Caesar Creek State Park, OH

From Frankfort/Lexington, KY, it was about a two and a half-hour drive to our next destination of Caesar Creek State Park near Waynesville, OH. Caesar Creek has several hundred sites that have 30-amp electric hookups only. The roads and pads are paved, and there is grass between the widely-spaced sites.

During the week, Caesar Creek is usually pretty empty. In fact, they accept Passport America for half-price camping Mondays (except holidays) through Wednesdays to encourage business during the week. Weekends are a different story. Caesar Creek is close to both Dayton and Cincinnati, and it attracts lots of people on summer weekends, especially on holiday weekends. The photo below is a view down the road when we arrived on Wednesday. There were only two or three other sites on our loop that were occupied

And the next photo is the same view during the Labor Day weekend.

Caesar Creek was always one of our favorite destinations when we lived in a stick house. It is a nice campground, and there are lots of interesting things to do in the area. It was about a five-hour drive from where we lived in Pittsburgh, so we usually only went there on long holiday weekends.

We spent quite a few Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends at Caesar Creek before we started full-timing in spite of the fact it gets kind of zooey. As we said, it's a nice campground, and there are lots of things to do in the area. Back then, we had a travel trailer, and once we started to think about becoming full-time RVers, one of the things we did while staying at Caesar Creek was to drive into Cincinnati and Dayton to stop at RV dealers to look at different makes of motor homes.

 This year, our daughter Lora and our son-in-law, J. Michael, drove down from Pittsburgh to meet us. We hadn't seen them since March, so it was great to spend the weekend with them.

One of the things we like to do in the area now is to go to flea markets. We usually don't buy much, but it's fun to look. There are several flea markets in the area, but one of our favorites is Traders World located west of Caesar Creek and north of Cincinnati. On the way, we stopped for the breakfast buffet at Der Dutchman in Waynesville. Der Dutchman has 5 restaurants in Ohio and Indiana that feature Amish-style cooking. Our favorite Der Dutchman is the one in Walnut Creek, OH.

With our bellies full, it was on the the flea market. We were hoping all the walking around the flea market would help burn off some of the calories from breakfast.

Traders World has a long, covered, outdoor section; but most of the flea market is indoors. The next photo shows Margery perusing some used books at one of the outdoor stalls.

The area flea markets usually have several vendors with nice, reasonably-priced plants. There are flats of annuals and hanging baskets in the spring and mums in the fall. In the next photo, Lora is picking out a pair of mums for the planters beside their front door at home.

By the time we left the flea market and headed back to the campground, the morning clouds had dissipated. Lora and J. Michael brought along their Cornhole game, so we set it up so they could teach us how to play. Cornhole is a beanbag toss game that consists of a pair of plywood targets and two sets of four beanbags. The name of the game comes from the fact the bags are filled with dried corn rather than beans. Each player or team gets one point for each bag that stays on the platform and three points for each bag that goes through the hole. Players can also try to knock their opponents bags off the platform to keep them from getting points. In the next photo, J. Michael lets one fly as Lora looks on.

Paul watches to see if his shot will go in the hole.

The game is a lot of fun, and it's easy to see why it's so popular. We've seen the boards and bags for sale at numerous flea markets, but they're also easy to make. The American Cornhole Association has sanctioned tournaments, and they have all the dimensions for the platforms as well as complete rules of the game on their web site.

That evening, we had mountain pies for dinner. Afterward, Margery read by the fire while waiting until it was time for s'mores.

Lora and J. Michael stayed an extra day after Labor Day to avoid the crush at the dump station on Monday and to avoid heavier holiday traffic. On the holiday, Lora made us all a delicious breakfast of French toast and bacon.

There's nothing like the smell of bacon cooking outdoors. Lora made the French toast with raisin cinnamon bread instead of the usual white bread, and it was yummy!

Lora and J. Michael's year-and-a-half-old boxer Gunnar loves camping. There are so many good smells and new adventures. In the photo below, Gunnar comes nose to nose with a fuzzy, white caterpillar.

We usually go to the Caesar Creek Flea Market on Saturday or Sunday; but they are open on Mondays of Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends, so this year we decided to go on Monday. Caesar Creek Flea Market, which is just a few miles down the road from the campground at the interstate exit, has outdoor stalls and indoor "regulars" who rent their spaces by the month or season. Many of the indoor vendors have been in the same place since we started going to the market at least 10 years ago.

Although the weather was nice, the turnout of both vendors and customers on Labor Day was somewhat disappointing. There were lots of vacancies in the outdoor spaces, and only one or two of the usual 8 or 10 food vendors were there. The photo below one of the few rows of outdoor stalls.

 

There weren't many outdoor vendors, but most of the indoor booths were open. Margery found a whole bag full of books from her favorite used book shop.

Lora and J. Michael left on Tuesday morning. It was great to spend a long holiday weekend with them. We got to do some of the things we don't always take time to do as full-timers - we had campfires complete with mountain pies and s'mores, we cooked and ate outside, and we played lots of games.

We stayed at Caesar Creek two more days and enjoyed an almost-empty campground. We were treated to several beautiful sunsets during our stay there; and when the campground emptied out, we were finally able to get an unobstructed photo.

From Caesar Creek we headed northwest to the Escapees Escapade (rally) in Goshen, IN. This is the club's 50th Escapade, and we were looking forward to attending the informative seminars, seeing old friends and meeting new people.