Grand Isle, VT

GRAND ISLE, VT-- July 26, 2013

Here we are in Grand Isle VT about 25 miles northwest of Burlington and about 26 miles south of the Canadian border. We expect to be here until September as  the campground is amazing and the location is pretty good for going most everywhere in Vermont and even the Adirondacks in New York  that we might want to go. We are only 96 miles from Montreal so Fran and Eli will mosey on up there for a couple of days next week.

"A" on this map is the town of Grand Isle. We are on the West (left side) of the island

We are staying here. The no vacancy sign is seldom taken down, though the campground is well less than half occupied. More on that later. A bit of serendipity in how we ended up here.

Aerial View of Champlain Adult Campground

The story began at Button Bay State Park just outside of Vergennes, VT....no actually it started on the Brudenell River way up in Prince Edward Island, Canada with my musseling buddy, George,  from Quebec. I told him we were headed to Vermont and asked him if he knew of any good campgrounds. He told me of this place on Island Pond owned by a bit of an eccentric Frenchman. If the owner didn't like you, he wouldn't let you in. If you broke the rules, which weren't always clear, he'll throw you out. You can't put a carpet or a mat down outside your rig because the owner is a grass nazi. George suggested we might want to give this Frenchman a wide berth.

Well, we packed up in PEI and headed to Button Bay State Park right on Lake Champlain outside of Vergennes, 25 miles south of Burlington. Little did we know that Vermont had had the rainiest Spring in its history. The state was a sea of mud; the corn crop all but drowned; the streams, rivers and even Lake Champlain were just below flood stage. And none of Vermont's state parks have any hookups: no water, electric or sewer. Vermonters like it that way and I thought we might like to try "dry" camping. NOT!

View of the Adirondacks in NY state from our Button Bay Campsite.

Well, we immediately got stuck in the mud when we backed into our assigned campsite. Wilbur really chewed the ground up and provided a lot of exciting entertainment as he tried to get himself out. With  much help we freed Wilbur just as the park ranger arrived. I apologized that Wilbur was wearing much of her campsite. She took it in good humor and re-assigned us to a large, private and beautiful site with a magnificent vista of the Adirondacks across the lake. Several days in we drained Wilbur's batteries so low that we couldn't even get the generator to start. Fran, bless her, googled madly until she found a work-around to get the generator started. Closely monitoring our water and battery usage and watching our black water tank (solid waste) ominously fill was not Fran's cup of tea or mine, for that matter. Our plans and reservations to spend a month in no-hookups Vermont State Parks were in definite need of amendment.

So like wagon train scouts of old, I went forth in Charlotte to scout out campsites with hookups for the next week until we were scheduled at Grand Isle State Park. The first place I found was the Bates Motel of campgrounds; a dismal, soggy swamp behind a by-the-hour motel. I told the lady at the desk that I would get back to her. Next was North Beach Campground right above a very nice beach within the city limits of Burlington. I grabbed three nights without hesitation. Things were looking up. Next, on to Mallets Bay on the lake. It was  not very appealing but I took it for a weekend. Then I figured I had better drive on up to Grand Isle and checkout our assigned campsite for the next two weeks. Good move. The park was a quagmire. Grand Isle State Park was not an option. Back to square one.

Keeler Bay campground was by the month or by the season. There was definitely an ominous aura about the place. Old, sagging trailers with rotting tires are a sure sign of a people and places on the skids. A sign for Sky.......Camp was barely legible due to the peeling paint. The pointy end of the direction arrow was peeled off entirely. I went all the way to the end of road one way and found nothing so I doubled back. At the other end I found a tiny camp of one line of trailers facing the lake.

A fellow with no shirt and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth came out of an old trailer with a rickety wooden porch addition glazed with plastic. Homey.

Can I help you. (It didn't sound like a question.)
I'm looking for a quiet place to camp.
We're pretty full up here. How big's your rig.
Thirty two feet.

He took a deep drag.

I don't think you'll fit in here. (I was beginning to think the same thing.)
Do you know of any other quiet places on the lake?
You might try Apple Island.
We really aren't looking for swimming pools and fire engine rides.
Well...there's a place just past the ferry. Go to the flashing light and turn left. Its just past the ferry. If you get to the golf course, you've gone too far.

So back into Charlotte.

The NO VACANCIES seldom comes down

Sign be damned. I was desperate. I drove in slowly. The place was luxuriant with landscaping. An alee of orange lilies flanked the entrance road. The grass was lush, emerald green and beautifully trimmed. No dandelions or clover flowers. The five units I passed were obviously permanent with decks, wooden crawl space surrounds and detailed landscaping.

Natalie and Phred's place across the way from Wilbur. Typical of the "seasonals" at Champlain

I parked where indicated and walked across the grass to the office which was really a corner of a garage. There I met a tall fellow with salt and pepper hair and a very athletic physique talking to a small bird of a women.They eyed me as I crossed the apron.

Can I help you? 

The man's English was ever so lightly inflected.

I'm looking for a place to camp for a month.

A month. You want a month?

I figured if I asked for less you'd say no.

Maybe you should try Apple Island.

We don't need swimming pools or fire engine rides. All my wife and I want is a quiet place to play Scrabble and read books.

The woman piped up. 

Give him a site.

Well, how big is your rig?

Thirty two feet. And we have a nine pound dog.

If you don't bark, the dog will be okay.

Let me call my wife and tell her what I'm doing.

If you turn right at the flag pole you'll come to the path to the lake.

Champlain Adult campground was remarkably beautiful, conscientiously maintained and, for all intents and purposes, empty. There may have been 30 units, almost all seasonal, in a campground that could have easily held three times that number.  I came back and told him we'd love a site.

He worked up the price and I told him I would bring him a check the next day or so. (No credit cards!)

As we shook hands, he introduced himself as JC. Then he said he forgot to give me the rules but for now:  "No rugs or mats. They kill the grass. No pegs in the ground."

Island Pond is in the far Northeast corner of Vermont. Grand Isle is in the far Northwest corner. It was finally obvious to me. I was  destined to meet this Frenchman.

The path to Lake Champlain

Ferry boats to and from Plattsburgh NY passing The Point

Our 10'x14' Outside Living Room

      

Wilbur at home

Two Zero Gravity Recliners and a Cocktail Table

Champlain Camp Ground was an old apple orchard

Our neighbor's Patty and Freddy. (Note the lilies)

JC's home modeled on his boyhood home in the French Alps

The nightly ritual. Watching the sun set behind the Adirondacks in New York State.

ENDNOTE: J.C. (Jean-Claude) Rancoud-Guillon is worthy of his own blog post. I have subsequently learned that there are as many stories, better, legends about him as there are about Jay Gatsby and Kaiser Sose. For now suffice it to say that he is very protective of his grass. This rainy Spring to protect the grass, he took most of his campsites out of service and put up the No Vacancy sign.  If you read the reviews, almost every reviewer praises the grass. This review partly explains the grass thing.

About a month into our stay I asked JC about the nitty-gritty of that which goes unspoken in campgrounds: the septic system. He explained that Vermont was basically solid rock with not a whole lot of topsoil on top. Deep drywalls are a non-starter and drain fields as they are know in other places also aren't practical. The "black water" from the campsites is directed into numerous septic tanks around the grounds. After the solids settle out, the effluent flows out into thousands and thousands of square feet of shallow drain fields. With solid rock below the only place for the effluent to go is up by way of transpiration through ever blade of grass, every shrub, the leaves on every tree. Hence JC's preoccupation with his grass.