Mammoth Goes Birding…and stuff, Day 22

Tuesday April 29

Our next stop was at the City of St. Robert RV Park, in Missouri right on the road leading to Fort Leonard Wood. When Edward did his basic training there, we didn’t have an RV yet. Too bad—this would have been a perfect place to stay.

It was basically a big green field with two or three rows of wide concrete sites.  The pull-thrus, which we chose, were very unlevel front to back. Other than the full hookup amenities, there was nothing else except a dumpster. 

We did all the check-in and payment online and there didn’t seem to be any sort of campground host or security staff on site. Not that it was necessary—the place seemed extraordinarily safe and quiet.

I wanted some fruit and salad makings, so we walked across the parking lot to the smallest Aldi’s I’ve ever seen or heard of. I couldn’t even get a couple of oranges because they only had them in 5-lb bags; I settled for bananas and an apple. Weird place. It turned out that there was a Walmart just a few minutes drive away, but we were in no mood to unhook the Jeep just to pick up a little dab of produce.

But there was no place to walk Molly except around and around the parking lot.  There were big trees all around but I didn’t care to wade through the undergrowth and walk amongst them, so I didn’t see very many birds.  I heard a summer tanager and saw a redheaded woodpecker, and that’s about it.  But Merlin heard a Nashville warbler.  Darn him.

And the weirdest thing happened—while we were off walking to Aldi’s, our Starlink broke.  It was working before we left and broke when we got back.  I entered a ticket and got a call back within an hour, but the technician couldn’t diagnose it.

It rained most of the night. The power went off at some point and Ed turned on the generator. Not sure how long it was off.

REVIEW: City of St Robert RV Park.

Frill-less FHU in front of Fort Leonard Wood. 

The utilities worked fine and the place was very clean, easy to find, and unbelievably convenient.  It was a one-night stopover for us, but most of the other RVs seemed to be staying a few nights or longer.  We never happened to talk to anyone, but my guess is that they were visiting soldiers at the fort.

The sites are wide, concrete pads; easy to pull into/out of. But the pull-thru sites are very unlevel front to back. It looked like the back-in sites might have been more level.

There were no picnic tables and any other amenities other than a dumpster.  Reservations and check-in were done online, and it all happened seamlessly.  People were very quiet and there wasn’t a lot of coming and going. The traffic noise was constant, but not super loud.

But there is no where to walk the dog except in the grassy area around the campground. About a 10-minute round trip. It was kind of boring. I’m sure there were places to go in the area, but we didn’t care to drive anywhere.

In the next parking lot over were the smallest Aldi’s grocery I ever saw in my life, and also a coffee place and a Subway.  But there were lots of restaurants withing driving distance.