CAMPGROUND REVIEW - North Bayshore County Park, Oconto, Wisconsin

We had a quandary last week...

We wanted to go camping but also we had a couple things going on at the house.

One thing was that we were having our city water meter changed. So the water utility repair guys needed access to our basement. We had an appointment for Thursday morning for that. 

Also, on Tuesday we had a much awaited FedEx delivery scheduled. So we wanted to be home for that!

But we also wanted to go camping. We had the lawn cut and the flowers watered and we really didn't have anything else to do all week at home.

So away we went to North Bayshore County Park. It's a small campground of only 34 sites just north of our home along the waters of the Green Bay. It's really only 6 miles as the crow flies. About 8 if we drive on the road!

We checked online and saw that there were a number of sites available for 3 or 4 days...

It is such a nice little county park. It has a marina and breakwater, as well as a nice boat launching area for fishermen. It tends to attract older people or fisherman, because there really isn't a big swimming beach. Things are pretty rocky there. There is some playground equipment for children. But not much else. So it's a pretty quiet campground even during the week. 

The county has enacted a special for Monday through Thursday for only $20 a night for a campsite. Friday Saturday and Sundays it is $35 a night.

We loaded up the motorhome and drove on over. Once we decided on one of the six or seven available sites, we drove over to the kiosk to pay for it. 

The kiosk in the park, located over near the boat ramp area, is available to pay via credit card for any of the sites that are not already reserved. It is the camper's responsibility to either look online or drive over to the park and go through each of the campsites looking at the little calendar on each post. Reserved sites are stricken off. If a site is open a certain number of days, then you can pay for those days at the kiosk. But the kiosk is not hooked up to the reservation system....  We didn't know that. 

Sooooooo

We accidentally paid for FOUR nights on site 11. Technically, according to the strike off marks on the little calendar on site 11's post, it was going to be used by somebody else on Thursday night.

Uh oh.... So now we had a kiosk slip paying for FOUR nights, but we could only stay on site number 11 for THREE nights. I made a quick call over to the courthouse. The gracious clerk helped me switch my fourth night over to site number 10 across the road. That one was not taken by anyone else. So she put it in the computer and everything was completed,  easy peasy.

Here is the link to their website and access to the reservation system:

https://parks.ocontocountywi.gov/parks/camping/north_bay_shore_county_park/

So now I'll do a little campground review. I will start off with a YouTube bicycle tour of every campsite. I am trying to build up my YouTube channel called "What-A-View". It is only going to be videos of camping and campground reviews and camping products. Not to be confused with my other YouTube channel with videos of everything else in my life. 

So this is a bicycle tour going from campsite to campsite --- so you can kind of use it to figure out which site you want to reserve. By seeing them on video it's a little bit easier than trying to look at a graphic map or a Google map view of the park.

Please like and subscribe?

For those who don't care to go to YouTube, here are some photos of shots I took around the park. As you enter the park there's this beautiful little Harbor. There's a nice deck, situated lengthwise to the water, with some little benches. A perfect spot to sit and do some fishing or watching the birds.

We are dealing with the emerald ash borer here in this section of Wisconsin. They ask that you only use certified firewood from the area that's been inspected for pests. They do have this cute little self-serve kiosk that is like a vending machine! For $10 you put it in and you can punch in the number and letter of the door that contains firewood. Just be sure you only punch in the letter and number of one that has not previously been emptied! Also there is a local certified vendor who drives through the park once a day and sells firewood off the back of his truck.

There is a restroom building with flush toilets at one end of the park. There are also pit toilets situated in other parts of the campground and over by the boat launch as well as the group area. But this building is the only one with flush toilets.

It is kept neat and clean, and the campground host is located directly across from the bathrooms which helps to keep down any vandalism or nonsense going on.

The shower rooms that are located on each side of the building are a little more worse for the wear. They could use some updating. Also the showers are coin operated. You get 4 minutes of showering for $1.00. 

