Ashuelot River Campground

I want to give a big shout-out to our hosts at our campsite over the past couple of days: Chuck and Laura Mills. 

Ashuelot River Campground is 22 acres of space, with sites for everything from big rigs to tents (and Alto Campers in between). Access to the sites is easy, and there’s plenty of open space for playing baseball, football, or picnicking; and there’s a rec room with foosball, ping-pong, pool and plenty of other evening or rainy day pass times. http://ashuelotrivercampground.com

Included are laundry facilities, great bath and restroom facilities, and a full 3600 feet of river front for those lucky campers who reserve early. What a splendid spot. 

   
 As you’re aware, if you read yesterday’s post, there is easy access to a very nice rails-to-trails conversion (appropriately called the Ashuelot River Rail Trail), AND Chuck and Laura Mills offer a livery service for canoe and kayak float trips down the river, if biking isn’t your thing. Just around the corner is a spectacular grocery store, The Market Basket, that has everything a camping trip might need, from pre-cooked foods to fine meats and seafood, to the regular thises and thats one forgets or runs out of.

Wi-fi is available near the game and reading room and on the porch just off that room. It is a nice, robust connection, too. Our carrier is Verizon, and the cell service was just fine at our campsite, well away from the main office. 

The river is beautifully meandering along the property, and it’s nice to have that backdrop to the meandering conversations you will inevitably enter into with Chuck and his helpers. Friendly and informative, they are the type of people you’ll feel, once you’ve met them, that it is possible you’ve known them for years.

Call or email for reservations, and be sure to tell them if you have a big rig or a trailer so you can get alternative directions to get there — there are several covered bridges in the neighborhood, that any mapping/gps service will send you to, but trailers and big rigs are not allowed to use them, and/or are physically incapable of using. But they are quite charming.

   
 We found the campground and the Mills’s hosting service totally by chance, and it was a positive serendipitous intersection. We thank you both, Chuck and Laura, and we hope to see you again one day. 

  
As I write this, we have arrived in Lakawanna State Park in Pennsylvania for our next two nights. Here’s our campsite setup (below). We are not planning on having to drive anywhere, so we’re leaving the Roomba hooked to the car. Had a cold dinner that we picked up at the Market Basket near Swanzey yesterday: fried chicken fingers, broccoli salad, and potato chips. And there might have been a beer or some wine involved, too . . .  it is so nice to have the 12volt fridge that runs off the solar panels while we’re underway, so all stays chilled even though the Roomba got to about 90 degrees inside in transit on this hot, 84 degree day. 

Happy campers doesn’t even come close.