This newsletter is especially for all of my active RV traveling readers. You may, like me, be seeing lots of stories about campground crowding and high prices. You may be experiencing that as well. My guess is that it is mostly happening on the west coast, Colorado, Michigan, and in the eastern part of the country. I just haven’t seen it as much in the Midwest. Missouri campgrounds do seem busier than what we saw in Arkansas or southern Illinois but that has been the case for years. I would appreciate hearing first hand stories about what you are seeing.
We have visited nearly 80% of Missouri State parks so staying at 3 Illinois parks is hardly a fair comparison. That said, I will point out a few things I noticed. First, the price in Illinois is $20 a night and in Missouri for electric only, it is $21 during the week and $23 on the weekend. Also, the Missouri booking site charges a reservation fee which was not the case for the Illinois site. We were able to stay at each park in Illinois for 4 nights and a flat $80 fee. In Arkansas, we also paid $23 per night but that included a water hook up.
None of the three parks we visited were even remotely crowded. Lake Murphysboro has a number of sites that are closed and when we asked about it, we were told that there had been issues with the electric boxes at those sites. I guess due to a lack of demand, it hasn’t been worth fixing them and results in each site feeling very spacious.
Another nice surprise in Illinois was that for the rest of 2022, the gas tax is suspended. The price per gallon was still a bit higher than in Missouri and what we later found in Kentucky, but this definitely helped.
Lake Murphysboro has several sites with a nice lake view. Giant City State Park has so many hikes that we needed 4 days to complete them all. The Giant City Lodge is a beautiful place and serves excellent food. They also have a full bar and make really top notch cocktails. The everyday special is an all you can eat fried chicken meal for $12.99. The chicken was excellent and so were the sides; mashed potatoes, dumplings, green beans, corn, bread and slaw. We try to eat a late lunch which serves as our main meal for the day and this left us more than filled. We went back another day and had the lunch special. My steakburger with one side was $10.99.
When you visit Giant City State Park, don’t miss the little town of Makanda which is just outside the park. It is a very eclectic little place with a hippie vibe, rainbow flags and a few cute little shops.
Fort Massac State Park is worth a visit just for a view of the Ohio River and a photo with Superman statue or better yet, the Lois Lane statue. The park is right in the city of Metropolis and reminds me of some of the city parks we have visited. We enjoyed the bike trail; the visitors center and the Fort with a story that goes back to the Revolutionary War. George Rogers Clark (William Clark’s older brother-William of the Lewis and Clark expedition) was able to secure the old French fort and surprise the British.
Paducah Kentucky is a short drive from Fort Massac and has a vibrant downtown on the Ohio River. The flood wall is panel after panel of historic murals and you can see the last steam locomotive operated by the Illinois Central RR, the 1518. I would like to return to Paducah and stay a while, maybe enjoy some of the live music events on the riverfront. While we were there, the American Heritage cruise tour was docked and the passengers were enjoying all Paducah has to offer. When I was kid, this was the town that had the NBC affiliate TV station we viewed so it was a treat to see that it is a river town like Cape but on the Ohio instead of the Mississippi.