Vermont - Moose River CG Write-ups
August 21, 2006
The campground is fairly small and right on the Moose River. The pull-thru sites are in the middle of the campground with all back-in sites on the other three sides. The office is a cute wooden building with a large front porch and different color wood rocking chairs. There are moose statues everywhere. They have a total of 48 sites, the pull-thru sites are so large we could fit three motor homes back-to-back and three to the side. The sites are side-by-side with another motor home next to the driver’s side, but the passenger’s side is some 30 to 35 feet away from the next site. Our site, #25 has a flower garden outside our door. Back-in sites look small but Mary the owner, said they can fit up to a 40-footer in several of them. The roads are fine gravel with thick green grass everywhere else and flower gardens everywhere else. There is one huge firepit near a pavilion with benches and chairs around it. They have a lot of activities going on during the summer, unfortunately, nothing these two days. The owners, Mary and Gary Lunderville are very friendly and helpful. The Moose River runs right around the campground and is a deep rushing river. One guy next to us said it was rushing just as fast earlier but it is a few feet higher today after all the rain yesterday. We took a ride to the Farmer’s Daughter Gift Barn Country Store and Museum. This place is a 160-year-old open post and beam barn built without the use of nails. The museum is all the tools and equipment handing on the walls. They have everything in this place. Their grocery department includes Vermont cheeses, pancakes mixes, honey and of course Vermont maple syrup. They also have an extensive selection of deerskin moccasins. We couldn’t believe all the stuff they had.
We then took a walk around the town of St. Johnsbury, VT. The town must have been established in the late 1800’s. All the buildings are very old brick construction. The town is very busy and there are various shops, restaurants and stores. The old train station is now the visitor center but at one time been a major station because there are several tracks leading in and out of town. We walked into one small store where the couple who own it were from France and moved here in 1939. I think they had the store since then also and are still here running it. The guy is 95 years old and his wife is 83. Jack bought a newspaper there and the guy just opened a wooden drawer and made change, not even a cash register. I walked around the store and some of the stuff looked like it hadn’t been touched since 1939. We then drove to the Maple Grove Farms of Vermont where there is a small maple museum on the process of syrup. They also give tours, but we were too late for it. We came back to the motor home and sat outside for a while.
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September 9, 2009
Our site at the campground is the first site in the middle (pull-thru site) so our “yard” is probably 100 feet wide. The sites for the pull-thru sites are very long and they could fit three motor homes in each. Sites are shared so we have a neighbor right next to us on the driver’s side. All the pull-thru sites are the same. The back-in sites are not shared and nice along the river. We enjoyed the days of playing bingo, walking round the campground talking to neighbors and taking day trips around the area. You can really get your exercise walking uptown to downtown and I do mean DOWNtown. The streets are really steep. We walked up the hills to uptown where the homes are really nice old style Victorian. Most of the shops are in the downtown area that is in the 1800’s.
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August 11, 2011
We stay in Moose River Campground in St. Johnsbury that is surrounded by the Moose River with sites that are long enough for three motor homes and really nice people. From here we travel around Vermont and the White Mountain area. The campground has something going on almost every weekend and there are four places I can play bingo.
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July 26, 2013
We are now in St. Johnsbury, Vermont in the White Mountains for the next three weeks. Weather here has been good with temperatures in the high 80’s but going down into the 60’s at night. We still have had some rain but no severe storms. Last weekend the campground had a “Turkey on a Stick” potluck dinner. Never had turkey on a stick. Well neither have we. They actually put aluminum foil on a stick and hammer it into the ground. They then put aluminum foil all around the bottom of the stick and charcoal on top of that and lit the charcoal. They then put a whole turkey on the stick and cover the whole thing with a large metal barrel. On top of this they put aluminum foil and charcoal and let it all cook for three hours. The turkey was cooked all the way through and good and juicy. This weekend they are supposed to have water wars with super soakers, but it is raining now so it may be postponed or maybe not, hey, you’re only going to get wet anyway. We haven’t done much sightseeing, but I have been playing bingo at several locations and as of today am only down about $30. Not bad. We did take a ride up the road to the Farmer’s Daughter. This is a large barn that had all kinds of stuff piled up inside that took hours to see it all but was sold and now sells ice cream, cheese, and fudge but the other “stuff” is all well organized and on shelves and looks like the usual stuff in every other tourist stop. What a disappointment. My neighbor across the road who is a seasonal resident, has taken up the art of rock painting. She painted a small stone with a cat for me and a larger rock in the shape of a heart for our garden.
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July 22, 2014
We spent a month in St. Johnsbury, VT on the Moose River. We've seen most of the things around here so we spent most of our time talking to our neighbors, playing games, playing bingo and just enjoying the days. Each weekend the campground would have something going on like Christmas in July, Turkey on a Stick potluck and a Hawaiian pig roast. We really enjoyed watching campers come and go and one pop-up was really cool. The couple have traveled extensively and painted their pop-up themselves. One side is their condo with bricks and all. The other side is painted with an old car with them inside and signs along the road for Burma Shave. There are old cars driving to a drive-in. He painted the sign for the drive-in and the entrance with each car identified. The front he painted a scene from Alaska and New Zealand that's a waterfall. The rear has 24 airplanes in the picture of Snoopy fighting the Red Baron and there is a wooden Snoopy sitting on the roof. It is so cool looking.
