My York Camping Trip

Mike,

Were you at Strasburg RR railfanning the 12:00 train? South side of the tracks on either Black Horse Rd or Cherry Hill Rd? Tripod?

Chris

LVHR

Michael

Your reminding me of camping memories from my younger days. Some good some not so good.

Have fun.

Larry

Your a better man than I. My idea of camping is a Holiday Inn.

By "tent," I assume you are talking about one that is staked to the ground. How did you keep from having rainwater rush through the tent with you on the ground to get wet? FrankM

Sounds (and looks) like a lot of fun! 

Spence has the right idea, we share common ideas here about the Holiday Inn's.

My camping days ended many years ago.

Small world! I was on the train and thought that might be you!

Chris

LVHR

PS Looks like you had loads of fun getting that test set up! BTDT!

Yeah, the wind can be frustrating setting up a tent.  Sort of like my camping spot here at our hotel.  The #@%+%$# room service is slow!

Returned home from York last night, it was windy, cold and had some snow in the mountains heading west, but got some great buys and meet a lot of old friends, what this world needs is more Yorks.

Jack

Have fun,  Mike CT

As for the rain question, this tent is watertight, with what they call a bathtub floor. The floor comes up about 5 inches on the sides, making for no seam at the ground. I also have another tarp cut down to size under the tent

 For those thinking this is a bit off, with modern equipment, tenting can be quite comfortable.

I started going to York in 2011 and this is by far the coldest one I have ever been to.  The temperature is below average for this April, but the wind it what really makes it feel super cold.  I was walking really fast from building to building, haha. 

Went camping once when I was a kid.  Hated it.  Enlisted in the Navy for four years vs. waiting to get drafted into the Army for two years.  Clean sheets, hot showers and hot food prepared by someone else.  Could never understand sleeping on the ground voluntarily.

My idea of roughing it is no WiFi.  I had my fill of living in the great outdoors courtesy of my Uncle Sam.

It's crazy to do that to save a few bucks.

Come on Man.

Camping is not always about saving a few bucks. In can be a very enjoyable experience.

Larry

Michael, 

more power to you!  Reminds me of a winter camp out I was on in Scouts when I was about 13 or so.  We got there in the dark, and pitched our tents in a nice open area with a foot or so of snow we cleared away best we could.  It snowed overnight about 6 inches.  The scoutmasters son's tent flap blew open, and snowed on his head.  No kidding, he was still asleep when another kid showed me.  About that time, the scoutmaster from another troop  came over laughing at us.  That is when he told us the nice clearing we camped in wasn't a clearing, it was the pond!!  No fake!

Now that I am pushing 60, I have no interest in camping.  A nice warm hotel room is mighty inviting!

we've done some tent camping, trailer camping, back to tent camping, and then to rv camping.  camping is a totally different experience.  we live in central il and i drove a 31' rv to kansas city and parked it in front of truman's house.  took it to the black hills and camped in the mountains.  drove it up into mackinaw island, canada, and around to niagra falls to come back into customs via downtown detroit.  however, i still prefer a hotel...

Home for four days, Grand Canyon, Sept. 2014, cross Canyon hike.  Idea is to keep the back-pack weight 40 lbs or less.  This tent, complete with the blue ground cloth pictured, is 8 lbs. New style REI Half dome.   There are smaller tents.

Interesting story from the first time at the Canyon. September is monsoon month, we woke to a driving rain storm on hike out day.  Surprisingly, there were a lot of campers without tents, the Park Service encourages hikers to carry as little as possible. We pulled-on our rain gear, and got a lot of stares. We told them, we were from Pennsylvania, and that it rains there.  Wet is uncomfortable, especially, considering when we reached the north rim, later that day, it was 40 degrees. Brr!!   You got-a love it

Glad you started this thread. As hotels in York have become so expensive I have been considering staying on the fair grounds. All I want to do is sleep in the back of my mini van on an air matress. The electrical hook up which they provide would help in providing a light and also power for extended use of my lap top. The only thing holding me back is the bathroom situation. Not to be gross, but I need to visit the restroom at about 2 am every night. From what I can tell, there may be a bit of a walk involved. Anyone have insight in using the fair ground's facilities in the middle of the night?

Great story, Mike........and, thanks again for joining us on Thursday morning for breakfast.

Peter

with some of the fantastic train rooms and collection I have seen on this forum by a lot of the members, I bet some could have bought a diesel pusher motor home with all the comforts of home and still collected trains..

This comes up from time to time in these threads.

I cannot state which rest room has it, but there are supposedly ones that include showers.

