Campground locations across North America celebrate the easy, breezy days of summer with special activities and events.
By Jeff Crider
July 2019
RV enthusiasts know that camping is one of the best ways to create quality family time and memories to last a lifetime — particularly in summer, when most children are out of school.
Privately owned campgrounds, for their part, are stepping up their game by offering an increasing array of fun family activities and entertainment, which often includes competitive events.
Of course, everyone enjoys a good laugh, which explains why Tall Pines Campground & Canoeing in Bainbridge, New York, is hosting its 11th annual Hillbilly Week and Redneck Regatta July 19-25 — just one of numerous events scheduled at the campground throughout the summer.
Participants can’t use boats, canoes, or kayaks to create their “redneck” watercraft, nor can they use store-bought paddles or engines. But they are free to use other manufactured products, so long as they are modified to create a boat.
“It’s absolutely hysterical!” exclaimed Tall Pines co-owner Gayle Bennett. “We’ve had bathtubs. We’ve had pirate ships!” Regatta participants once created a paddlewheel-style boat using two bicycles, which they pedaled down the river, she added. “People come up with the best designs.”
Other campgrounds host their own zany water events during the summer, including Breezy Hill Campground in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, which holds a cardboard boat regatta and race July 12-14. Sparrow Pond Family Campground & Recreation Center in Waterford, Pennsylvania, not only has a cardboard boat regatta in a swimming pool during its Shark Weekend on July 26 and 27 but also hosts an adults-only cardboard boat battleship in the pond.
Death By Chocolate Week means sweet fun at Pennsylvania’s Jellystone Park Quarryville.
Many campgrounds also offer chocolate-themed weekends, with chocolate-eating contests, chocolate-syrup-covered slides, and, at some locations, even chocolate pudding wrestling.
The July 19-21 “Ooey Gooey Chocolatey Weekend” at Silver Lake Jellystone Park in Silver Lake, Michigan, will include a human sundae contest, in which participants are covered in chocolate, whipped cream, and other ingredients, just like the traditional treat.
Campgrounds affiliated with the Jellystone Park franchise network are well-known for their family-friendly competitive events, which include everything from Miss Jellystone Park contests during Father’s Day weekend, in which kids dress up their dads as beauty queens, to talent shows and other creative contests.
Independence Day weekend festivities at the Jellystone Park in Caledonia, Wisconsin, include a Presidential Hair Contest. The Jellystone Park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, plans to host a “Bear-O-lympics” August 16-19 that will include a picnic basket relay race against Ranger Smith and a sandwich-eating contest with Yogi Bear.
Campground operators say activities are important, because they enable everyone to put their cell phones away and truly interact with one another.
“It’s escaping technology and just being able to be with your kids and rewinding back to the basic elements of fun and making actual memories,” said Bridget Bender, who co-owns and operates the Caledonia, Wisconsin, Jellystone Park. “These activities are a conduit to a simpler life. They provide that old-school connection point, not only between mom and dad and their kids, but with other kids and other families.”
Competitive events in the Kampgrounds of America (KOA) network this summer include a “Wet-N-Wacky Weekend” July 27 at the KOA in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Teams of children and their families will don fire helmets and use a real fire hose to see how quickly they can move an empty beer keg that’s suspended on a wire between two utility poles. The challenge, however, is that they’re not only competing against other families but also against members of the East Mead Fire Company!
“It just makes for a fun day,” said Robyn Chilson, who owns the Meadville KOA with her husband, Tim. “It’s one of our most popular activities. The kids get to learn how to handle those heavy hoses and get an idea of what it’s like to be a fireman for the day.”
Other “Wet-N-Wacky” activities include a water gun battle and “alligator wrestling,” for kids 11 and under. They sit atop a floating inflatable alligator and try to maintain their balance; then they try touching the alligator’s tail to its nose without falling into the water.
Polynesian Week at San Francisco North/Petaluma KOA includes live music and performances by dancers in colorful costumes.
Other activities in the KOA network include Polynesian Week, August 5-11, at the San Francisco North/Petaluma KOA in Petaluma, California. It includes arts and crafts, candy lei making, and a Polynesian dance show on Saturday, with live music and professional dancers who even teach guests a few moves.
Many campgrounds across North America have similar tropical-themed weekends, with limbo contests, music, and dancing.
Cowboys and cowgirls alike will want to note western-themed activities.
River Bottom Farms Family Campground near Swansea, South Carolina, will host Wild West Weekend July 26-28, which includes a “cow pie” eating contest, a roping contest, barrel races, hoppity horse races, and live music.
Rancho Oso RV & Camping Resort, a Thousand Trails affiliate in the mountains north of Santa Barbara, California, offers guided horseback riding trips into the Santa Ynez Mountains. Guests also can use horse camping sites, if they travel with their equines.
Cowboy-related fun for the whole family starts each Friday with the afternoon Shindig. Guests can include their own horses in a competition, which might include riding while holding a duck egg on a spoon, trying to make sure it doesn’t drop, or showing off their horses’ tricks. Kids race with stick ponies; wagon rides, barrel racing, and other games take place.