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July 18, 2015
We have spent over a month here at the Moose River Campground in St. Johnsbury, Vermont and have left to continue into Maine. The time has really flown by and I am sad to leave. We have met a wonderful couple, Jane and Greg, who soon became best of friends. We taught them how to play Pegs & Jokers and now love it as much as we do. Jane and I have had a ball beating them (actually they won more times than we did, but it was still fun). Jane and I have become new best friends and just clicked. Jane's a walker and she soon got me walking two to three miles a day on trails around town. We also spent days together sightseeing, touring and doing our own survey on "who has the best maple creemies (maple ice cream, yummy). Most days we laughed so hard our sides hurt. Thanks guys for the great food and loads of laughs. We will miss you both and I will definitely miss my NBF, but we are looking forward to seeing you again in Florida.
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July 18, 2016
We are now in St. Johnsbury, Vermont and will be here for a month. It is like coming home when we pull in because we now know most of the seasonal campers and the owners.
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We are enjoying the weekend activities and just enjoying the cooler weather. The past weekend the campground celebrated Christmas in July with gift exchange, a visit from Santa Clause and an auction. The auction was so much fun. When you bought an item you were given a ticket and at the end of the auction, all the money was divided into several envelopes and tickets were drawn to win it. All the items for auction were things people had and didn’t want anymore. Some stuff was good, some not so good. I got a cheese board, puzzle books and candy. Gary, the campground owner bid $25 and won two plastic Christmas lawn ornaments and afterwards the woman who brought them said “do you want to know the story behind them?” Of course everyone said YES. She drove by a yard sale that day and picked them up out of a box marked “take for free”....I think the town of St. Johnsbury three miles away, could hear the laughter. Camping here is fun. We have enjoyed the weekend activities at the campground and I have been playing bingo and winning a little more than paying out which makes me pretty happy.
July 2016
The campground has three cats and the second day after we arrived, the all-white one named Sweetie Pie came over for her scratching. She comes every day to be scratched and even sits outside the motor home and meows for Jack to come out if he's not sitting outside. It's so funny and Mary, the owner, is amazed.
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Oh, one big change. We decided the time has come to stay in one place for the summer months and to sell our motor home and purchase a fifth-wheel, becoming “seasonal” campers here in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. So, two days after we arrived here, we put the “For Sale” sign in the window and it sold. Not only did we sell the motor home but we sold the car with it. It was very tough for me to do but the time was right and I really like this place and people here. We sold it to a really nice couple from Vermont and spent several days teaching them about the motor home and car. But the best part is they weren't retiring until June, next year, so they were willing to wait until October to take possession. We could continue our summer travels back to Florida. What could be better than that! Now, the work begins. We had to find a storage unit to put those items we have that will be going into a new fifth-wheel we had planned to buy. We were going to purchase one from a place in Vermont so why take everything back to Florida only to bring it all back up to Vermont. It still amazes us just how much stuff we put in this motor home. So, for the next few weeks, we found a storage place just up the road and took the last unit they had. What a break! We spent several days putting stuff in that storage unit before leaving for Florida.
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Pot Luck Hawaiian Lau-al
August 11, 2011
Tonight, the campground is having a potluck Hawaiian Lau Al and we have to bring a dish but didn’t have anything here so we headed into town to the Farmer’s Market to see what they had. We ended up getting all kinds of fresh vegetables for a large salad. Now we had to get a large bowl because I didn’t bring one. The Lau al started at 5 PM so I grabbed my salad, dishes, silverware and drinks and headed over to the roast. The campground roasted a pig and boy did it smell good. The pork was excellent and there was lots of it.
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July 26, 2013
The campground had a Hawaiian Pig Roast one night. Our neighbors, Cathy and Al from Ocala, joined us and we were able to talk with them for a little while. This time Mary called the tables randomly and we were the last table up. Needless to say some dishes were empty but we still had enough to eat and there were plenty of desserts. The pork was really good as was most of the other food. Afterwards they had a singer that sounded like Johnny Cash.
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July 2014
Hawaiian Pig Roast Pot Luck - One weekend the campground had a Hawaiian Pig Roast pot luck. They started cooking the 90 pound pig at 10 am in their large roaster. By 5 PM the pig was perfectly done and boy was it delicious. The campground decorated around the place with all kinds of Hawaiian stuff. We even had a picture taken of us in our Hawaiian dress. Ha, Ha. The food everyone brought was just as good as the pig and they had so much left, they were giving pork away to everyone to take home. They also had a country band performing late into the night that were pretty good and a huge bond fire.
