Howdy John and Susan,
Oscar Mike said:
We are going down/over to the Preserve and staying at the aforementioned campground. Does anyone have any experience at this campground?
We've been there a few times, the last about 2 years ago, and we really liked it.
I know it is basically primitive, vault toilets, no dump station, water is available.
There's a dump station near the entrance, free for campers. There's a few water fawcets around too, although not at every site. There's also trashcans around. At each campsite there's a shaded picnic table and iron fire ring/grill.
Anything to do in the area; besides hike
Lots of great hikes around. We recommend the Barber Peak loop trail, it starts right at the end of the campground and goes around the area, ~3-4 miles IIRC. You can leave right before the end of it and then (if you are reasonably mobile) do the Banshee Canyon Rings trail, it goes into a nice but short slot canyon, which you will exit by climbing through some iron rings spiked into the wall at the end (not as hard as it sounds, about 10-12 feet hight and the rings are well spaced for going up using hands and feet).
We have put up an album of that hike when we did it in 2010, see it
here; the last pic is of the Banshee Canyn Rings climb (again, it's easier than it seems in the picture).
You will then exit near the Ranger Station/Visitor Center (one of the two for the entire Mojave Preserve, the other being in Kelso), which is nicely stocked and worth a stop just to peruse the many books on the area they have at the bookshop. Right to the sides of the RSVC you can treat yourself to the very interesting, wind-sculpted rock formations that give the area its name.
On your way to the campground, you can do the very short, self-guided Nature Trail (get the leaflet in the box at the entrance) , where you will be presented some of the most common species of flora in the region.
There are lots of longer hikes too, one we didn't do would go all the way to Midhills Campground, and it's 7 miles one way, again IIRC. And there are many intermediary hikes too, both on marked trails and on hike-it-yourself ones: it's open desert, so within reason (and respecting the leave-no-traces policy) you can go anywhere and do anything.
read a good book, and/or enjoy a bottle or two of wine.
You can do that too, the campground is very quiet and we had a great time there just relaxing on the outside.
Hope that helps; If you go and take some pics, please post them somewhere and let us know, we love the area and regrettably haven't been able to go back lately... :-/
Cheers,
--
Vall And Mo.