We pulled up stakes from Keuka Lake (pun intended) on Friday Sept 14 and headed downstate to the Binghamton area and Chenango Valley State Park for five nights. Neither of us had been to this park previously and it turned out to be a great choice. All of NY's parks are excellent. Some offer more amenities than others but there is plenty to keep a nature lover busy at any of them. This park has a golf course in its boundaries as well as hiking trails, a swimming area and the campground. The sites here were closer together than at Keuka and Gilbert with much less grass, actually no gras,s and wooded. Sites with electric, which we need for Scott's C-Pap, tend to be more geared for RV's and the site was hard packed dirt and gravel. Without having been to a park it's a gamble picking a site from the reservation page. We scoped the site out to pick a spot to pitch the tent. We'd had a lot of rain while we were at Keuka. Our new tent held up wonderfully well keeping us dry. However we had placed the tent in a low spot on the site and the water puddled up beneath it. Messy to say the least and something we hoped to avoid at this campground. We also wanted to avoid the gravel as much as possible.
With camp set up we settled in and watched the park fill up for the weekend. There were a number of families traveling together with loads of children. I was surprised as I had thought camping might have fallen out of favor with the younger generation. If you factor in the cost of a trailer and towing vehicle or motorhome it is not inexpensive. We saw some impressive rigs in our travels. The kids were having a grand time and we enjoyed watching them. The second morning we were there Scott woke up with a rash on his arm and stomach that looked peculiarly like poison ivy. Peculiar, because he has never been susceptible to it. He had been gathering some kindling from the wooded area around our site and I suspect that's where he might have come in contact with it. I had some calamine lotion with us but that didn't seem to do anything for the itch. To say the least he wasn't happy. He was already dealing with a sore shoulder that would prevent him from taking advantage of the golf course,which BTW was gorgeous! We drove into the nearby town and bought some ivy wash and cream that seemed to be more effective. We bought our firewood from that point on.
The picture if of the golf course in Chenango Valley.