Campground Review: Wilmington, OH Thousand Trails

Wilmington, OH Thousand Trails is located about 50 miles from Cincinnati and 25 miles from Dayton. Our stay here is for 13 days which is long enough to look around but also to have some down days. We’ve done plenty of both.

As is the case with all the Thousand Trails, many sites have been sold to seasonals. That means that available full hook up sites are limited. When we arrived we were told that on that Tuesday afternoon there was only one FH site available. We headed straight for it and were pleased to find that it was a nice, shady spot that suited us just fine. Some folks we met previously came in right behind us and had to pick a temporary spot and then move the next day when someone left. I take it that this kind of stuff is standard for Thousand Trails. It feels a bit unfair that people who paid a lot for their memberships in years gone by are being trumped by locals who park an RV on a desirable site and only use it on occasion.

Anyway, we were able to get a nice spot on the first try and we were happy about that. Having not had a sewer hookup the week before, we had lots of laundry to do. I think we used or little Spendide washer/dryer non-stop the first few days were were here.

Our weather has been wet but cool. A couple of days brought us hour after hour of drippy, drizzly conditions. It was more rain than anyone in a campground wants but it has kept the temperatures down in the 70′s. We’ve had the awning out and spent a lot of time sitting outside enjoying the coolness if not the rain.

Our stay here started off in an unexpected way when the camp host came to tell us that our friends who arrived right after we did were trying to reach us. He had a health issue and had to be taken by ambulance to a big hospital in Cincinnati. We ended up spending the better part of a day with them as he underwent a procedure. The end result was good and we were thankful for not only that but for the opportunity to provide support for some nice folks in their hour of need.

We made some trips to the Dayton area. One was to attend church and hear our friend Pete Vecchi minister. It was a big Sunday for him and his congregation as he presented to them the details of some big changes coming to that church. Pete brought a very good sermon and I was glad I was there to support him as a friend on that particular Sunday. Then, we returned to visit the National Museum of the Air Force. We were joined by another friend, Mary Oberer, for that visit. We enjoyed her company and we loved the museum. I can see myself returning there someday. Jackie blogged about it with lots of photos in the post prior to this one.

Independence Day was a wet one here in this part of Ohio. It pretty much grounded us through the day. Then the rain let up for a few of the evening hours. When we heard that the Wilmington fireworks display was going to happen as scheduled we decided to go. They were really good. We sat on our lawn chairs in the bed of the pickup, parked in the Kroger parking lot with hundreds of others and watched the show. The rain held off just long enough for the display to nearly finish before it started coming down again and then continued through the night.

The Thousand Trails here has three loops. I think Loop C is probably the nicest. We’ve been in Loop A and it’s pretty good. Loop B is the original campground. It’s not as desirable, specifically because it has no sewer hookups or even shower house.

I’ve had weak park WiFi here using my external WiFiRanger. It really isn’t good enough for heavy use but would do in a pinch for checking email and the like. The connect is better, of course, if you go the the park activity center and use it there.

We have a few more days here. Tomorrow we’ll go back to Wilmington to check out the start of the Clinton County Fair. We may stop off for some ice cream at J&D’s Market. It’s near the campground and they serve terrific soft serve chocolate ice cream. On Sunday we’ll attend church and then come back to the TT for a pot luck dinner and gospel singing.

While this Thousand Trails isn’t especially close to either Dayton or Cincinnati it’s close enough to serve as a base of operations for visiting those cities. If you can get a site in Loop’s A or C with full hookups you’ll enjoy the place.