May 28, Thursday
Only two camping spots were available when I made reservations for Thursday through Monday, as most state parks are full during the weekend. Unfortunately, a huge rainstorm on Thursday delayed our arrival until Friday morning.
When we arrived, we had trouble finding our campsite. The campsites had recently been renumbered, causing discrepancies between the maps and the posts at each site. I also hadn’t realized that Clinton had three major campgrounds and that we were in Campground 3. After driving through all of Campground 1 and most of Campground 3, we finally found our spot about 200 feet away from a closed bath/shower facility. The door side of our trailer faced this building and the large, empty field with tall grass behind it, providing us with a great deal of privacy, which we found important during the pandemic.
Being the weekend, the campground was full and busy. Across from us was a large party with at least a dozen vehicles, a trailer, and a couple of tents. They were flying a “Blue Line Flag,” suggesting they were probably related to the police. Fortunately, we weren’t too close to them, and they weren’t too noisy. However, they did have small dogs that barked a lot when put outside in a fenced area around 5 in the morning.
We drove around the park and noticed many large gatherings despite the social distancing recommendations.
May 29-30, Friday-Saturday
We spent the weekend mostly relaxing around the campsite in the mornings and taking our new inflatable kayak out on the lake in the afternoons. The boat launch, about a half-mile away, made getting in and out of the kayak easy. The lake was quite busy, and the speed boat’s wake tossed us around a bit, but we were impressed with how well the kayak performed. Its biggest drawback was its high profile, which allowed the wind to push it around. During one of our floats, we were fortunate enough to watch and photograph a bald eagle flying nearby and landing in the trees.
Lisa cooked some delicious breakfasts and dinners on the Blackstone. She experimented with toasting strawberries and marshmallow fluff over our propane fire and made grilled peanut butter and fluff sandwiches on the Blackstone for desserts.
May 31, Sunday
On Sunday, we went back to Kansas City for a couple of hours to visit Lisa’s parents because this was our last chance to see her dad before he went in for some heart surgery that week. He also had to isolate himself after taking a COVID test a couple of days before the surgery, and we would not be able to visit him in the hospital on the day of the surgery.
Most of the campground was empty by Sunday afternoon when all the weekend campers had left.
June 1, Monday
We ended up leaving early Monday morning.
Because the campgrounds were so far from the lake and very crowded on weekend, I do not think this would ever be a popular park for me. But it was a nice relaxing weekend.