(We shower inside of our motorhome)

Outside, there is a water faucet available as well as a drinking fountain. Perfect for filling up water bottles. About 3/4 of the campsites have water faucets. Sites 12 through 21 do not have water at the campsite.  So be sure to fill up from the potable water fill at the entrance if you are on sites 12 through 21.

All in all, it's a quiet park. Located far enough away from any main roads or railroad tracks or noisy residential or cabins. For the price, to get a site with electric and water during the middle of the week it's a bargain! That's why we like coming here. Cellular coverage and broadcast TV are pretty good. And the fishing is great!

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So that's it for the technical review of the campsite. Now I'll get on to our own camping experience while on site 11 and later on site number 10.  As I said, it was just a hop skip and jump from home. To buzz up along the shore and get into our campsite.

Because we were going to run back and forth to home a couple times, I followed Steve in our Kia. I towed along our little utility trailer with the e-bikes and our extra camping gear in it. Normally we just hook it on to the motorhome. But since I was coming along in a separate vehicle, I towed it.

The campsites are nice and deep, plenty of room to park an extra vehicle.

Now again, I made a YouTube of our four days at the campground. If you want to watch it, here is a link below. Please like and subscribe if you do!

We had an enjoyable afternoon and the evening cooled off enough to take a nice long bike ride up the Bay. We found some back roads and had some fun pedaling around. 

After dinner, the sunset was looking a little strange and starting to cloud up. Everything was getting that funny yellowish light, you know the kind, right before a storm? 

Well well well, look at that. We clicked onto our radar app and saw what was coming!  We tuned into the local weather station on TV and watched the announcements slide by on the bottom of the screen. 

As the storm crept closer and closer, the warnings got more and more ominous. We were looking at nickel to quarter size hail, combined with up to 60 mph winds.

Well, motorhomes are insured. But people and dogs not so much. So at 1:00 a.m. when the wind started rocking and the rain was just beginning, we grabbed our wallets and cell phones and the dogs. Hopping into the Kia just as the rain started. We drove the short 8 mi back into town and soon we were pulling right into the safety of our garage.  We curled up in our own bed for the night and the storms raged around us. We didn't need to go down to the basement but a tornado did touch down across the bay on the tip of Door County. I'm glad we made the smart decision and went home for the night. 

The other benefit of going home was in the morning we could grab some cute grandkids to haul back out to the campground. They wanted to do a little fishing! 

We picked up a couple tubs of worms and grabbed the fishing poles. It's one of their favorite pastimes. Grandpa spent most of the time either untangling lures, fixing tangled lines, or adjusting the fishing poles so they could reel in all of these big huge whoppers.

It was a beautiful morning after the big storm. You know how things always look so much nicer after the storm goes through? The air feels so fresh and things are so green.

The total catch of the day was "1". And we let it go to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

While the two older kids were still fishing with Grandpa, Claire came back up to the campsite with me to start some lunch. The kids had opted for cheese pizza. To keep the excess heat out of the motorhome, we took out our Camp Chef oven from our camping gear in the cargo trailer. It's the nicest little propane oven with three different rack positions inside as well as two burners up on top. We could cut the pizza in half and cook both halves at the same time. We just alternated the pizzas on the shelves halfway through.

Kids, camping and pizzas. A pretty good combination!

In the afternoon, it started to cloud over a little bit. The few raindrops started splattering down so we headed on inside. It was getting pretty hot and muggy. We clicked on the air conditioning and popped on some movies on the TV. We have the Starlink along, so they could choose some of their favorites. One of the favorites is a separate little Roku station called The Pet Collective. The grandkids call it the "puppies and kitties" channel. As it started to rain, Chelsea cuddled little Binney, and made sure she was comfortable. Someday Chelsea would like to be a veterinarian.

Claire and Clayton crawled up on the top bunk. We don't often have the extra mattress up there. Usually we store it in the garage. But this time we had it along and they had the perfect perch to lay up there and watch TV.

The storms blew over and soon the sunshine was out again. A cold front had blown in. This time they opted for spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Sloppy spaghetti and little grandchildren don't really go together inside of a motorhome. So we ate out on the picnic table.

