Camping near Chautauqua Lake - a KOA experience - Part 1

two weeks ago we had the most amazing camping trip! I was at peace and loved it! We stayed at a new campground that Mike found online. It is Chautauqua Lake KOA. It is not far from Jamestown, NY. That's about a 2 1/2 hour drive for us. If you know my husband you know he hates to drive much more than 2 hours so this was a big trip for us. We only go camping once a year so that makes this extra special as well.
Anita and Bill Perry and their grandson Elijah, owners of Chautauqua Lake KOA. We only met Anita though. 

I encourage you to check out their website! 

Chautauqua Lake KOA 

The campground was wonderful, albeit very quiet. There were not many campers; which is usually nice but this time there were far too few campers for us. It's nice to have some peace without having dead silence. lol We did camp in the middle of the week and most schools had not yet let out for the  summer.

So much to tell you all! Between the campground, the cabin, the day trip around the lake, the peace and refreshing feelings we all felt, well, I'm just not sure where to start! I guess I will start with the campground itself. It was wonderful! It might be our new favorite place to camp! (Sorry Lazy Lakes!!! We still Love you!)

As you enter the campground you see the Camp Store. This is also the office where you check in. It is a nice store with a variety of things a camper might need; foods, games, odds and ends trailer accessories, ice creams, and of course the souvenir figurines and campfire wood! They even had a few scrapbooking KOA pages and stickers!

We were surprised by how everything was so reasonably priced! Some stores try to gouge you out of every penny it seems. This store was not so as prices were comparable to big discount chain stores! The staff was helpful and friendly. They certainly made us feel welcome! Anita, one of the owners, showed us a new game the store had just gotten in. It's called S'mores.  She even asked us to play it with her! We ended up actually purchasing the game. It was fun to play!

Next was our cabin. Upon seeing it we saw that we ended up with the cabin with the larger porch area. We were very happy with that! On the porch is a gas grill. The over hang was large enough for the four of us to sit under in case of rain and still be comfortable. It looked very inviting!T hat first night it did rain WHILE we were cooking over the fire pit! More about that in part 2 though.

Inside was even better ! Now, we are used to roughing it while camping; tent, sleeping bags, no stove, air conditioning or electricity. Well, maybe a little bit of electricity - enough to run a fan and a light and such. We use a cooler for our food, charcoal for our cooking, the spigot for our water. You get the idea. In this cabin we had the refrigerator, a counter with a microwave and a coffee maker, a smaller table with 4 stools, actual beds and get this!!! AIR CONDITIONING! (And heat as it is one unit.) The best part (considering it ALWAYS rains when we camp) is it has DISH TV! At home, we do not have cable and we are not even guaranteed regular over the air tv as the weather and building structure inhibits the channels from coming in clearly. We mostly watch online and Netflix at home. Dish (or any cable) is a huge treat for us! There is even free wifi in the campground so one could check email, facebook and surf online if they desired to. We wanted to take this time to unplug from the net so we did not use a lot of that. (Just a warning though, no downloading large files as they watch for excessive bandwidth usage.) The only thing this cabin did not have is running water. That's ok though. The spigot was just outside and the bathroom was a few short steps from our door. Our cabin had two twin beds and a double (or full) sized bed. The beds were perfect sized for a traditional fitted sheet and we brought our blankets too. No sleeping bags this trip!  Daniel decided to take the top bunk for a change. At home our boys share bunks and Adam is on the top. The cabin was much larger then we had expected. If it was raining we could bring all 4 camp chairs in the cabin and sit in them while watching tv, playing a game or just chatting all while still having enough room to move around. Right away it felt like home away from home. aaaaaahhhh

Our Cabin - L02 - The Sports Den

Now outside was just as wonderful! That IS the reason we go camping. In the area we camped there are a lot of trees, a nice dirt and gravel roadway, a hiking trail and PLENTY of greenery! Towards the back of the campground the woods were far less in the camping area and some of the roadways were more dirt then gravel. Some of the amenities to entertain the campers are a swimming pool, horseshoes, funnel ball, a play ground and sand box, pedal cars, nature trail, ladder ball, indoor ping pong table, games, dvds to rent, and even a row of Adirondack chairs to enjoy sitting in while watching the sunset over the lake. The bathrooms were very clean and although the showers were on the smaller side they were not tiny. Of course there is the fire pits and what camper doesn't enjoy a roasted marshmallow or two?

It seems as though his particular campground caters mostly to the seasonal camper who leaves his or her trailer there long term and just comes down for the long weekends.  There are some tent sites and some cabins but mostly we found campers that were set up for a long term stay. Some had decks built for them and sheds to house their golf carts. All the trailers we saw were very well kept and up to date. The "yard" areas were taken care of and even had some little garden areas. The decks on some made them look like mobile homes! All in all the trailer area looked inviting also. No surprise there seeing as this camp ground seems to like to make a good impression.

We decided one day to take a scenic tour of the area. A lot of the roads we drove on were long and straight but the scenery was comforting, lot of greenery with trees and crops. We even passed a vineyard.

The drive was as enjoyable as the lake.

The local area is simply wonderful. Small towns for those beautiful scenic drives can keep you wanting more. It is not too far from Jamestown, NY so you could always make it a day trip if you like. We drove around the Chautauqua Lake one day. We stopped in a small town and found solace in the lake view. In Mayville we met the nicest people when we stopped at a little store for sweet potatoes. Although they did not have sweet potatoes we did have a nice time in town. They have this little pier, really not much of anything but it had a beautiful view of the lake. There was also Mayville Depot in town and the Chautauqua Belle steamboat, both of which were closed. 

The lake was small but beautiful and peaceful.

Too bad they were closed!

 

 

Mayville Depot was closed also but I snuck some pictures through the windows.

We saw this old abandoned radio station. 

It looked so lost out there in the open.

We really enjoyed our little camping vacation. It sure was a bit different for us and I think that made it even nicer. Our boys are growing up so fast, this maybe the last family camping trip we do. Adam is 19 and Daniel will be 17 next month. Although Adam’s maturity can be younger at times he has matured so much in the past year. I bet God’ has some wonderful plans for him in the near future!

Our camping trip was wonderful and I know we plan on returning there one day. I hope you have all enjoyed the pictures and my little story.  I have more to say but that will wait for another day and another blog post. 

Coming Soon: Part 2