Worst Camping Trip Yet - Woods Valley

[kimrb266]

Sorry! LONG We went to Woods Valley in San Diego County this weekend was probably our worst camping trip to date. It hasn't rained since like forever but when we decide to go camping, it decides to come down in buckets. We spent approx 4 hrs on the road which should have taken around 2 1/2 hrs. While in our traffic jam, we saw several weather related injury accidents.
 
We finally arrive at the campground, you may say that's good news, well NO! Mind you, we've been in the car forever with 3 small kids asking, "when are we going to get there", and DH and I are at each other's throats so we aren't in the best of moods. DH goes in to register and they tell him that the location that they've reserved for us doesn't have enough wattage to handle a microwave but we'd have lights and they would hook us up to an extension cord going through our site. They told him that they have an open site where we'd have no problem with power. OK, sounds good, they give us directions. What does water and dirt make, you got it, MUDD. LOTS of MUD. DH is trying to get up this MUDDY hill to get to our spot and he's spinning his wheels, going no where and almost getting stuck. I get out of the truck to find our spot was hoping he wouldn't drift towards that tree near by. I was about to call AAA card to pull him out. He finally gets free and pulls into our spot. Well, what we think is our spot anyway; there are 3 spots in one little area and there's no way we can fit without blocking one of the spots. We go back down the muddy hill to tell the people in the office that we won't fit. They proceed to tell him that a 30' motorhome can fit in there. (Our hybrid opens to 27' + our truck = over 30'). We agree to go back to our original spot.
 
Our spot is in a grassy area with only one other person camping in this section. We attempt to get to our spot which happens to be next to the main road and a water revein (sp) where frogs would croak most of the night. We again spin our wheels, almost get stuck and I want to call AAA. We eventually get to our spot and half way set up. The kids are now loving it because they are now set free and can run around, in the mud. DH and I are still cranky and short with each other and the kids. We spend the evening playing Chutes & Ladders & Candy Land. We all go to bed and about 4 am we wake up to what sounds like a fallen tree which was close by. We wake up and I look out our door to find that a 12' branch had fallen about 10' from our trailer. I feel lucky that we weren't parked where the branch had fallen. By this time, we HATE this place and don't even want to be there. I pack our lunch and off to Legoland we go. We all enjoyed ourselves and came back to camp around 5 pm. We finish our night with a fire and and went to bed.
 
It's now Sunday morning and I ask the front desk when check out is and they tell me noon, this is about 9:30. I over hear man infront of me telling the lady behind the desk that their Airstream club is going to go up to the dump station all in a row. I'm thinking we have to get going now. I run and tell DH the news and I've never seen him move so fast. We pack up and head to the dump station that is above that hill that we couldn't make on Fri (it's drier now). We find the dump station which is hard to get situated at and dump. (There's a sign there saying they know that the station isn't in the ideal location but that's the way it has to be. ) We go down the hill and off we go.
 
BTW, the office personnel knew that it was impossible to get up that muddy hill but kept sending incoming campers up it. One family backed their 30+' trailer into a tree and damaged it. They too had traveled 4+ hours with small kids and couldn't stay. DH told them about Vail Lakes which is closer to home for them and thought they may be able to stay there but they probably drove home. I felt so bad for those people.
 
We arrived home in 2 1/2 hrs and happy to be home.

[Camping Coxes]

Kim,
 
I think the weather, the traffic because of the weather, the California drivers who can't drive in the rain, all conspired to ruin your trip.
 
The fact the campground is truly a campground and not a resort, i.e. the roads are dirt, not paved and striped and all that, didn't help, and face it, we got more rain than we've seen in a long time. We've camped there and had rain overnight, very heavy rain, but it didn't wash out the roads or anything. I know the hill you're talking about, and it's a steady slope, not a steep, steep hill (hey, if I can walk up and and the kids can ride up it, it can't be that bad!
 
We've always had a great time there and the kids have been asking to go back there. Unfortunately, this bad experience has tainted your idea of the campground forever.
 
You also need to remember towing, backing in and all that with this bigger trailer is new to you guys, so it might have been more challenging than the pop-up would have been under the muddy circumstances. We've pulled in late at night and had a challenging spot to back into, not helped by other campers who had their trucks parked weird and instead of moving them, they chose to sit and be entertained as Paul made multiple attempts to back in.
 
As far as the electricity, I know Goat Meadow (the grassy camping area) didn't have electric and water hook-up until recently and was primarily an area tenters used, so maybe that's the problem. The dump station -- we deal with a water jug, so I don't know about the intricacies of using it with a trailer, but I've seen people doing it, so I know it can be done.
 
Don't give up on Woods Valley. Try it again in the early summer, when the weather is better and you can relax at the campground and just enjoy it (and get an earlier start -- you know going south anytime after 2:00 PM can be horrible!!!).

[OC Campers]

I am sorry you had such a rotten time Kim.   Just think, at least you didn't have to set up a popup in the rain.  

We have been to Woods Valley once.  It is a nice cg and the staff was very pleasant but some of the sites are so so.  When we went (Memorial day weekend) we got the last spot available.  Unfortunately, it was in the section where all the permanent campers were.  The site was beuatiful but really hard to back into.  We had only had our camper 2 months and Randy was a rookie at backing it in.  Needless to say we too were at each others throats.  
 
Maybe the Scampers will  hold a rally there and you will have a better time.
 
Jacqui

[wavery]

:-() Isn't camping fun :-()

You should try sailing sometime. :p

[dkutz]

Wow sounds like a fun weekend!  But I agree, you can't blame all of the probelms on the Campground.  The traffic was because of the rain, and so was the mud.  Less than Ideal conditions for a camping trip.  From what I have heard Woods Valley is supposed to be a nice place, and we have planned on going there in the future.

My first PU trip ever was this year.  We went to Pinezanita near Julian.  I spent the weekend getting the chicken pox, and running a fever.  Started to rain saturday night,  we woke up sunday morning to snow.  Which was beautiful but not fun to fold a trailer in on your first PU trip, with the chicken pox and three kids to deal with.  Then had to go home and open everything up and dry it out for two days.  I didn't hold it against the campground, or hate my new trailer because of it, its just bad luck.

Hopefully you will have a better experience next time.

[kimrb266]

I have to admit that the rain caused most of the problems but we didn't find it as advertised.  They state that they have a playground (swing set), volleyball net (across the revein) with bent poles - away from camping, zoo (poor animals where in a corner where you'd have to know they were there to see them and their conditions weren't to our standards by any means.  They state that you will have fun there and we couldn't see this being true.  The kids couldn't ride their bikes even if we brought them because of the hills and lack of flat road.  We looked around the campground and found it to be large and 3/4 full.  I actually didn't mind staying in the grassy area, I enjoyed seeing the greenry.

We have stayed at campgrounds and not resorts before and we just didn't care for it.
 
We too didn't like the fact that they knew that the road wasn't able to be driven on and still sent new arrivals up it only for people to leave the campground.    
 
Every campground can't please everyone and this place wasn't for us.
 
I just posted to tell the story of our bad weekend.