The bread sticks from our local bakery / deli are a real hoot. Chelsea was definitely incognito.

We brought the grandkids back to their house and also we waited for our FedEx delivery. One small box came but the main big box evidently had a smeared barcode tracking label and it accidentally got shipped way over to the far west side of the state! Our box was in LaCrosse! So a new shipping label was created and now we would have to wait one more day for the box to arrive at our home.

So Steve and I went back out to the campground and spent another day and another night in total relaxation and comfort 

It was pretty hot and muggy again on Wednesday. We decided to cook and keep the heat out of the motorhome. Steve did up some burgers on his Blackstone flat top griddle.

I got out my instapot that has an air fryer lid attachment. This is another one of my favorite appliances that I carry along in our cargo trailer. On the video up above I show how I made french fries while we were camping. They are much better to eat coming out of the air fryer than anything fried in grease or baked in the oven. 

Yummmmmmmm

On Thursday, We got up early and drove into town to meet up with the city water utility worker. The new meter got installed and the paperwork for the new phone app to go along with it was set up. New technology.

As we were getting ready to head on back to the campground, we got the notification on our phones that our FedEx box was finally arriving! We carefully moved it from the driveway into the garage. That box is going to be one of our next update motorhome modification projects, and you will see that in an upcoming video and blog post. 

But... If you do watch the video from the link up above, I tell you on there what is in the box that we were waiting for!

Anyhow, we went back out to enjoy another beautiful day at North Bayshore County Park. It was time to pack up and move over to site number 10. Our site number 11 was reserved for 3:00 p.m.

About 1:30, we did the big move over across the road. We hand carried the lawn chairs and our ground mat. We pulled in the slides and unplugged the cord. Picked up the Starlink and drove the motorhome across the street. Big move! 

Soon we had everything set back up and Steve sat back to enjoy a nice cold beer. 

The people who had our site 11 reserved pulled in at 3:05 on the dot. I am glad that we didn't delay getting off our site and making the move.

The grandkids begged to come back out on Thursday evening. They pestered and pestered us to be able to sleep overnight. We said it would be okay and they hauled all their gear into the motorhome. Chelsea opted to stay in a tent that she pitched up behind our camper. 

We were going to do s'mores out by the campfire, but it got very cold and windy. So the next best thing was to do something inside. 

On my video up above, I have Chelsea and Claire's creation of making a new treat using mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, a fudge stripe cookie and a sugar cone. Guess you'll have to just go look at the video to see what Chelsea and Claire came up with? 

In the morning, everybody was warm and cuddly and cute--- we had a nice breakfast together. But there was going to be rain coming again about 1:00 p.m. It was probably best to get loaded up and back into town. Chelsea pulled down her tent and we got the gear all stowed back where everything belonged. 

It was time to head on back so I hauled the little trailer behind the Kia. Chelsea was my co-pilot.

But there's always one more task that needs to be done when leaving a campground. It was time for Claire to learn what happens to the contents of the toilet and the sinks of the motorhome when we go to leave the park....  That section is also on the video up above!

Steve had come up with a really good idea for some birthday presents for the grandkid's parents. Our daughter's birthday was on Sunday and our son-in-law's birthday in the middle of July. We figured out a really good idea of something to get them, and the grandkids were really excited to help go pick them out. 

It was two new maple trees from the local nursery. One for each of their parents to plant up at their cabin.

The trees were huge, about 10 ft tall. We really didn't have a way to haul them in the Kia.

But I came up with a really good idea that we could haul them right in the motorhome!!! 

And we did!!!

Yep, Steve wrapped plastic bags around the bottom pots so the dirt did not fall out. He was able to hoist each one into the center aisle and lay them gently down in our motorhome!

Once we got to their house, Clayton got out his little dolly cart furniture mover. It sometimes doubles as a little flat go-kart for him...

So here's three little goomers with all of their camping gear. They are smiling at the delightful thought of their parents surprise at getting two huge trees for their birthdays. 

It was quite a productive weekend, combined with camping, water meter installations, storms, FedEx deliveries and purchasing and hauling birthday presents!