all of the electrical services. So we had made a mental note that we always wanted to go back there. It's about 120 miles away, so we figured on a relaxed 2-3 hour trip. 

I plugged it into the Microsoft Streets and Trips on my laptop, attached my GPS dongle, and away we went. I like using this large screen rather than just the little screen on the handheld GPS on my phone. But I do double check with my phone in case there's some areas of new road construction, because the Microsoft Streets and Trips is no longer supported, the updates are not always there for the newest roads.

Steve was happy as ever to be in his driver's seat, as we drove away on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning. The colors were just starting to turn and it was going to be a wonderful week of weather ahead to go camping.  

As you can tell, we are always ready to hop in our big comfy chairs and glide on down the highway. Everything was operating perfectly with the motorhome, and our travels were peaceful and relaxed.

 As we headed west, everybody else was heading east  to Green Bay for the Packer game! It was a good time to head West. Our goal was to central Wisconsin, to a county park.

The campground we chose was called Big Eau Pleine Campground which is part of the Marathon County Park system. We know that during the summer months this is a very busy campground and you need to make reservations. But after October 1st, it is all "first come first serve" for the month of October. We figured on Sunday afternoon that we would have a pretty good chance of getting a nice campsite. Here is their website link for more information:

Big Eau Pleine Campground Marathon County Park

The county park is very large and has two separate Campground units. There are also many trails and picnic areas and even equestrian trails for horses. There have been a lot of updates to the campground and as we were driving in, they were working on the road surfaces. All of the electrical has been updated. There is water available at the dump station as you enter the park but there is no water at the campsites. 

We chose the West unit Campground which every site is electric, which is updated to 50 amp 30 amp and 20 amp on every post. At the South unit, about half of the campsites have electric, the rest are rustic.

There are no showers, nor flushing toilets, just pit toilets. They are very clean and the park is in really nice condition. It's located only about 10 miles away from the small town of Mosinee to run back for anything you might forget. It's about 20 miles Southwest of the larger city of Wausau.

We unhooked the Saturn from the back of the motorhome up near the Rangers office in the parking lot for the equestrian trails. From there we took the Saturn through the park to locate a campsite of our choosing. Because it's first come first serve, any site is up for grabs. we drove through a few times, and noticed a chair saving a site, but when we looped through again, the chair was gone.  We stopped at the site right before the one where the chair had been. 

It was a really nice lakeside site. As I started filling out the tag, another camper from 2 sites away approached me and told me I couldn't camp there! She said that there were three other campers coming and she was saving those 3 sites. But there were no tags on the post! 

We suggested that she go and pay for those sites and make her friends pay her back. We figgered out the ranger had made her move the chair and told her she can't save sites.  She had somewhat of an attitude of entitlement, stating that they have camped there for 40 years and never had to do that. We said well if the ranger had told you that you're not allowed to save the sites, (which he had just done), then you can't save the sites. 

But we decided we didn't want to camp next to them anyhow, there were plenty of other beautiful sites in the park. So we drove back over to the other loop that had even better views of the lake, and chose a site there. It was a little more sloped, so we used a few more boards to get ourselves level. But that's okay, we had an absolutely beautiful campsite. We did notice afterwards, that same lady was over at the self registration post, paying for the other three sites!  LOL ... guess our suggestion was well-taken after all. 

Our site was looking out over the water, right across the road from the lake. There was only one other camper in our loop and they were slated to leave the next morning.  The Lake here is actually a large reservoir, which is controlled by a dam downriver. The sandy beach and rocks were a nice contrast along the shoreline.   The rates are normally $21 for an electrical campsite, but for only $2 more, the lakeview sites are a premium, but well worth it!   The only other strange charge is that the dumpstation fee is $7, whether you camped there or not.  We have never paid to dump when we already paid to camp at a campground, so we thought that was unusual. We doublechecked it with the friendly maintenance guy who was going around, and he said yes, everyone pays to dump.  He said it's the park policy.  Oh well. 

For such a great site, we didn't complain! 

The view out of the front and the side windows from all angles was absolutely wonderful. I am so glad we chose this site. Even though it was a little more difficult to back into, with the row of rocks across the roads, Steve maneuvered it quite well. But it is something to keep in mind that it's good to have a spotter put there to see those rocks located down below your bumper area if you are backing in to a campsite.

