Wandering America
May 2007 - Part II
| Lake George Escape We arrived at Lake George Escape in Diamond Point, New York to spend the summer workamping. This is a "destination" campground which means that families come here for vacations and are looking for lots of entertainment. Being located in the Adirondacks there is a lot of sightseeing, hiking, and biking opportunities available in the Lake George area. The campground itself has a mile of frontage on the Schroon River with tubing trips, canoing, kayaking, and electric boats as well as a swimming beach. There are also two heated pools, two interior ponds, tennis courts, outdoor movie theater, the Woodland Grill restaurant, arcade Fun Center, Train and Wagon rides, and lots of daily scheduled activities for each family member. Lake George Escape has over 570 campsites and 55 rentals which can result in hosting between 2500 to 3000 guests a day during the busy season.  Judy was assigned to Guest Services and Darrell was assigned to the Fun and Games Department. Guest Services personnel rotate between the phone center (taking reservations), the front desk (checking in campers), manning the welcome center, and working in the store. The Fun and Games department is responsible for overseeing all of the activities throughout the campground; arts and crafts, swimming pools, boating activities, running the shuttle to town, movies, pedal carts, train rides, wagon rides, firetruck rides, bonfires, games, etc. where work is play and fun is the order of the day (this is a J-O-B?). The Lodge consists of the front desk for check-ins, the campground store, and administrative offices housed upstairs (the lodge is where Judy spends most of her time). The store is well stocked with food and drinks, gifts, and all of your camping necessities. The Fun House is where the arcade is located along with movie rentals (movies are free, one of our favorite words). You don't want to go in there if you don't like lots of kids and lots of noise.   As
stated above, Lake George Escape has about a mile of shore frontage on
the Schroon River where many of the water activities take place.
There are boat rentals, canoes, kayaks, electric boats, and row
boats, as well as tube rides for the guests. There is a nice
sandy beach for those wanting to work on their tan and take
the occasional dip in the water.
    There
are two interior ponds within the campground where frog hunting
contests and fishing take place. The picture below only shows
half of the "Frog Pond". The other pond is called Moose Pond (and
you just might see a moose there if you look carefully).
  Evergreen
Square is the hub where most of the activities originate. It
is where the heated swimming pools,
the Big Top, the outdoor movie theater, pedal
carts, horse shoes, shuffle board, and the Honey Bear Mining
Company are located. People purchase
"rough" from the Honey Bear store and then go to the mining company
where they pan the rough for gems. The train and wagon rides
begin and end in Evergreen Square each day. The Big Top is used for bingo
and other arts and crafts events. Honey Bear can be seen roaming
the square and goes on some of the wagon rides which are held each
evening. This area
is so large that you cannot get it all in a single picture, so here is
four different angles. You can just imagine this area being full
of people engaged in all types of activities.
    This is one of the two heated swimming pools that are located in Evergreen Square. One of the pools is three and a half feet deep for the children and the other is for older kids (Marco! - Polo! Oh Lord, help me!!) and adults (there are two reserved sessions for adults only swims each day).  The Honey Bear store (located behind the two swimming pools) handles the rentals for the boats and pedal carts as well as selling the activity related supplies. There is a recreation room above the store with tables for rainy day activities, sofas, a stereo, and a television.  The train makes scheduled trips from 10:00 to 12:00 and again from 4:00 to 6:00 each day. This can be dangerous for the engineer and conductor as the guests (young and old) take great pleasure in soaking them with "Super Soaker" squirt guns. We shoot back but, try as we may, we are out gunned by about 12 to 1 (the odds are in our favor????). There are two wagon rides each evening at 6:30 and 7:00. The campground is so big (about 180 acres) that each ride takes around 25 minutes and we only cover about half of the park.   Woodland Grill, also located in Evergreen Square, is where you can go for a wonderful breakfast buffet, grab lunch, or have an evening meal. There is a huge barbecue pit for cooking hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, steaks, pork, or whatever. Also, there is a bar and on Saturday night they provide live entertainment with dancing.     We have just completed the Memorial Day Weekend and all we can say is "Whew - what a zoo". There was well over 2500 people and it was definitely a carnival atmosphere. This is not like your run-of-the-mill campground. There is something going on all the time. We would have liked to have gotten more pictures showing people enjoying themselves; however, we were wa-a-a-a-ay too busy for picture taking. We did get a chance to go over to the Woodland Grill on Saturday night and drink a marquarita while enjoying the band which was excellent. After a week of training and then the Memorial Day Weekend on slot, needless to say we were extremely tired. On Thursday and Friday there were three rows of RVs with five to six RVs in each row checking in and this was continual from around noon until nine in the evening. Then Saturday and Sunday we were busy keeping all of these brats, eh, I mean guests entertained. On Monday the mad exodus began; "Glad you came, see you next time, don't let the gate hit you in the a - - on your way out!" Opps, should have said, "Hope you had a good time." We definitely needed some time off just to recuperate after that episode. June will be a rather calm month with July and August getting busy again but we will be seasoned "ranch hands" by then so it should go a lot smoother. Next month we will tour Lake George Village and take several day trips for sightseeing, hiking, and biking. There is lots to do and see in this area so we certainly will have more pictures from the Adirondacks. Also history is plentiful being that battles were fought in the French and Indian War, French and British conflict, and American Revolution throughout this area, so there will be plenty to share with you in the Travelogue. |