Army Corps of Engineers

My family and I recently spent a wonderful weekend of camping at a Corps of Engineers campground. It was the first time I've ever camped at a Corps campground and I must say that I was mighty impressed. The campground and facilities were extremely well maintained and clean. The campground, Federal Dam Recreation Area on Leech Lake, also had recreational facilities that I'd never seen before at any campground:

• Basketball court with two hoops: one 6 footer for the kids and a 10 footer for the rest of us.
• Kids playground.
• Sand volleyball court.
• Badminton court
• Tetherball
• Horseshoe pits
• Shuffleboard

Each of the above had everything you need to play: volleyballs, horseshoes, basketballs, badminton equipment even shuffleboard stuff (not sure what it's all called). When was the last time you were at a public park that had any of the above? It was awesome and all the adults had a great time playing shuffleboard while the kids played in the playground. None of us had ever played shuffleboard so it was a good thing I had my iPhone 3G along and could Google the rules. The next house I build will have a shuffleboard court.

I only saw a few Corps of Engineer staff (a couple maintenance guys and a ranger or two) but the volunteers were out in full force. I'm not sure all what they do but I know that they help keep the place clean and one very helpful gentleman volunteer was running the office when we checked in. There were at least 3 volunteer camping rigs in a campground of about 80 campsites. That's more than I've ever seen at a US Forest Campground which are generally pretty well kept and staffed.

The only downside was that the recreation area wasn't exactly on the lake so there was no swimming beach for the kids to enjoy. To access the lake you put your boat in at one of two very nice boat ramps and then had a boat ride of about 15 minutes up the Leach River before you hit the lake. This wasn't a huge deal and the kids all want to go back again next year.

The funny thing is that we were originally going to go camping at Stony Point campground (a US Forest Service Campground and one of my all time favorites) but when we got there it was completely full. My brother suggested we try Federal Dam which is on the other side of Leach Lake about another half hour drive. I whipped out the iPhone and eventually got a number for the Corps of Engineers local office and they said they had plenty of sites. WooHoo!

It was a fantastic Labor Day weekend and we loved the campground. We will definitely be camping here again next year.