CAMPGROUND REVIEW - Veterans Memorial Park on Metonga Lake near Crandon, Wisconsin

I'm a little late with this campground review. We were here in mid July at Veterans Memorial Park just south of Crandon Wisconsin in Forest County.

It was a beautiful day to be driving with blue sky and clear roads. The Wisconsin countryside rolled on by and it was an absolutely great day to be out and about.

Soon we were off the four lane highway and working our way across through the countryside on two lanes State highway roads. That's our preferred route of travel.

I am missing a little furball at my feet. Our dog Binney rode at my feet for 10 years as we traveled in our motorhome. It seems so strange to not have her there. Sigh.

Nicholas, on the other hand, rides with his harness attached to the seatbelt on the loveseat as we drive. We tried crating him, but the harness situation seems to work much better.

Since I'm doing more GoPro editing for my YouTube page, I picked up these little earbuds from Aldi this week. Not only can I use them to listen while editing on the laptop, they can also double I guess as a Bluetooth microphone when using my GoPro camera. I haven't tried it yet, have to take a little more time to figure it out. But they were only $9.99 so I guess it's new technology to me, but pretty old stuff for anyone else who's used to these things.

We stopped in Crandon to pick up a couple things and found a cute little thrift store that all the proceeds go to their local Humane Society. So of course we had to stop to look. We found a couple useful things and one of them was this brand new 12 volt heated coffee mug! The back tag on it retailed at Kohl's for $35. I got it for five bucks. It was brand new still sealed in the package. I washed it out, and poured in my coffee. I can preset it to any temperature I like. Suddenly we heard a little beep sound and realized it was the coffee cup. It was now up to temperature and ready to drink. I think I'm going to like this! I am a person who sips my cup of coffee all morning long, and it usually cools off quite quickly.

We worked our way down south of Crandon around the edges of Lake Metonga to reach the campground...

Here is their website with more information:

https://forestcountywi.com/veterans-memorial-park

$30 a night for an electric site with water. Dump station nearby. Shower facilities and flush toilets. Gravel sites but pretty level each one with a fire ring and table. The sites around the edges that had more trees are taken up by seasonal renters. They take it for a month or all summer. So just the center loop is for transitional people that come in and out like us. 

We had never been here before. So we reserved a site ahead of time. $10 res fee. We found our #39 campsite easily and we're a little dismayed to see it was all out in a big open area. I guess they had done some work recently over the last two years and then planted new trees. They were all pretty small so we were basically out in the wide open. Not our usual type of camping. But oh well, when in Rome...

Don't get me wrong, it was a very well-kept park. I guess we just like looking out at nature or a view or trees or something rather than the next door neighbor's camper.

I did do a video on my YouTube channel with a review of the park and traveling around it on the bike so you can see the entire loop of campsites and what else the park has to offer:

Please like and subscribe?

We got leveled up using our new Levelmate Pro device. It sure makes it easier to level instead of running around from side to side front to rear trying to figure out where we got to go up or down and how far or how many blocks to drive up on.

I made a YouTube using that as well: 

Once we were all set up on our campsite, we turned around the two front cockpit chairs and got comfortable. The last time we went camping, our granddaughter Claire taught us to do this instead of turning them all the way around. She said we could have a better conversation if they faced each other?

Once we got the back slide out, Nick made himself at home on the bed. He said it was time for nap time. He was right.

Since we were in a campground with no trees, we decided to "test" the option of putting our Starlink in the skylight of our 2016 Winnebago View.  Someone else on our Winnebago group said it works really well for him. It is held up by the slider bars from the screen and shade options from either side. We wanted to try it this way for future use when boondocking in a parking lot where we wouldn't want the dish setting outside. Such as a Walmart, Cracker Barrel, truck stop etc.

When we are camping rustic in the woods, we do set the dish up on our cargo trailer and power it from a Bluetti power station and solar panel on the roof of the trailer. 

