Magnus to Mass., with Jamestown Jaunt, Day 9

Thursday, August 14

Sylvan Lake Beach Park in Hopewell Junction New York was our destination. The most exciting part of the trip was when we crossed over (or saw the sign for) the Fishkill river.  While I know that “kill” is just the German or Dutch term for flowing water, aka river, it still seemed creepy to name a river that.

The  drive was pretty fast and not too difficult, which was a problem for us because the RV park’s check-in time was 2pm and no matter what we did to delay, we seemed to stay on target to arrive at 1:30. Their website said they charged extra for early check in.

I needn’t have worried. We were only fifteen minutes early and the nice lady at the gate would never have  dreamed of enforcing so silly a rule. Or so I imagined. Anyway, I didn’t mention it and neither did she.

 

Interesting place; see review.

I saw a sandpiper down at the beach (probably Spotted Sandpiper), Baltimore Oriole, Chipping Sparrows, Nuthatches

 

REVIEW Sylvan Lake Beach Park

Good for RVs; lovely for tents; but watch out for dance party nights

There were some really lovely RV sites on a hill overlooking the lake, but they seemed to be permanents or seasonals. (Didn’t ask). But most of the transient RV’s like us--we stayed only one night—were in a cleared circle in the woods up on the hill with no view of the lake at all. It was a short walk down to it, but the actual campsites were boring. It was pretty, with plenty of big trees and grass, but the only view we had was of the other RVs.

Our site had a gravel surface. Good 50-amp power, water and sewer hookups. Very nice people at check-in. Plenty of space around the RVs, more than the typical RV park.

Down at the lovely lake there was a playground, swimming beach, and picnic areas. It would have been pretty convenient to put a kayak or canoe in. 

The restroom was old but decently clean. The ladies shower cost 50 cents in quarters for ten minutes of water.  I assume there was a reason for that, possibly to prevent walk-in visitors from wasting water. The park wasn’t gated and it would have been very easy for non-campers to access the facilities. But that seemed unlikely due to the remoteness and nice location of the park. Possibly they were just trying to conserve water.

The tent camping spots were really pretty—close to the water but up on slopes with lots of big pine trees, tulip poplars, and sycamores. Very lovely.

The issue with the “dance party” was that on both Wednesday and Thursday nights,  someplace over across the lake was having a very loud party with a DJ on a microphone at rocket blast volume. If I’d been trying to tent camp that night, I would have had to go somewhere else for a few hours until it stopped. It was horrible, and so loud that you could even hear it up in the RV area.