Campground management

For those of you who have not met us yet, my name is Debbie and I have been managing the campground since Sept. 2009.

My husband Dave has been taking care of the maintenance since July, 2009.

We started working for McDowell South and continued working for Ed Meadows when he bought the campground in April, 2010.

We have heard about a lot of things that were done in the past - some good and some bad - and I just felt it was time to let everyone know who we are and what we hope to do.

Dave and I run ideas by Ed and it is up to him to make the final decisions but the three of us continually try to think of ways to make Perryville Campground your favorite place to camp.

We have met and become close to a lot of the campers who come here and really enjoy talking to everyone. You can see by the pictures I posted here that we are real animal lovers and want to make your pets feel welcome here too.

We are hoping to put in a fenced dog play area in the near future so your dogs will be able to play off leash without fear of them getting away from you. I also hope to schedule group play times so if your dog likes to play with other dogs, there will be a time the dogs can be sure to find a dog playmate.

We have been trying different activities trying to find out what people enjoy doing here. It seems that the biggest hit is the music entertainment on Saturday nights so we have scheduled music every other weekend through the end of October.

Speaking of October, we have put together some fun stuff for the kids to do Halloween weekend and we're working on more ideas. So far that weekend we have a hayride, bonfire with s'mores, scavenger hunt, trick or treating and Mark Rees performing. It's sure to be a fun weekend for the whole family!

Ed has just lowered the price on the deluxe cabins for the fall and winter. Each of our 2 bedroom cabins have an electric fireplace which is wonderful for a nice, quiet, romantic getaway.

A lot of campers have enjoyed watching the ducks and guineas working on the pond and the campground. The ducks have done a wonderful job keeping the moss, algae and vegetation under control on the pond. The guineas have been very comical walking through the park eating bugs but have really kept the tick population down to a minimum.

Everyone who works here also lives here so we want Perryville Campground to be the best it can be and welcome any suggestions you may have. Ed also has a camper here and spent a lot of time in it this summer so he feels the same way we do.

Inspiration

It is such a beautiful morning! The temperature is cooler than it has been in a couple of months and there is a wonderful breeze that carries a hint of fall.

Fall is one of my favorite seasons but this year the joy I feel is tinged by a little sadness because I know that fall will bring the close of the camping season. We have really enjoyed meeting and getting to know all the campers who have stayed with us this summer and will miss them when the weather turns cold.

There is one camper who stayed with us on her way through this weekend who really stands out. She only stayed one night but the conversations I had with her will stay with me forever. The memory is so much on mind that I just have to share it with you.

She came in Saturday afternoon and needed a little help setting up so I went out to help her. Once she got settled into her site we started talking. She and her husband had always traveled together until he passed eight years ago. At that time her first thought was that she wouldn’t be able to travel without him but she enjoyed traveling and didn’t want to give it up.

She bought a Class C motor home about the size of a small school bus and started traveling with her little dog. She lives in south Texas right on the Mexico border and had been out about two months on this trip traveling to Wisconsin and Tennessee stopping to visit friends and family along the way.

This may not seem like a big deal to some people but this woman is now 78 years old and lets nothing keep her from doing the things she wants to do. How many people do you know never do things they would enjoy because of their age, fear of the unknown or the fact that they have no one to do things with? Life is what you make it and I hope I am able to follow in her footsteps. She is truly inspiring!

Summer's end

It’s hard to believe that summer is drawing to an end – especially with the temperatures being so high!

Most of the kids will be going back to school next week so parents are scurrying around getting school clothes and supplies. I’m sure things seem pretty hectic right now but in a week or two it will all become routine again.

We had the Summer Adventure Club come out the last two Fridays to enjoy the pool and the playground. Everyone got a kick out of watching them play and they looked like they were having a lot of fun!

Whenever you feel the need to take a break, feel free to come to the campground whether it is to swim for a few hours or camp for a night or two. This is a great place to get away from it all for a while.

