Goza's Wanderings and Wonderings: Campground Controversy, New Camp in the Woods and a CCC commentary

Location: Chenango State Park; Chenango Forks, New York

I pulled out of Junius Ponds Campground around 10:00 a.m. It was a good campground but only after a little controversy. I have a device that plugs into the electrical pedestal at the campground that indicates if the power is good or not. Good means it is wired correctly, the contacts are not corroded, it has the correct polarity and is properly grounded. It will also disconnect the power if the voltage or current gets too high or low. Many full-timers use these devices because some times the park owner may do the wiring himself after his regular "non-electrician" day job. My device is called a Surge Guard and is top of the line for such devices. Whenever I set up camp, the first thing I do is plug it into the pedestal to check the power. I have never had any problems

Good site at Junius Pond Campground

until Junius Ponds Campground. I went to the site they assigned to me and checked the power and got a read-out saying, "Reverse Polarity" and "Faulty Ground". The Surge Guard would not let electricity come through. Thinking it was the pedestal because one of the plugs looked burnt, I packed up and went back to the office to get another site. I told them about the Surge Guard and the lady was very nice and wrote down the read-out information. She said her husband would be at the campground soon and would check out the problem. She assigned me a new site which was right next to the old one. I plugged in Guard and Bingo, same message. I walked around to 2 other sites and all of them were reading the same thing. Instead of driving back to the office I just called them and told them what I found. She said her husband just showed up and would be there shortly. In the meantime, I start googling "reverse polarity" and found out that it can sometimes be very dangerous, not always, but some times. About the time I finished reading "dangerous", the husband shows up. I showed him what the Surge Guard was reading and he said, "Yep, some other guy came through here about 4 years ago with one of those things and got the same reading." I asked him what happened and he said, "after the guy let it sit for a few minutes, it started working." I told him that I had been to about 15 campgrounds in the last 8 weeks and never had this problem. He said he had a volt-meter in his truck and would show me the meter was OK. He got his meter and stuck the probes into the holes and said, "see, it's all good". I didn't see squat, so I told him all I know is what my Guard is telling me and that I would think it over about staying or leaving. He said, smart-alecy-like, "I'll tell you what, lets go check a pedestal on a different circuit." I said OK. We went to another empty site, which was much better than any of the others I had seen and we plugged the Surge Guard in. Everything came up good. I said, "I'll take this site". He called the office and they transferred me to that site. On the way back to pick up Freedom and Liberty, the guy said, "I still don't think there was anything wrong with the first sites". I said, "I don't know and I don't care, but one thing I do know is that you have two electrical circuits wired differently, one has to be wrong and my Surge Guard says the first is wrong". I think that sunk in and hopefully he will do some more checking. The new site was great with shade and perfectly level.

To get to Chenango State Park, I traveled on a two-lane road that was in great shape and not much traffic. For 35 miles it

Seneca Lake

went alongside Seneca Lake which is one of the big Finger Lakes in New York. I got a picture of the lake, with a bench (again), in Geneva which is at the north end of the lake. All along the route there is nothing but vineyards, winery's and signs saying "tasting rooms". I sure wish I liked wine cause there were plenty of choices. A little too much Boone's Farm

50 MPH, side window picture

and Mad Dog when I was a teenager ruined me from every enjoying wine. I got a good picture of the lake out my side window and was very surprised that it turned out because I was going about 50 mph.

The route took me just across the New York/Pennsylvania state line. I knew there was a Walmart in the Pennsylvania town just across the border and I planned to stop to get my prescriptions filled. Good plan, but no luck. As I approached the Walmart, the parking lot was filled with vehicles and some type of large temporary building. I didn't want to risk taking Liberty in there and getting trapped, so I just headed on without stopping. Oh well, maybe the next state will be better.

I arrived early at the Chenango State Park but they let me check in anyway. The campsite is electric only, so I had to

Filling Fresh Water Tank

stop and take on potable water before going to the site. The site is really nice with shade trees everywhere. I didn't have any problem backing in or with the electricity. This is a nice

Current Campsite at Chenango State Park

place to kick back and relax but I'll be leaving here on Sunday. I have reservations at another campground. After setting up camp, I drove around the park and had a

Golf Course Clubhouse (Cheeseburger place)

cheeseburger at the Golf Course Club House Restaurant located inside the park. It was very good. The club house was built during the CCC days and was very good stone

Number 1 Fairway

work. The park has two lakes that were glacier created. One of the lakes has a swimming area but it won't be opened until next week. I checked it out and I would imagine it will be

Golf Course, 1st 9 built by CCC

packed every weekend during the summer. The buildings around the swimming area were also CCC constructed. I checked the park information and the CCC built the first 9 holes of the golf course also.

Swimming hole in the park

I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, that even though I thought that, overall, the New Deal was a bad thing for the country, I thought the TVA was a good program. The other good program was the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corp. It

CCC building at swimming hole

was around from 1933 through 1942 during the Great Depression, the real one. The program federally employed men, ages 18 to 25 who were unemployed, unmarried and whose families were on "relief". "Relief" is now called welfare or some other fancy name. These men did manual labor on conservation projects as well as projects that developed natural resources on property owned by either the Feds, state or local governments. The men were provided shelter (tents or barracks), clothes, food and medical care. They were also paid $30.00 per month of which $25.00 must be sent to their families back home. The program solved several problems. It gave these young men a sense of worth in being able to provide an honest days work for an honest day wage. It was not perceived as charity or a hand-out because if it had been, most men of that day would not have accepted it. By feeding and clothing these men, it meant their families had more available money by not having to provide it for them. By only allowing unmarried men into the program, this freed up some jobs for married men. At the height of the program there were 500,000 men working in camps scattered across the country. Every state had some type of CCC camp. Men enlisted into the program for 6 months at a time with renewals up to a maximum of 2 years. In the 9 years that the program was active, more than 3,000,000 men learned what it meant to work. The CCC planted nearly 3 Billion trees, built more than 800 parks nationwide, upgraded almost every existing state park at that time (the park I'm in is one of those), built service buildings, fire towers, roadways through remote areas, drainage ditches and much more. The program ended when World War II began and never started back up after the war. Several states currently have state programs that are similar to the original CCC, which is very good. Perhaps this type of program is what is needed to help solve some of the problems in the country now.