Cliffside Park in Racine County, Wisconsin is a beautiful spot…in September. It’s beautiful in early May as well but don’t expect the weather to cooperate. Many days were filled with rain, while ten miles to the south, my kids remained dry. Also, being close to the lake in September gives you a bit of a dip in temperatures. You get the same dip in May, except it’s a dip that makes sitting outside a challenge.
The campground was almost completely empty from the monday we arrived up until Friday. Since it was Mothers Day weekend, the campground filled up. I was a bit mystified as the weather was pretty terrible. Had Tammy and I made plans to camp on Mothers Day and I saw what this forecast was, I would have cancelled. I can stay inside the house just as easy as towing somewhere and being stuck inside the camper.
Now, surprisingly, many of the campers left their awnings out during the bad weather. The odds of something bad happening when you do this is extremely high. I would highly recommend that folks do not have their awnings out unless you are outside under them. These are not the awnings of yesteryear which were super strong and could be tethered to the ground. Only one strong gust of wind is needed to destroy these awnings.
Regardless of the weather, we were fortunate that each morning Eva and I would get a couple very long walks in before any rain started. I had hoped to make it to the Lake Michigan Overlook for a 2023 picture of Eva against a backdrop of the lake. However, one of the few days that it did not rain I tried our usual route and was thwarted by a large area of the path that had become a mud pit, and unable to be crossed without hip waders. The next dry day I tried another route and got within 100 yards of the lake before we found the path had been rutted and muddied by some park vehicles. There was no way to cross the mess to get to the lake. Well, I tried. On the bright side, Eva didn’t care at all. She just likes exploring.
Mothers Day Weekend was packed, with maybe five unoccupied sites. That is a full park. Saturday we left the rain of the park to watch Trent (our Grandson) play soccer. He scored two goals but their team ended up losing. I don’t think Trent was feeling 100%. Trent had not been feeling good two days before the game so Tammy had spent the day with him. Meanwhile I looked for propane, and purchased groceries.
You would think it would be easy to find a place to get propane tanks filled. I thought so too. An Ace hardware store nearby had propane for 3.99/gallon which was about a dollar more per gallon than I paid in Texas before we left. So that is the spot I picked, which was only about four miles from the campground.
In the previous post I said that I figured we would go a little over three days on one tank of propane. So it was no surprise on day 8 when I got up in the morning and found the inside temperature of the trailer at 70 degrees but the furnace pushing cool air through the registers. I went outside and pulled the tank cover to see the red empty indicator. However, then I had a surprise, I had forgotten to turn the other valve on when we left Texas, so we actually went 8 days on one tank of propane. I found that to be pretty impressive given the weather dipping into the low 40s each night.
Anyway, back to the Ace Hardware episode. When I walked into the store, I went back to customer service, where they apparently cut keys. There were four employees doing absolutely nothing and only one that apparently managed the customer service desk. This was a Thursday, so you wouldn’t think at 1:00 PM, it would be very busy; but it was a madhouse. I waited for about ten minutes before someone asked my what I needed. When I mentioned I needed propane, they asked me to bring the tank inside. That really shocked me, because usually it is a big no-no to bring a propane tank inside a store.
After I brought the tank in, I had to wait another ten minutes for someone to fill it, which I assume was outside behind the store. The entire stop took over forty minutes. That just seems a bit too much for filling a propane cylinder, and frustrating because so many employees were doing nothing.
After that I went back to the trailer, and unloaded groceries and hooked up the propane tank. I was absolutely certain that we would have heat for the balance of the trip.
I always say that there are unusual things you may witness at an RV Park. We noticed two during this particular stay.
An owner of an older Class A was repainting his rig in the campground. I’m not sure how this was allowed given how crowded the campground was. In addition, the weather in particular wasn’t what I would call ideal for painting anything. This apparently started some controversy on-line with comments for and against what was happening at the park. All of this could have been prevented by the camp host weighing in on the matter. When we left the park, the owner had completed the painting. On a side note, none of this disturbed us, it was just unusual.
The site across from us had an “Ice Palace” Travel Trailer. This is something I have never seen before. Apparently this is a travel trailer used for ice fishing. Notice how low the clearance is to the ground. I wondered if the suspension raises the rig for travel. If you happen to be curious about this trailer, click here to read about that line of trailers. In addition, the owner had a large boat parked next to it. He was not there all week but arrived on the weekend. His trailer drew a lot of interest during the week.
Our stay was extended when we saw our departure day would be one filled with rain. I had no desire to breakdown camp the same way we had when we left Pilgrims Campground. It was a nice sunny day when we left Cliffside. Looks like it will be 2024 for our next visit, and hopefully back to site 4!
Our next stop would be the Double J Campground in Chatham Illinois. The Campground has changed hands recently and there have been some infrastructure changes, as well as some improvements. We have always liked this campground. It will be interesting to see how it changes in the future.
After Double J, it is on to Beagle Bay RV Haven and Campground – the subject of our next post.
Leave a Reply