P. S. We don't mount our dish permanently because we transfer the dish to our house for use when at home.

We ran an extension cord up over the top of the slide and down to the receptacle by the side of the couch.

It worked really well laying it flat inside of the skylight. Normally we were told it had to be tilted and faced to the northern sky. This was facing straight up. Look at the speeds we were getting!!

It did say we had some obstructions, but they were right around the edges. So I am assuming that was the edge of the roof by the skylight. All in all, our experiment worked really well.

After our nap we got out and took a little walk around the campground. This is the first time that we have seen a doggy disposal garbage can also being offered along with free doggy bags. We always carry our own, but it sure was nice to see a little container for the county workers to take care of instead of putting it in our own trash back at the campsite.

For supper, I had a couple pasties from our favorite little shop up in Florence, Wisconsin. I had them frozen in the freezer so took them out to thaw. Popped them in the oven later and it was a delicious dinner with very little fuss. 

If you are wondering what a pasty is:

 https://pastys.com/pages/pasty-history

We kept a close eye on the weather and there were some scattered storm clouds floating overhead. Each one threatened to dump on us, but then they passed on by and we didn't get a drop.

We took Nick down to a section of the beach that is over near the tenting area of the campground. It's the only spot where dogs are allowed near the lake. Over by the picnic area and boat landing it says no dogs allowed. Although he definitely does not want to swim, it was nice to take him over there and let him take a look again...

Nope, not going in. No way no how. 

The clouds were still rolling on by. Here is a wide angle shot I took by the extra little fishing pier that is located in the campground.  I suppose someone registered in the campground could also moor their boat here overnight?

I did convince Nicholas that it was okay to go out on the dock. He really wasn't too happy about it. But he tried to appease me and follow my lead. Trusting me to make sure that I wasn't going to dump him over the edge.

We watched the sun go down. Without any cloud formations in the sky, it was kind of plain. But I love the color of the transition from gold out to blue. 

And down it went!

The next day, we decided to hop on our e-bikes and ride up into town. It was only 5 mi away into Crandon. It was along a winding little road. We peddaled along the lakeside past little cabins and stretches of woods. Very peaceful and relaxing. This map shows us going there and back, so it was 11 miles round trip.

Crandon is kind of a touristy town. We did stop at the hardware store for a couple things that we needed. Otherwise we just rode our bikes around. There were some tents set up for a senior citizen event through the Commission on Aging and the ADRC. We looked at a couple of the booths. They dealt with things like elevator lifts, chair ramps, walk-in tubs and funeral planning. We saw enough and hopped back on our ride.

A couple blocks off Main Street is a sign that said Deer Park. We went over there and found out it's a little place that they rehab foundling deer or rescue animals that are in distress. 

There's a little bubble gum machine for a quarter you can buy some pellets to feed them. We saw a little girl enjoying the time with her grandmother. They take a walk everyday past the Deer Park before nap time.

There were two new little baby fawns but they would not come near the fence. They were very cautious of people. That is good. I guess they were being bottle-fed according to the local newspaper article we were told. 

We peddled the bikes back to the park and let Nick out of the RV. He's doing really well on his own while we are gone. We have our Starlink set up and a Wi-Fi camera inside.  a

We can check on him at any time through our phones. Also we have the air conditioning and if the power were to go out, auto start on the generator. We also have a Wi-Fi thermostat so we can see what the temperature is inside of the motorhome anytime we are gone. We also pull down all of the shades and turn up the TV kind of loud so it can drown out any outside noises that might attract his attention. Every time we peek at him on the camera, he was laying down on the love seat or on the floor. Sleeping. He didn't even miss us.

After 2 days at this park we were ready to move on. Our campsite was reserved by somebody else so we needed to move anyhow.

We had three National Forest campgrounds in mind to stop by on the way back home. 

Although it was a Friday, we kind of felt we would get lucky at least one of them to find a campsite. If not, we were just going to go home.

Stay tuned to the next blog, and you will see where we ended up.