Shon and helper

Most of you who have camped here in the last couple of months have met Shon who works hard at keeping Perryville Campground looking good. Some of you have had the good fortune of meeting Riley and Nikita, Shon and Cindy's Aussies.

Riley is quite the character and loves to ride on anything. Shon stopped by his RV one day to grab a cold soda and Riley just couldn't resist jumping on the tractor with him.

These pictures were just so cute that I had to post them!

Mark Rees Music Performance July 31, 2010

Mark Rees will be performing in the lower pavilion at the Perryville Campground on July 31st from 7-10 pm. Anyone camping that weekend will be admitted free and the public is welcome to attend for a $5.00 entry fee. Coolers with drinks and snacks are permitted.

Mark and his wife, Rita reside in Jackson, MO so he is one of our great local talents. He sings and plays acoustic guitar. Mark is mainly a solo act but when he was here in June, a couple of his friends delighted us all by singing a few songs with Mark.

Here is a bio that I took from Mark's Facebook Fan Page for those of you who aren't familiar with him:

"Mark began playing the guitar at the age of six. For many years, he played alongside his parents and sisters, but eventually helped to form "The Santa Cruz Band" which played all over Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois.

In recent years, Mark has developed a solo acoustic act that demonstrates his remarkable gift of singing, songwriting and playing the guitar. You can also find him playing / singing on most every Thursday night and Sunday morning at the Cape County Cowboy Church in Fruitland, MO.

Mark is often asked to sing originals that have quickly become church favorites, including "He Was There", "One Good Memory of Mine", and "Jesus Doesn't Live There Anymore". Mark is currently working on two CD projects, which will include many of his original songs based on people and places that Mark has come to know and love, including "My Nephew, The Soldier", "Walkin' Bob", "Grandpa's Song", "Colorado", "The Front Porch", "Red Corvette" and of course, "Little Miss Attitude". He also hopes to have a live version of his original gospel songs recorded in the near future!"

We hope to see a lot of Mark Rees fans here and make a lot of new ones on July 31st!

Visit our website for more details or give us a call at 573-547-8303 if you have any questions!

Campground Reviews

A couple of days ago I was made aware of 3 bad reviews for Perryville Campground on the internet. What I read not only surprised me but also spurred us into action.

The new owner, Ed Meadows, bought the campground right as the camping season was starting. The roads had been let go and were in terrible shape. Ed has put 14 loads of gravel on the road around the campground so far and our maintenance guys, Dave and Shon, have been working to get the roads smooth. We don’t have the roads where we want them yet but we are trying!

We have been working on the trees also since Ed took over. We have removed several dead trees and a lot of dead limbs. Yesterday I had Dave go through the campground and find every tree that had a limb that might possibly be low enough to scratch any RV. Today Dave and Shon are going through the park to remove all those limbs so no one should ever have that problem again.

As far as there being so many trees here that it is difficult to get into the sites…..we do have a lot of trees which is one of the reasons people love it here but very few have ever complained about not being able to get into a site because of them. We do get some complaints that it is difficult to get satellite reception in many of the sites but if satellite is important to you and you let us know it is, we will place you in a site where we know you can get it. Ed is working on getting cable into the campground but it is going to require a lot of work, digging and running lines so we probably won’t be able to do it until this camping season is over.

On holiday weekends we get pretty full but usually on the other days I tell people if for any reason they don’t like the site I’ve assigned to them, then pick another one and call me with the new site so I can move them in the computer.

As far as the complaint about no water pressure – this one really blew me away. We have 90 pounds of water pressure coming through the lines. All of us that stay here long term have had to put pressure regulators on our hydrants to keep from blowing our hoses. We have also not received any complaints about brown water. I wish the person who made this complaint on the internet would have told me or Dave about it so we could see if the water line to that site might have been damaged. We had almost every RV site in here rented over the 4th of July weekend and received no water complaints so I am totally stumped on this one.

