Point Lookout State Park (Maryland) October 26, 2013

The Place

There is a lot to do at Point Lookout State Park with beaches along both the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, Lake Conoy, boating, fishing, crabbing, and history all jammed together.  It is located on the point of land where the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay meet and was the site of Civil War forts, a military hospital, and prisoner of war camp. 

The park is long and skinny.  The campground is in the northern part of the park. There is a small, sweet history museum and nature center in the campground.  You have to cross a narrow causeway to get to the southern part of the park where the beaches, boat rental, fishing pier, lighthouse, and restored Civil War fort are located.  There are 2 pet areas; one adjoins a Bay-side beach where Tiki fetched and frolicked.

The Adventures

There must have been a storm prior to our arrival at the campground, because the internal part of our “loop” of campsites was flooded when we got there.  The driveways and the tent pad areas are elevated 3 feet above the surrounding land, and rose nice and dry a foot or so above the water.  Imagine each campsite as an island connected by a driveway to the road.  Yikes!  We pulled over.  We got out.  We walked the driveway.  We looked at the water on each side.  Hmmm, there’s no room for deviation.  Russ drove, Dana directed from the driveway and we backed that sucker into place.  The next day we talked to neighbors who said, “We thought you guys were experienced RVers.  You got out, scratched your chins, and then drove that thing right in.  We were glad that you weren’t here when we were trying to back our trailer in…”  In any event, we had a waterfront (and side and back) campsite at no extra charge.

Even though it is apparent that the park is laid out for cars, we decided to explore on foot.  We walked along Hwy 5 to the causeway, the Pier and Fort Lincoln, a partially restored Union Civil War fort.  A costumed guide at the fort taught us about military history and the construction of the forts on the peninsula.  It is well worth the visit, though a little hard to find.  We didn’t make it by foot to the Potomac River beaches or to the lighthouse (we drove there later) but our entire trek was still 6 miles long.  On the way back we found a cut-through path from the campgrounds to the causeway that cut about a mile off of our return trip.  Note to self – look closely at the map they give you when you sign in.

The Motor Home

We prefer to eat “in”, enjoying the taste and healthiness of home cooking. However, preparing meals in the motor home requires planning.  To begin with, the motor home kitchen is tiny.  Well, actually for the RV world ours is quite spacious, but it doesn’t have nearly the space we need to store ingredients and create a home cooked meal.  We don’t want to spend a lot of time cooking, because we want to be out exploring and enjoying where we are.  We also don’t want to create a load of dirty dishes, because everything has to be washed up by hand.  We’ve given this puzzle some thought, and on this trip we tested our “solution” and it worked!

When we cook at home we often have left overs.  Instead of saving them for another night, we froze them to be reheated later in the motor home.  So, while we were at Point Lookout, we heated up yummy spaghetti sauce loaded with eggplant, zucchini and Italian sausage.  We cooked fresh noodles to go under the sauce and sprinkled parmesan on top.  To be extra fancy, we chopped up some garlic, heated it with butter in a coffee cup in the microwave, and then spread it on sliced bread.  A feast!  Preparation time:  15 minutes.  Dirty dishes: 2 pans, 2 bowls, 2 forks, 2 spoons, 2 glasses, and 1 buttery coffee cup.