Sunday, May 18, 2014

Alder Lake-Rocky Point Campground

     Well I spent the week deep cleaning the camper and decided I couldn't wait to take it out until next weekend. Sooo, a last minute camping trip came about. We didn't want to go to far so we headed down to Alder Lake which was about an hours drive for us from our side of Joint Base Lewis-McChord but it was worth it.


     The lake is long and shallow and quite beautiful and we were lucky enough to have decent weather for most of our time. It is a pretty clean lake that can be fished or swam in. My family enjoyed both. We chose to camp in the Rocky Point Campground which is at the end of the lake closest to Elbe, WA. It is small campground (24 sites) but each site has electric and water and although the sites are on the small side they are kept clean. There is a central outhouse that is heated and also kept very clean. The only drawback is that you are right next to Hwy 7 but to be honest we weren't really bothered by the highway unless a large group of motorcycles came by. If you decide to go try and get site 409 as it has the best view and a nice trail down to the beach.
View from our campsite




 Although the term beach is a bit of a stretch as most all of it is just huge rocks you have to climb around(probably why it was named Rocky Point). I will say that if you have small children this probably isn't the best choice as the beach itself could be pretty dangerous, there is a larger campground on the northern side of the lake where it might be a bit safer for smaller children.


My son getting his "Sheldon" on.

      Even though we did head out to go camping my oldest and I did do a little exploring and checked out the small town of Elbe, WA which was just about a mile or two down the road. This town is very small but full of some great things. The two oldest buildings here are their church and general store(both are pretty cool) and they have a railway museum and, wait for it, a railroad hotel called The Hobo Inn. Now I didn't stay in it, obviously, but the concept was pretty cool. You rent out a train car to stay in. Next the hotel they have a pizzeria that was fantastic and is also in a train car. There is also another restaurant that is in a train car, but sadly we didn't try that one out. For such a small town there was plenty to see.
Great pizza place!!

All in all we really liked the lake and the little town of Elbe and  will be making more trips back this summer!!!


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