What a Dump!

Marti and I were overjoyed when our daughter and family moved to central SC in a great area and there was a military campground less than 20 miles from their new home.  We figured we'd be able to utilize it when we came to visit because they live in an HOA community that won't allow an overnight on street parking.

So today we took a couple of hours to go check out the Weston Lake Recreation Area and RV Park.  It is run by the U.S. Army's Fort Jackson MWR activity.  We both came away with the same impression...What a Dump!

First off, the Army allows the facility to be used by the local civilian population.  You have to pay a fee just to enter, for us not a terrible cost at a buck for active duty military, but we've never seen that at any military campground before.  With the entry fee there should be an income stream to help run and maintain the campground.

There are no reservations allowed, strictly first-come-first-served.  To get to the office to register, you have to drive down a one way, narrow winding road with speed bumps to get to the office, about a quarter of a mile.

To be fair, the office staff was overrun with two huge family reunions of the local citizens, all trying to rent boats and other equipment.  They could use more help, for sure.  We picked up a price list and got directions to the RV CG. 

The facility is located on a beautiful lake, with a really nice sandy beach and a large inventory of canoes, kayaks and paddle boats for rent.  There are large covered picnic areas that can be rented for group picnics.

But the campground...Holy Smokes, it is horrible to say the least.  It is obvious that most of the 18 sites are taken by long term campers (squatters) with no regard for trying to keep their sites clean and neat.  But why should they, the grass was almost a foot high all through the campground.  The dump station wasn't much more than a hole in the ground with no cement surround, just a Frisbee sized cap and a muddy dirt track to drive up to it.  The sites were mostly small, there were some cement pads, but there were large holes where the dirt had washed away in front of the pads. 

There were some KOA type camping cabins there, and they looked to be in bad shape just from the outside, the wood was crying for some preservation upkeep.  It was truly shameful that a military base would have a CG let go to disrepair this badly.

And yet there were several brand new large cabins overlooking the lake that were as nice as anything we've seen anywhere.

The question remains, how can this Army run facility, with so much to offer for our military folks be allowed to rot away like this?  It is disgusting.

You probably guessed by now, we won't be staying here, Flying J, Walmart, even a roadside rest area would be much better than this.

Tomorrow, we hope to run by another military CG, this one slightly further away but is run by the Air Force.  Looking on line, there seems to be very positive reviews on it, so maybe this will work out for us.  Our fingers are crossed.

Thanks for visiting and please feel free to leave a comment.