Hurricane Damages
August 28, 2011 - Hurricane Irene
Hurricane Irene came upon us today. We had rain, rain and more rain. We stayed inside all day and made several calls to family and friends to see how they got through it. Jack went out around 10 PM when the rain slowed down just to check the level of the river in back of us. It was still well below the banks and we were high and dry. The winds didn’t hit us until 2 AM but they weren’t bad at all; the motor home didn’t even rock. In fact, the electric didn’t even go out. In the morning the sun was shining and everything was quiet. We walked around the campground and took pictures of the river overflowing its banks. Yep, the river is now over its banks in the lower areas and is now covering the fire pits on those sites. It is really flowing fast and seems to be rising by the hour. It still has a few feet to go before it is over the banks on the higher ground and we are high and dry. The TV reports say there is extensive flooding all over Vermont and that the state has the worst damage. There were three covered bridges destroyed, hundreds of road closings (some 260 of them), over 100 schools closed today and all the government offices are closed. Brattleboro, Vermont, about two hours south from here, received the worst damage with lots of flooding and 23 deaths. We drove into White River Junction, Vermont to check out the Quechee Gorge and Village. The shops were fine but the Quechee covered bridge down the road is sitting in the middle of the river with no roads on either side, they had been washed away. Buildings along the river were flooded and in some cases, walls were gone. We then drove into Woodstock, Vermont seeing all kinds of dump trucks along the way and when we got into town we saw the National Guard distributing water. The hurricane wiped out the town’s water system and they say it would be at least two months to restore. In the middle of town there were tables set up with food, water and other goods for the town’s residents. Some of the stores were open but all the restaurants were closed. Route 4 going into New York is closed from here to Rutland, Vermont. When we came back into the campground, we heard on the radio the rains that just started will produce another 4 to 6 inches; it is not needed.
Moose Plop Bingo
August 10, 2013
No, not a moose but a cow. One weekend the campground played Moose Plop Bingo with a cow. To play you buy a “plot” or “square” for $5 and if the moose or actually cow, plops in that square you get half the proceeds. The other half goes to a local animal shelter. Gary and gang set up the “bingo board” on the grass in front of the pavilion and at noon a truck brought in the cow and let her out onto the bingo board. They also wanted people to dress Kentucky Derby style and set up tents with finger food to compete for prizes. They also allowed “cheating”. You buy a bag of food for $5 to entice the cow to move where you wanted her to be. After 2-1/2 hours the cow finally plopped on square 93 spilling over onto 92 and guess who had 92...That’s right, me. I received ¼ of the proceeds because no one bought 93. I got $85 and the shelter got $300 and that was after giving me the $85. I donated some back.
July 2014
Christmas in July The campground had Christmas in July but we don't have any Christmas stuff, so we had Halloween in July that went over really big. We didn't win any prizes but sure had fun hearing all the comments and I think Mary put a picture on their Facebook website.
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July 25, 2015
The campground celebrated Christmas in July. A few rigs decorated for Christmas, but we don't carry Christmas stuff so we decorated in Halloween in July getting some neat comments. The campground decorated around the entrance and put lights on the large pine tree making it look really pretty and even had a Moose tree topper. We were visited by Santa Clause riding in on a motorcycle. At night a three piece band played and everyone enjoyed the music around a huge bonfire.
July 2014
Turkey on a Stick Potluck - We also had one weekend where we had Turkey on a Stick potluck. The cooking process for the turkey is really interesting. Wood sticks are put into the ground, wrapped in aluminum foil and the turkey is put over the stick. The turkey and stick is then covered by a round drum and charcoal is put on top and around the bottom to seal in the heat. Two hours later the turkey is completely and perfectly done. Everyone brought something for pot luck and enjoyed the evening.
Frozen T-Shirt Contest at our campground
St. Johnsbury, Vermont - August 1, 2015
The campground had a frozen T-shirt contest. I went down with my camera to see what was going on. It wasn't what you would think. Three guys, Roy an older guy and two young boys were given a block of ice with a t-shirt inside. Each had been put in a container of water and frozen. They had to “thaw” the t-shirt and put it on. The three guys tried throwing them on the ground, holding them against their bodies for the warmth, blowing on them and even sitting on them. After about ten minutes the skies opened up and the rain came pouring down. Hey, they were already wet from the frozen shirts anyway so they just kept on going, rain and all. They kept trying to keep their hands warm because not only did the temperature drop but the rain was really cold. Roy won in 28 minutes and 34 seconds time then helped the others. All three had such a hard time getting the third thawed, they started banging it on the bench (which was not legal) and put all kinds of holes in it and it was new when they started. Finally all three were able to put the shirts on. Then, the sun came out and it was a beautiful day. It definitely helped to warm them up.
Campground Anniversary Celebration
July 2016
The campground celebrated their 50th anniversary and treated all residents to a free dinner. The food was really good, provided by a local restaurant (there was no way Mary was going to cook) and a cake large enough to feed all of us.
Beer Drinking Contest
July 2016
They even had a beer drinking contest in an usual way; you had to drink the entire glass of beer out of a baby bottle with nipple. No biting or squeezing allowed. What a hoot! It took the winner almost 20 minutes to finish his beer.
For years 2017 on, see our blogs
We became seasonal campers in 2017 and created two blogs for that time. To see activities during those years, see our blogs:
> Blog 1 - From Here to There - Years 2017 to 2022
> Blog 2 - From Here to There - Years 2023 on