Akeley City Park: Not our favorite campground, but a great base camp for riding the Heartland Trail8/17/2016 Of all the places we stayed during our time in Minnesota, the Akeley City Campground was our least favorite. It sounded so charming from the reviews I'd found online, but it was really not much more than a sandy road with a plethora of RVs parked up and down the sides of it, tightly spaced. I guess for folks who want to be right on the lake, it might be just right, but to us it felt tight, cramped, and kind of haphazardly constructed. Our site was a dirt pull-through across from the lake and shared between two sites (12 and 14). With two rigs, it was tight, but fortunately we had it to ourselves for three of our four nights. It was thankfully larger than most of the sites right on the lake. Leveling took quite awhile and a lot of boards under the front wheels and jacks. There was a peek-a-boo view of the lake through trailers on the other side of the road in lakefront sites, but only weedy grass, dirt, and very little patio area to the door side of Pearl. There were water and electric hookups at each site and a campground dump station. Akeley is a tiny town, population 438. But they make the most of it with a HUGE statue of Paul Bunyan, a big draw for tourists seeking photos. No grocery store, but they did have a coin laundromat, always a plus for us, and a grassy area by the city park entrance where we could play ball with Paisley. Here are some photos we took around town. The Woodtick Theater, right on the main street through town, offers musical shows combining country, bluegrass, folk, gospel and comedy. It is a bit pricey at $18.50 a head (adults) and not really our thing, but I am sure it brings people into this small town. I don't think the Blue Ox was open, but I liked the painting! I particularly loved this admonition: One thing we did like about the Akeley Campground was the sunsets over the lake. On our last night there, we had the most spectacular one! Sitting on a dock and watching the colors change and the calm lake shimmer was one of the highlights of our entire time in Minnesota for me. The proximity to the Heartland State Trail was excellent, just under 1/2 mile from our campsite. We stayed four nights and rode the trail every day. But more on that in our next post!
2 Comments
8/18/2016 10:23:42 am
Shoot .. looks pretty good to me. LOL!
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Emily
8/28/2016 05:33:30 pm
It certainly wasn't terrible, Cheryl, but we've got a lot of campgrounds to compare it to, and for the price, it didn't rank really high on our list. However, the location was great for us with the wonderful cycling around, so we have fond memories of our time there!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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