Lehman’s Lakeside RV Resort in Marengo, Ill., was the first stop of our 2015 West Trip. It was just west of Chicago with easy access off the freeway, so it was a great place to overnight on a stop over. We ran into some heavy traffic in the Chicago area–partly because we forgot about the time change and rather than avoiding rush-hour, we essentially hit is square on–and we knew we wouldn’t make it to the campground before the office closed at 8 p.m. After touching base by phone with the office staff (the owners who have been running the campground since the 1970s!), they very kindly offered to wait until we arrived at 8:15.
Sites:
Overall we thought the campground was a nice quiet spot in the country. The campground offers both permanent and short-term sites. The pull-through sites where we were located did have some slope to them, so I had to do some leveling. The main problem we had with our site was the location of the sewer connection: It was so far forward on the site that I only had two options: Either pull the camper up further in the site and unhook, parking the van behind the camper, or stay hooked (as I wanted since we were just staying one night) and in the morning before pulling out, pull the camper up and dump. I chose the later so I did not have to unhook. (If our next campground stop had been full hook-up, I wouldn’t have worried about dumping after a one-night stay, but I wanted to keep the tanks empty for the next stop.)
Bathrooms:
The bathrooms (which are attached to the office building) were relatively new and updated:
Amenities:
The campground offered a fantastic play area for the kids.
It also had a beautiful lake for recreation.
And the main office building also housed nice laundry facilities.
Our assessment is that we would stay here again as a stopping point on the other side of Chicago. However, driving through/around Chicago was so bad due to the traffic that if/when we have to go that way again, we may do what a friend (who routinely drives West) does and drive up and through Michigan to avoid Chicago entirely. 🙂
Date of stay: 6/26/15
Cost: $48 (cash; credit was $4 more) minus $4.80 Good Sam discount = $43.20
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