Salisbury Beach State Recreation Area
State Reservation Road
Salisbury, MA 01952
For our first stop in Massachusetts we went to the beach. Salisbury Beach State Reservation Area to be exact. This is a huge park with 481 sites with water and electric, which are mostly 30 amp, but there are some 50 amp sprinkled around. There is a dump station on site. The sites are paved as are the roads. Each site has paved patio attached as well. If you come here, bring lots of water hose, at least 50' and maybe an extension for your electric cord. All of the utilities are lined up in a row at the very back of the sites, and separate the rows. As such the water pressure is pretty low, so you may have to fill the water tank on the rig and use your on board water pump to get a good shower.
The beach is nice, and there is access to a bay area where dogs are allowed on leash, and the beach area as well if it after 5 PM. There is a small store/concession stand in the middle of the park that has a few camping necessities. There are no-see-ums here, which I learned early the second morning as we were outside working out. That was about 10 days ago and I am still sporting all the little red dots on my legs. The breeze's at the beach every afternoon are really refreshing though.
There is a lot of extra parking around the beach as it is a public access beach. That also means a lot of folks walking around the beach and campground area, so make sure that your stuff is secured when you are away for a length of time. If you are into boating there is also a public boat ramp connected to the campground. The location is pretty much in town, so trips to pick of supplies is fairly easy.
We paid $33 a night for the park, which isn't too bad for a campground by the beach. There are no real water views, but the beach is only a few minutes walk from your campsite. We did get Verizon signal at the campsite for the WiFi, but the antenna tower was across the bay, so signal could be a bit sketchy depending on the time of day. The restrooms are handicapped accessible, but they are a bit on the old side. We camped next to a gentleman who camp hosts at the park. There are several camp hosts, which stay from 1 to 4 weeks at a time. Since none of the sites have sewer, there is a honey wagon that will come around to pump you out for $15 if you desire.
Normandy Farms
72 West Street
Foxboro, MA 02035
This is a very highly rated park, and with many good reasons. There is an extensive list of amenities for family's and kids to keep them busy all day long. Some of them include 4 different pools, a Frisbee golf course, a bike park with hills and ramps, soccer and baseball fields, and planned activities. There is an adult lounge for hanging out and socializing, and a work out room.
They do keep a tight reign on who goes in and out though. A manned gate with keypads require you to punch in a code to get or out. Children are required to wear wrist bands at all times when in the park, and are also required to wear helmets when bike riding (very loosely monitored).
We were here over the 4th of July holiday, so the park was sold out. The sites are decent size, but Diane is always on the look out when reserving a camp site, scored an end site for us, #811. If you get an end site on the curb side there is a big grassy corner area for you to hang out on.
Now my only real gripe about the park, we paid a good price for a ?premium? site, $71 a night for week stay, came out to $499 for the week. I was dismayed to see that all the roads and sites in the park are gravel and dirt. This can make for a real dusty day when sitting outside if cars fail to observe the posted 9 mph speed limit. Three of the higher number rows, 1100 ? 1300 have concrete patios on their sites. But they are priced the same as the all dirt site that we had. About 60% of the sites are labeled ?premium?, but there are other levels of sites with 30 amp power, or just water and electric only.
Even the new sites the park is adding will be just gravel pads. Too bad. Our Verizon air card worked OK here, but I needed to raise the antenna mast to get a better signal for dependable WiFi. I imagine a lot of effort for the WiFi was sheer number of folks trying to be on line at one time. The park does have free WiFi that I did use occasionally. The restrooms are handicapped accessible and clean.
We were also about 4 miles down the road from ?Patriot Place?. That is Gillette Stadium where the New England Patriots play. They have done a good job with the stadium area though. There is a huge commercial area surrounding the stadium with lots of different stores and restaurants to choose from. On the last day in town we took in a movie at the cinema there. It was a pretty upscale movie house, and the prices reflected that too.
We ventured into Boston a few days to see the city. On the advice of Steve (Steve and Linda on the forum) we went to the Sam Adams brewery for a tour on July 4th during the day. The brewery was cool, and the samples were even better. On the advice of our tour guide we went to lunch at ?Doyle's?. Great food, and a historic location. Doyle's also runs, or is affiliated with a ?party style? tour bus that takes you around Boston. Since we were already there we took the tour. The ?party style bus? meant that your favorite beverages were allowed on the bus, and between stopping at various historic sites around Boston, the driver was blasting classic rock-n-roll on the buses audio system. It was fun, but I wouldn't recommend it for someone looking for a ?conservative, sedate? tour of Boston. We had fun though, and it lasted about 2 hours and was $25 a person. Tips are optional.
No real issues with the RV lately, things have been working pretty will. That is up until ?the great AC filter debacle?. I already made a post on it on the forum, so I won't repeat it here. But here is the link if you need a chuckle. http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,96256.msg868093/topicseen.html#new
Over all we really enjoyed Massachusetts, and next we head up into Maine. And Diane has just updated her blog with more in depth info on our stops.