The resort also has a couple sets of covered wagon rentals; each is arranged in a circle around a campfire pit.
Meanwhile, adventures of a far different sort await families at the Ventura Ranch KOA in Santa Paula, California, whose summer activities include Bigfoot Adventure Walks one night during the week and on Saturday nights.
The Bigfoot adventure begins with an informative talk about the legendary beast by a campground guide, who also notes that Bigfoot sightings have been reported in the Santa Paula area. The children and their families then take part in a short hike to see if they can find the elusive creature.
“The kids bring flashlights, and they see evidence along the trail of where Bigfoot has been,” said Scott Cory, who co-owns and operates the campground. “They can even estimate Bigfoot’s height based on the claw marks they see on a tree.”
The Bigfoot Adventure Walks have become so popular that the Ventura Ranch KOA provides as many as three Bigfoot adventures on Saturday nights during the summer months. “The parents enjoy it as much as the kids!” Mr. Cory said.
Nature Activities
While many family campgrounds organize competitive events during the summer months, some also provide educational programs that involve everything from American Indian history and archaeology to kid-friendly talks about nature, wildlife, and the urgency of taking better care of our environment.
A separately run wolf preserve shares property with Camp Taylor Campground in Columbia, New Jersey, affording RVers the chance to learn about these beautiful creatures.
Camp Taylor Campground in Columbia, New Jersey, is unique in this regard, because the Lakota Wolf Preserve, a separate business, operates on the same forested property. Guided tours of the preserve are offered by Jim Stein and Becky Mace, who raise and care for all of the animals at the preserve. Families can learn about the social structure of wolf packs, along with their eating habits, their interaction with humans, and other interesting facts. Campers also can hear the wolves howl from their campsites.
“It’s not only at night!” Jean Taylor, Camp Taylor’s second-generation co-owner and operator, exclaimed with a laugh. “They howl whenever they want to.”
But Ms. Taylor said the Lakota Wolf Preserve nicely complements Camp Taylor’s activity programs, which have a wildlife or outdoor theme and periodically include educational wild animal shows.
Farther south, Ocean Lakes Family Campground, C4970, an FMCA commercial member campground in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, has its own nature discovery lab. The lab is named for its founder and retired curator, Leonard Raker, who personally gathered shells, fossils, and other items to showcase the history, wildlife, and ecology of coastal South Carolina. The lab features live animals, including geckos, turtles, and a baby alligator. Various educational programs focus on marine life as well as the “trash cycle,” which includes discussions about how plastics can be ingested by sea animals — threatening not only their health but our health, too. The lab organizes frequent nature walks and beach cleanup activities for Ocean Lakes guests.
“The beach walks give us an opportunity to teach everyone how to find shark teeth and educate them on what each shell is and how it functioned while it was still alive,” said Brandy Cloos, a master naturalist who runs the nature center.
“Most people don’t realize shells are what’s left of a snail-like animal that has passed,” she added. “Beach cleanups are great, because we can provide additional information to guests about how detrimental litter is, even inland, because all water leads to the ocean.”
Oakzanita Springs RV Campground in Descanso, California, invites campers to participate in guided nature walks. For example, on August 10, kids can learn about animal tracking as they discover the different types of animals that live at the campground.
The Lazy River at Granville in Granville, Ohio, has programs provided by a nonprofit organization called Ohio Nature Education. During Native American Week, July 12-18, experts from the organization will bring along birds and discuss their roles in American Indian culture.
At Austin Lake RV Park & Campground in Toronto, Ohio, one of the educational opportunities includes a massive sand pit, which the park uses for fossil dig activities (July 14 and August 4 this year), featuring real souvenir fossils purchased by park owners Bill and Marsha Cable. The Cables have even gone so far as to hire an archaeologist to lead the digging activity.
“I will go out and bury a bunch of fossils out there, and when the kids find what they find, I help them identify (them),” explained John Boilegh, an archaeologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources who grew up in the Austin Lake area.
Mr. Boilegh’s area of expertise is the prehistory of the Upper Ohio River Valley. He also provides mini history lessons to Austin Lake Campground guests with a replica of an ancient spear-throwing tool used by the Aztecs, the Maya, and indigenous people throughout North America, including ancestors of the Iroquois.
But he also is a naturalist and a kid at heart. He said he enjoys using his background in biology when he leads children and adults to explore Town Fork, a creek that flows into Austin Lake.
“We’ll go down to the creek and lift up rocks and look for various bugs and insects,” Mr Boilegh said, citing a cast of discoverable creatures such as crawdads, riffle beetles, water pennies, dragonfly larvae, nonpoisonous snakes, and even water scorpions — harmless aquatic insects that resemble land-based scorpions.
“You can determine all kinds of things about the water quality based on the critters who live there,” Mr. Boilegh explained, noting that high-quality water flows into Austin Lake.
But while his presentations are primarily aimed at kids, curious adults often tag along on these activities.
One of the naturalist’s proudest moments, in fact, involved a “monster of a man” who was terrified of snakes. “He had to have been 6 feet 4 inches tall and at least 300 pounds,” Mr. Boilegh recalled. “But by the end of my lesson, he was holding a snake!”