Our sandy site
We have been staying at
Lamb City Campground in Phillipston MA for over 3 months, so it is time for a review.
We like this campground and it has been a good location for us this summer – about an hour from Boston, an hour from Springfield, an hour from my softball field, an hour from Worcester and only 25 minutes from the wonderful cabin in the woods owned by Jett’s brother Ray and his talented wife Kim. We have used the proximity to the cabin to visit often.
But this is not a review of the cabin; it is a review of the campground.
The is the most “weekend” place that we have stayed at for an entire season. Seasonal campgrounds tend to attract long-term campers, but this campground seems to be about 90% families who are in residence only on weekends. During the week the place is a ghost town. I walk the dog on weekday mornings and see not a single living soul. At night it gets downright spooky. It is us and the mosquitos.
The campground has a pond and LOTS of trees. And the summer has been very wet. So, yes, there are mosquitos. But they mostly keep to the heavily wooded areas, though a few have found their way into the RV.
We have a site very close to the pond. If you stand outside and peer carefully between the RVs across the way, you can see a bit of it. We are a short walk from the firepit where communal campfires burn each weekend night. On the 4th of July weekend a live band set up near the firepit and there was dancing in the street. We didn’t join in and neither did many others – there were about 20 people there at 10pm.
Which is another aspect of Lamb City which is less than endearing: it is very kid-oriented and not very adult-oriented. There are planned activities each weekend, but they are mostly for kids: crafts, face-painting, races, fire engine rides. Each Saturday night there is an adult activity – usually a dance or karaoke – which is poorly attended. It is not a friendly place. Most families, when they visit on weekends, bring their own friends and do not look for friends in the campground. I have met a handful of neighbors, but have not been invited to share so much as a beer. Jett has met no one. So… a lonely place.
Our campsite is large, with plenty of room for both the truck and the “summer rat” – the 2009 Ford Focus that we bought to use for the summer. It is a full hookup site, with water, electric and sewer. It also has cable TV which is pretty basic – about 30 channels, of which we use maybe 10. It also, for cable, has terrible reception. All of the local channels and some of the cable channels can usually not be watched on the living room television because the picture is so fuzzy. If I were to give the cable a grade it would be D.
Rusty in his sandbox
The biggest problem with the site: the sand. Apparently a tree was removed before we arrived, which left a hole in the ground. The hole was filled and then the entire site was covered in sand. Not gravel, like many other sites, but sand. We had great difficulty getting the RV positioned because it sank into the sand. It was like parking the RV on the beach. Worse, the sand is tracked into the RV every time we enter. We have swept about a bushel of sand out of the RV this summer. Not pleasant at all.
We put down a second outdoor carpet and that helped, but it hasn’t eliminated the problem. We have already told the office staff that if we return next year we will want gravel put over the sand.
The facilities? Well, the camp store is large and quite nice. We haven’t used it a lot because a shopping center is nearby, but it has just about everything a camper would need. There is a large activity hall which is… functional. No effort was expended to make it attractive. There is also a small activity hall, public restrooms with showers, a very small but decent laundry room and a playground that the kids seem to like, as well as a beach volleyball court, shuffleboard courts, two swimming pools and several horseshoe pits. The pond is used for boating and fishing (catch-and-release) but no swimming. There is a path around the pond – about a mile in length – that Rusty enjoyed the one time we traversed it.
So, bottom line: adequate, lonely, sandy. And, perhaps most importantly, affordable. The entire season here cost us just $2750. Any other option in the Boston area would run at least twice that amount. So while it isn’t perfect, it is a very good option.
Volleyball court
Playground
The pond
Main activity hall
Main pool
Laundry
One of the many park models
On the path in the woods
The bear at the pond
The pond from the north
Dusk
Red Apple Farm
Beer barn and livestock pen
New England is littered with roadside farmstands. Most are quite good, with fresh vegetables, fruits and, in some cases, homemade jellies, jams and pies. A few offer self-picking of apples, blueberries, strawberries and other fruits. Some are so good with so many products and activities that they become destinations. Red Apple Farm, in Phillipston MA, is just such a place.
Red Apple Farm has some kind of vague familial association with Lamb City Campground, our seasonal home. We were told, by an employee at Red Apple, who really wasn’t too sure, that perhaps the owner of Red Apple was the son of the owner of Lamb City. What is absolutely indisputable, though, is that they are adjacent to each other and Lamb City prominently advertises Red Apple in its literature and runs hayrides through the connecting fields so that campers can shop at Red Apple. It is certainly a cozy relationship.
I visited Red Apple four times this summer. The first visit was a brief lets-see-what-they’ve-got visit with Jett. It was pre-July 4th so it wasn’t very busy and the shelves were only partially stocked. Still, we were impressed by the variety and quality of the merchandise.
The second was a mid-summer visit with Rusty and Ray and Kim’s three neighbor kids, Connor, Riley and Levi. We walked the connecting road with Rusty leading the way. They went into the store and spent some money on fudge, to which they gave high marks. They also enjoyed the animals in the livestock pen – lots of goats plus a few ponies and steers. Finding and eating wild raspberries on the way home was a bonus.
Red Apple General Store
Jellies and jams
The third visit was on Labor Day with Jett and her sister Sybil. Our intent was to get a meal (they have a BBQ shack) and a beer (from the beer barn). However, both closed at 4pm, which was the precise time that we arrived. So we were forced to switch to Plan B – dinner and drinks at the King Phillip Restaurant (to be reviewed soon) which we enjoyed very much. I got a beer at the beer barn before we departed. But I was disappointed to find that no beer is actually brewed there and the offerings, while interesting, were limited. The whole visit was a bit of a downer, but King Phillip saved the day.
The fourth visit was just a couple of weeks ago, with my wonderful granddaughter Lili. She was not impressed by the merchandise in the store but enjoyed picking a bag of apples which were ripe.
Four visits, four pleasant days. If you get to Phillipston, check out the Red Apple Farm. Recommended.
Tree with – what else? – red apples
Picking wild berries