Our sandy site
We like this campground and it has been a good location for us this summer – about an hour from Boston, an hour from Springfield, an hour from my softball field, an hour from Worcester and only 25 minutes from the wonderful cabin in the woods owned by Jett’s brother Ray and his talented wife Kim. We have used the proximity to the cabin to visit often.
But this is not a review of the cabin; it is a review of the campground.
The is the most “weekend” place that we have stayed at for an entire season. Seasonal campgrounds tend to attract long-term campers, but this campground seems to be about 90% families who are in residence only on weekends. During the week the place is a ghost town. I walk the dog on weekday mornings and see not a single living soul. At night it gets downright spooky. It is us and the mosquitos.
The campground has a pond and LOTS of trees. And the summer has been very wet. So, yes, there are mosquitos. But they mostly keep to the heavily wooded areas, though a few have found their way into the RV.
We have a site very close to the pond. If you stand outside and peer carefully between the RVs across the way, you can see a bit of it. We are a short walk from the firepit where communal campfires burn each weekend night. On the 4th of July weekend a live band set up near the firepit and there was dancing in the street. We didn’t join in and neither did many others – there were about 20 people there at 10pm.
Which is another aspect of Lamb City which is less than endearing: it is very kid-oriented and not very adult-oriented. There are planned activities each weekend, but they are mostly for kids: crafts, face-painting, races, fire engine rides. Each Saturday night there is an adult activity – usually a dance or karaoke – which is poorly attended. It is not a friendly place. Most families, when they visit on weekends, bring their own friends and do not look for friends in the campground. I have met a handful of neighbors, but have not been invited to share so much as a beer. Jett has met no one. So… a lonely place.
Our campsite is large, with plenty of room for both the truck and the “summer rat” – the 2009 Ford Focus that we bought to use for the summer. It is a full hookup site, with water, electric and sewer. It also has cable TV which is pretty basic – about 30 channels, of which we use maybe 10. It also, for cable, has terrible reception. All of the local channels and some of the cable channels can usually not be watched on the living room television because the picture is so fuzzy. If I were to give the cable a grade it would be D.
Rusty in his sandbox
We put down a second outdoor carpet and that helped, but it hasn’t eliminated the problem. We have already told the office staff that if we return next year we will want gravel put over the sand.
The facilities? Well, the camp store is large and quite nice. We haven’t used it a lot because a shopping center is nearby, but it has just about everything a camper would need. There is a large activity hall which is… functional. No effort was expended to make it attractive. There is also a small activity hall, public restrooms with showers, a very small but decent laundry room and a playground that the kids seem to like, as well as a beach volleyball court, shuffleboard courts, two swimming pools and several horseshoe pits. The pond is used for boating and fishing (catch-and-release) but no swimming. There is a path around the pond – about a mile in length – that Rusty enjoyed the one time we traversed it.
So, bottom line: adequate, lonely, sandy. And, perhaps most importantly, affordable. The entire season here cost us just $2750. Any other option in the Boston area would run at least twice that amount. So while it isn’t perfect, it is a very good option.
Volleyball court
Playground
The pond
Main activity hall
Main pool
Laundry
One of the many park models
On the path in the woods
The bear at the pond
The pond from the north
Dusk
Sciatica
I have had sciatica before – back when we were living in Somerville, circa 2003. I got up one morning and just about collapsed from the sudden pain that shot down my leg. That episode was relatively short-lived, lasting just a couple of weeks, and was helped with exercise and PT. This time… more chronic. I first noticed some back pain after I returned from the long car trip to drop Rusty off in VA in advance of our cruise. Then I REALLY noticed a problem the day when I tried to walk to downtown Cartagena from Jett’s hospital room in Spain – I got about a quarter-mile down the road and noticed that my left buttock and thigh were burning and going numb. I rested and slowed down my walk, but the pain never completely disappeared.
This summer I have had to endure some level of back/leg pain nearly every day. It has affected my softball (my batting average is terrible) and hampers my ability to play disc golf or do anything, really, that involves walking. When Jett and I went to St Anthony’s Feast in the North End of Boston last Friday it was slow going. The good news(?) is that Jett’s pace was as slow as mine, so I didn’t slow her down.
I keep hoping that the pain will just go away, as it has in the past, but I am coming to grips with the realization that I may be hoping in vain. I see a doctor in a few weeks. Let’s see what he says.