Unfortunately, we are human and sometimes we forget things. We do have free Wi-Fi here for the campers but you do have to have a code to get on. Sometimes we forget to ask people if they need Wi-Fi and if you call the office after we close then we won’t get the message until the next day. I have tried to help remedy this situation by having Shon and Dave carry access codes in their wallets so they can give them to people after hours if they are stopped and asked about it.

Dave and I traveled in our RV for 2 years with his job. We came back to Missouri 3-4 times a year to visit with family and always stayed at Perryville Campground. A year ago the previous owner offered us a job and we liked it here so much that we accepted.

We do live on the campground year round and we love it here. Even though we don’t own it, we try to run it like we would if we did own it. If anyone has any problem with our campground, we want to know about it. We welcome any suggestions to make Perryville Campground a better and more enjoyable experience for everyone.

Please let us know if you have any problems while you are staying here. We try to fix any problems as soon as we are made aware of them but with over 100 sites things sometimes malfunction and we don’t realize there is a problem until it is brought to our attention.

All of us who work at Perryville Campground also live here so we want to make the campground the best it can be. It is going to take a little time but we are very excited to have an owner now who wants the same thing.

We all are more likely to take time to air complaints than compliments but in light of the 3 negative reviews, I would like to ask some of the many campers who have told us how much they enjoyed their stay at Perryville Campground to please post their thoughts at RV Park Reviews.

I have addressed several issues here but if you have any concerns or complaints, please call us at 573-547-8303 or send us an email at PerryvilleCampground@yahoo.com.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and we hope to see you soon!

Quick Update

There have been a lot of things going on at the Perryville Campground the last few months which is why I haven’t been able to post anything since January. The first and biggest thing to happen is that the campground was sold to Ed Meadows who lives in Jackson, MO. Ed has kept us hopping with doing improvements and making changes around here. Anyone who was here since last year will be impressed with how the campground looks now. Ed has moved his camper up here and spends most of his weekends and some of his weekdays and nights with us. He loves meeting and talking to all the campers and welcomes any ideas or suggestions for making Perryville Campground better. I now have control of the website and have been keeping all the upcoming events listed. Please check our website at www.PerryvilleCampground.com and click to enter the main site to see these events. We are also on Facebook so if you are too, please type in Perryville Campground to go to our page and click the “like” button to have our posts appear on your wall. I post reminders and things of interest there so you can keep up with what’s going on at the Campground. One of the most immediate things we have scheduled is for this Saturday, June 12. We have a group yard sale scheduled from 8 am to 1 pm and all campers are welcome to bring their stuff to the front of the campground and use one of our tables to sell their items. Of course, anyone in the area is very welcome to come out and shop. We are going to have lots of miscellaneous stuff at the yard sale but one of our campers has a pretty good supply of pocket knives to sell. I am going to have a few of my hand made soy candles, melts and scented critters there and the Campground will have a cooler of ice cold sodas and bottled water for sale. Time to get back to work but I will be posting more often from now on and have lots stuff to tell you!

Yard Sale

We are having a group yard sale at the front of the campground this Saturday, June 12 from 8 am to 1 pm. There will have plenty of room for all campers to bring their items up to sell. We will set up picnic tables Friday afternoon so just bring your boxes up and claim a table to sell from.

The ad has been placed in the Perryville paper so we hope to have quite a few shoppers. We already have some campsite reservations for people who are wanting to be here to shop when we start selling.

This is a great opportunity for all of us who have things we want to get rid of but never seem to get around to organizing a yard sale of our own.

Winter Update

We are so happy to have a break from the really cold temperatures. Most of the people who are living here were prepared but we did have some frozen pipes to deal with.

Right now things are pretty muddy but the temperature is great! A light jacket is all you need to sit out on the office porch swing and watch the birds and squirrels.

We are still getting a few sno-birds coming through who are stopping for the night on their way to warmer climate. I have had a great time talking to all the people from up north. The weather they have up there makes our winters seem extremely mild!