-Dave

Don't know if it was your rig, but I saw a yellow-ish tent that looked like a small quonset hut with a covered "porch".  Looked like a nice setup, but perhaps a bit chilly.  If the temperatures had been more seasonal, I can see it being enjoyable.

Just curious - the fairgrounds rules say "no alcohol".  I can understand why they don't want a bunch of yahoos pounding beers, but do they enforce it if people are somewhat discreet and behave properly?

I think it refers to "open drinking"...I'm sure some of those RVs and campers have people in them that drink a glass of wine with dinner.

Thanks for all the replies. Friday night into Saturday was by far the coldest, but it was my best night because the wind stopped. The wind was the worst part of the trip. I was warm the whole time because I had enough blankets.

For those of you who have asked about my tent, there is a picture of it in the top post. It was $50 at Walmart, and I think it performed wonderfully. We already had an air mattress, which for me was a must!

As for the bathroom question, I know the Gold Hall (are they the one with showers?), Orange Hall (which has the showers I used), and Red Hall (which doesn't have showers) all had bathrooms open. I used the showers in Orange hall and was very happy with it (the hot water felt good every morning). As for using the bathroom during the night....you have to walk to the nearest one or get creative.

As for the alcohol question, I'd say that if you did it respectfully in your tent or camper, how would they know? I will add that the cops were driving around the campgrounds at night (and apparently during the day, according to the one I was talking to [he was talking to me about how cold it was to tent; I wasn't in trouble]), so you have to be careful with the rules, but it made me feel safer.

I keep getting asked if I would do it again, and the answer is YES. The weather this York was the worst I've seen since I joined in 2010. The cost was great, I didn't have to travel to a hotel (I hate driving on 30 through York), I had a place to rest during the meet, and it was a lot cheaper (cost me $40 since I didn't have electric; my battery lantern and car phone charger made up for that). Come to think of it, how much time do you spend in your hotel room between the meet, eating out, etc? You're really only there to sleep and shower, both of which I did at the Fairgrounds.

This trip also taught me several things about York:

-There is security and police presence, so it's safer than I ever noticed.

-Over 50% of the men do NOT wash their hands after using the bathroom (at least while I was getting ready in the morning), so wash your hands frequently!

-Prices drop as time goes on. I saw many things that were high on Thursday, decent price Friday, and a bargain on Saturday.

-Sellers on Saturday are bored, and itching to make a sale (bought half of the stuff I brought home on Saturday)

-Many sellers have more inventory than are on their table, and put it up when other stuff sells.

-People seem to go to bed (or at least get quiet) at dark, so be respectful.

This trip, I noticed that there is a security presence at all the open gates at night, in addition to the random patrols.  I find that I like staying on the grounds better than staying in hotels.  The high wind Thursday night was unpleasant due to the noise, but when I stayed in hotels, there was always noise from loud talkers in the halls, kids running up and down the halls, slamming doors, etc.

Andy

in my younger days wouldn't of bothered me but today not sure I could get up in the morning and if I did you probably wouldn't want to be around me and I would be looking for somewhere else nor the next night. Glad you enjoyed yourself you made a memory you won't forget so when you get the age of a few of us you can look back and say man I remember when or I sure miss those days lol. I have a few Glad you where able to do it for your self. I still will be making it there to York but think it will be about 5 years yet and probably in a motor home or a motel. 

For anyone with an RV, there were plenty of full service (water, sewage, electricity) spots open. The cost is $40 for the entire meet. You can stay on Tuesday night but have to be next to the grandstands. Tents gave the same cost.

We had to come back for a funeral Wednesday AM and got back at 7:30 Thursday. The RV chairman came by about 7:45 Friday morning and knocked at the door. He had noticed that we were gone and wanted to know if all was okay. While talking, my guest mentioned that he needed to go get his badge. The chairman told us to wait a few minutes and went to the registration building, got it, and brought it to us. 

"You guys missed yesterday and we know that you want to get into the hall at 9:00."

He was riding in an open golf cart and we were at the far corner. No windshield on the cart and temp was 28 at 5:00. Could not possibly have been more helpful.

Camping looked to me to be for the younger folks but my guest was a scoutmaster for 30+ years and said that with the proper equipment, it would be fine. He has done plenty in New Mexico, Minnestta, etc.

But he drove his RV with a jeep attached.

Thanks for the reports on camping; we followed them each day.

Nothing beats waking up outside to birds chirping, cooking breakfast in the quiet woods by the fire, ad the smell of breakfast in the open air. 

Maybe. But a warm bed, a real toilet and a shower are pretty strong contenders. To each his/her own.

Haha no, I was so busy with train related things that I never got around to hitting on girls (does that sound as bad as I think it does???)