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General Smallwood State Park (MD) June 5-7, 2009

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    Posted: 07 Jun 2009 at 12:05pm

Still staying close to home, Marilyn & I spent a weekend at Smallwood State Park, about 40 miles south of Washington, D.C. The park seems to be most popular with the fisherman.  It has a marina, several boat and jet-sky ramps and access to the Potomac River.

The camp loop can be viewed at the state DNR site:

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/southern/smallwood.html

This is not a large or crowded camp loop, as it has 15 sites plus 6 cabins. If you trust the map, you have the impression that there are just a few trees and stumps. In fact, it is lovely hardwood forest, that creates a nice shaded canopy. We stayed at site #8, a site with a steep uphill path to the site. It was chosen for its proximity to the bath house. Except for a brief struggle to get up to the level portion of the site, the trip to the park went well. The loop has a nice bath house, playground, several cabins, and boat parking. There is a foot bridge that takes you to the boat ramps. All sites have 30 amp service, but no water or sewage. There are picnic tables, fire ring and lantern post at each site. There is a dumping station at the entrance to the loop.

We used the above loop map and on-line registration to reserve our site about 2 weeks in advance. Since we prefer to travel with Ginger, our 12# Pug/Jack Russell mix, one of our first questions was “Does the park allow pets?” The answer was yes, so we booked our stay. Upon arrival at the park, we encountered “no pets” signs, and written instructions with our camping package that informed us that pets were only allowed on camp sites and that they could not be left unattended. In other words, no trails and no walks around the loop. Also, the site loop differed from the on-line map, in that it showed the four sites where pets could stay. Our site was not one of them. Fortunately, the camp host was gracious and did not mind our dog’s presence on our site or our walks around the loop.

The weather Friday was rainy most of the day, which gave us another opportunity to appreciate our R-Dome. Saturday was mostly cloudy with the sun occasionally breaking through. Sunday was beautiful. Temperatures were mild enough that we didn’t need a/c or heat during the trip. Mosquitoes were not much of a problem and the R-Dome kept most of them at bay. Unlike our earlier stay at the Hoffman Loop of Point Lookout Park, we were not in an area that was thick in vines and ivy and we preferred the hardwood trees to the pines at Point Lookout. The sites were not all occupied and our neighbors were both friendly and quiet.

Our R-Pod 173 performed well through the weekend. Our recently-added shelves worked out very well and gave us a lot of additional storage space. Our Nissan Murano easily handled the hills along the way and gave us 10.5 mpg for the 82 mile round trip.

This park is one that we would like to visit again. If you are in the area and like fishing, it may be worth checking out.

Craig & Marilyn

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