Iraqvet05-JAY
Senior Member
My wife is a runner and is always looking for new places to run. She and a few of her friends found a small half marathon in El Dorado, KS over the July 4th weekend. My gut told me to find us a hotel room but she wanted to camp.
I had a tough time finding a campsite within 30 minutes but finally found an opening at the El Dorado State Park. We had to book 3 nights because of the holiday but we couldn't come down to the 5th.
Before we even left, our newly licensed 16 year old backed into the front set of steps of our camper. His car wasn't damaged but the bottom step was bent bad enough to where the step would not fold in. I spent about 40 minutes swapping the rear steps to the front and we left the damages steps at home.
We make the 3 hour drive on Friday from Kansas City to El Dorado. When I stopped for gas, I apparently left the gas cap on the truck bed (the tether broke 3 years ago) and the "check gas cap" message appeared a few times on the way down.
When we got the the correct CG (there are multiple around the large lake), the traffic and crowds were horrible. As we puled up to our reserved site, we found a car and 3 younger adults starting to cook dinner at our site. I got out and told them they were in our reserved spot (clearly marked on the pedestal) and they politely, but slowly, packed up and left.
Almost every site was occupied with at least 2, sometimes 4 cars and some had boats or jet skis on trailers. There was a site with 4 tents near us that had at least 5 cars and a boat occupying the site; the State of Kansas clearly wasn't enforcing any of their rules this weekend. We saw inflatable pools at a few sites with kids trying to beat the heat. We saw 2 campers pulled head in to their sites (why do people do this?). While the CG was beyond capacity it was rather quiet to us that night from inside the camper until people in our loop started shooting off fireworks around 10.
My wife ran her race early the next morning while my son tried to catch some fish. Later that day we enjoyed shooting some .22s and pistols at the nearby state shooting range. The staff at the range was super nice and it was a great facility. We did some antique shopping in town and more (unsuccessful) fishing that evening.
We packed up early this morning and hit the dump station by 8 before the sleeping masses started stirring and headed home. Oh yeah, the lid to our propane tank cover managed to fly off on the trip as well. I told my wife this is the last time I wanted to camp on a holiday weekend and she agreed.
I had a tough time finding a campsite within 30 minutes but finally found an opening at the El Dorado State Park. We had to book 3 nights because of the holiday but we couldn't come down to the 5th.
Before we even left, our newly licensed 16 year old backed into the front set of steps of our camper. His car wasn't damaged but the bottom step was bent bad enough to where the step would not fold in. I spent about 40 minutes swapping the rear steps to the front and we left the damages steps at home.
We make the 3 hour drive on Friday from Kansas City to El Dorado. When I stopped for gas, I apparently left the gas cap on the truck bed (the tether broke 3 years ago) and the "check gas cap" message appeared a few times on the way down.
When we got the the correct CG (there are multiple around the large lake), the traffic and crowds were horrible. As we puled up to our reserved site, we found a car and 3 younger adults starting to cook dinner at our site. I got out and told them they were in our reserved spot (clearly marked on the pedestal) and they politely, but slowly, packed up and left.
Almost every site was occupied with at least 2, sometimes 4 cars and some had boats or jet skis on trailers. There was a site with 4 tents near us that had at least 5 cars and a boat occupying the site; the State of Kansas clearly wasn't enforcing any of their rules this weekend. We saw inflatable pools at a few sites with kids trying to beat the heat. We saw 2 campers pulled head in to their sites (why do people do this?). While the CG was beyond capacity it was rather quiet to us that night from inside the camper until people in our loop started shooting off fireworks around 10.
My wife ran her race early the next morning while my son tried to catch some fish. Later that day we enjoyed shooting some .22s and pistols at the nearby state shooting range. The staff at the range was super nice and it was a great facility. We did some antique shopping in town and more (unsuccessful) fishing that evening.
We packed up early this morning and hit the dump station by 8 before the sleeping masses started stirring and headed home. Oh yeah, the lid to our propane tank cover managed to fly off on the trip as well. I told my wife this is the last time I wanted to camp on a holiday weekend and she agreed.