We camped from Thursday to Sunday at Trap Pond State Park in Laurel, Delaware. We are tent campers that don't use much electricity (none on this trip, although we could have used some). We use a 6 person tent with a "front porch" (an attached screen room) and a 12 foot by 12 foot octagonal screen room.
The prices for non-Delaware residents were pretty typical of state parks: $28 per night. Most of the sites have water and electric, so that's what we went with. There are a lot of trees and the sites are close to the pond, although none of them are right on the water. A picnic table and a fire ring were situated on each site.
The park was quiet even though there weren't any vacancies for Friday and Saturday. We were surprised that there were so few tent campers--we only counted four others. The rest were RVs with a few pop-ups thrown in. Perhaps the huge number of RVs was the reason that the bath house was never crowded even though there were only three showers and four toilets on each side (men's and women's).
The water situation left a little to be desired. The spigots at each site pointed sideways, almost parallel to the ground, and the water pressure was tremendous. We really needed a hose to hook up to it, but that's not part of our regular camping gear, so we made do. There were no dish washing facilities, so we made the decision to go with mostly disposable stuff. If we'd brought our electric tea kettle to heat dish water, that would have been better, but we left it at home. The water was an odd yellowish color, but it cleaned the dishes just fine. The showers were pretty bad. None of us ever figured out a way to control the temperature, so most of the time they were a little too warm. And if anyone was using any other water, there was just a stream of water--no spray. There was a laundry room at the bath house too, but we didn't use it.
On the other hand, the sites were enormous, at least for our purposes. We had plenty of room for our tent, our five bicycles, our screen room, our van, and a seating area around the fire. One drawback of our site was a very bright light on the side of the bath house that shone on our tent all night long. The women in our family weren't bothered by the light, but my husband would have been if he hadn't brought along his sleeping mask.
Two of my daughters enjoyed a couple hours of fishing (bluegill and crappie) from a small dock on our loop. We all enjoyed the Loblolly Trail on our bicycles. Crushed gravel, very level, winding through woods. We stopped at the small nature center and looked at the exhibits. You can also rent paddle boats, canoes, and kayaks, but we weren't able to take advantage of those activities. There's also a pontoon boat tour of the Lake--a slide show at the nature center features parts of it. The pond has the northernmost stand of bald cypress trees. I'd love to kayak around the pond--maybe if we go back next year.
The camp staff was very responsive when I told them about a couple of non-flushing toilets in the women's room. The plumbing was working again within an hour. On the other hand, the camp host never introduced herself or even patrolled the area as far as we could see.
All in all, a good place to camp. I just wish the showers were better.
No comments:
Post a Comment