We were soon set up and into place. We scanned the TV channels and pulled in all of the major networks. That was great, because we wanted to see the Packer game start at 3:15. It was such a wonderful cozy sunny afternoon while we snuggled in to watch the Packer game. I had a mug of spiced apple cider and Steve chose a beverage of choice while we enjoyed watching the Packers beat the Patriots in a nail biting overtime game.

Earlier in the week I had picked up a couple of these tasty chicken pot pies from the deli at our local grocery store. We grab as many as we find and toss them in the freezer at home. They are great to take along and toss in the oven when you don't feel like doing a large meal outside over the campfire or the grill.

They make them from the leftover rotisserie chicken and they are absolutely delicious with fresh vegetables and a flaky crust.  Easy way to end the day without having to cook a big meal. 

As evening was falling, the sunset over to the West was gleaming across the lake. Things were peaceful and quiet. There were no noises, no nearby roads, no nearby railway lines, and everything was relaxing and tranquil. We walked around the park one more time with Binney before darkness. Gosh it's getting darker much faster now as Autumn has arrived.

Ahhhhhhhhhh

We took a walk around the next morning, and met the people who were camped behind us before they packed up to leave again. Now we had the entire Loop to ourselves. We couldn't see anybody else and couldn't hear anybody else for that matter either. It was a very quiet Monday in the park. One of the park maintenance people came by to let us know they would be working on installing a new outhouse the next day and also repaving the entrance road into the park. By the time we would be ready to leave, the road should be completed and we would drive out on brand new pavement!

We spent three tranquil days looking around out of these windows, going for walks, or just relaxing in our lawn chairs by the campfire.  I did some spinning and some knitting.  It was a good respite after our house projects during the past week.  We just have to get away sometimes and take a break. 

Some RVing friends from nearby Weston stopped by, and we had a nice campfire chat in our lawnchairs.  Norm and Mary own a vintage Foretravel motorhome, and I will blog more about them in another campground review at another lake. 

We soaked up the sunshine and watched the water and the birds and the chipmunks,  A HUGE eagle swooped down near the shore and grabbed a big fish from the water! 

The sunsets were breathtaking because we were facing to the west. The weather reports for Monday Tuesday and Wednesday were absolutely perfect. But the weather reports for Thursday and Friday were rather ominous. There was a low pressure front coming in and they were going to have temperature drops as well as freezing rain, and maybe even some of that S word. You know? *S*N*O*W*!

We took a little drive on Tuesday into Wausau and patronized a favorite small town local butcher shop. We brought back a cooler full of steaks and roasts and ground chuck to load up our freezer to take back home. We try to stop there any time we were driving through the center part of the state of Wisconsin. You don't find meat markets like that very often anymore, with butchers that cut your steaks fresh off the slab, wrap it up in butcher paper, and charge you by the pound. So much better than supermarket plastic wrapped old stuff.

Driving around the park, the colors were getting better and better with each passing day. I would say the middle of Wisconsin is just about at it's peak color at this time. It was cold at night down in the 40s, but each of the days we're reaching up into the low 70s.

Mother Nature's paintbrush just absolutely is amazing,

pictures don't do it justice.

We decided to pack up the rig in the morning after we had perked our coffee. The front was coming in and the winds were kicking up. Everything went back into place and we were roadworthy in no time. Just as the park maintenance guy had promised, our exit out of the park was on beautiful smooth freshly paved roads.

We stopped for fuel on the way home after relying on the Gas Buddy app. From one station to another there was a difference of $0.40 a gallon! That makes a big difference when you are fueling up 75 gallons or more of diesel. Now we are topped off and ready for our next trip. Who knows where? 

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I had a couple mushy bananas that hadn't been eaten. So after we got home, I whipped up my Aunt Lois's reliable favorite banana bread recipe. I made one loaf of plain banana bread and the other two I added chocolate chips.

The house smelled wonderful! 

Here is her recipe:

Now I promise to get more blog posts done, I will go back in my records in reverse and do a campground review of each place we've been so far this summer.

But camping is not done for us yet us yet this year, we hope to get out a couple more times if the weather permits. But for the next day or two or three we will hunker down here because it's going to get cold. It's going to get down to 30 tomorrow night and perhaps some of that Frozen Precipitation???

Stay in, stay warm, stay safe.