Hosted by Mark Koep the Campground Views podcast brings camping to you with stories, destinations, people and adventures about the outdoors and travel. Episode 4 discusses the efforts we are undertaking to help get us all back camping and to bring our industry together. We then explore Clear Lake California and Clear Lake Campground with Lisa Wilson. (http://www.campclearlake.com/) A unique time warp located in Northern California.

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Transcript

Speaker 1:
Hello and welcome to episode four of the campground views podcast. My name is Mark Koep. Our company is Campgroundviews.com our entire purpose is to make camping amazing. We want to get the right camper in the right campground with the right equipment at the right time. We believe if we do those four things, we can take our industry to another level and make sure that people can enjoy this amazing experience or lifestyle. Yeah, for us, we’re full time RV owners. We’ve been traveling in an RV for going on 11 years and had a lot of amazing experiences and all that. Through that experience, we ended up founding this company, campground views and really looking to help connect the right campers with the right campgrounds was, I’m coming to you today. We are currently at April 28 right in the middle of this Cove in 19 crisis.

Speaker 1:
The pandemic that shut down the world and causing havoc across the economy. Unique thing is is that the camping and RV industry is, has so far escaped relatively unscathed. Now there’s campgrounds that are still closed that should have been opening right now that are, that are being delayed. But overall the industry has been lucky because the camping industry generally starts operating during the summer months, spring, summer and fall. So it hasn’t been super impacted by that. But what we’ve done is we have transitioned all of our efforts to try to help get those owners and operators of the parks the information they need to better operate their parks in a covert world. Like it or not, we expect things to materially change for travelers post coven. It could be as simple as everybody has to wear masks when you go out, which, you know, that’s a whole side conversation if you need a mass, great.

Speaker 1:
Where one don’t force me to wear one side conversation. Sorry about that. But the world’s gonna change. And so we’re trying to help park owners and operators better operate their parks in this change world. And to that end, we are doing an event, it’s called the back to camping summit. There’ll be May 11th and 12th 2020 and the entire purpose and focus of that event is to get campground owners, operators and managers. The information and strategies they’re going to need to better serve the campers. The website forward is B as in boy, T as in Tom, camping.com B T camping.com. We have created this entire experience in the last two weeks, so from conception two weeks ago to now. We currently have over 23 speakers from across the industry coming to gather and speak at this event. The event is highlighted by Toby or Rourke, the CEO of Koa who will be giving our keynote address and the sessions are led by professionals from across the industry and also owners and operators of campgrounds and RV parks.

Speaker 1:
The entire purpose of this event is to give these owners and operators insight on what you as a consumer, you as a camper are going to do when you start traveling again, what they need to do to better serve you and how those two things combining is going to affect our industry going forward. So it’s really a collaborative effort of all these folks bringing it together and providing solutions. So we’re really excited to, to be kind of spearheading this, this experience and putting it all together. I know a lot of you are probably campers and not really interested in this type of thing, but if you are interested, you’re more than welcome to attend. Simply click on the attendee registration and register. This is really good for folks who have had this idea of buying a campground or or owning their own campground. One day you can jump into this event and engage with a lot of folks.

Speaker 1:
It will be May 11th or 12th that will be the live sessions, but then access remains open all the way through May 31st so if you miss a session, you can log back in and watch a recording of it. You can peruse the different vendor areas and engage with them all the way up to May 31st so that’s the back camping summit. And again, the whole purpose of this is to reconnect and bring camping back as fast as possible. I humbly believe that one of the first industries that can recover from this post COBIT crisis is the camping industry. And it goes deeper than that. One of the things I love about the camping industry is that it’s one of the last All-American industries. It’s owned by mom and pops who own this campground as the retirement. They live there, they raise their kids there. It’s part of the fabric of their life in the fabric of their family.

Speaker 1:
And you see that if you travel around and stay at, and many private parks are, they’re family owned businesses. And that last bastion of family owned businesses that hasn’t been outsourced is this camping industry. And it’s one of the things I love and the reason I love it is it goes back to what I grew up with. My mother owned a, a business. She was an entrepreneur as a, as I was growing up and she owned a balloon and flower shop in Simi Valley, California. And she she sold balloons and flowers for gifts and weddings and all that type of stuff. And growing up as a young boy, we would help her run the business. So we would, you know, when she would do weddings, we would go and help decorate. I’m actually a really good decorator as a result of that. So I can, I can decorate a wedding and put it on and all that type of stuff.

Speaker 1:
But growing up in that small business environment, I I know and trust and love that that total experience, and I think we’re going to head into a Renaissance after this, a whole COVID crisis of folks rediscovering what it means to reconnect with family, reconnect with themselves, and actually do something that they love. So I imagine that in the American spirit, after this whole covert crisis, you’re going to see a lot of folks starting up their own thing, whatever that thing is going to be. Well, if it’s camping, we’re here to support that. And I would recommend that back to camping summit. And again, there’s scholarships free. So if you, if you’re interested in getting in for free, go to the scholarship. But more than that, start connecting and understanding whatever it is you’re trying to get into to make sure that it is going to be a fit for you.

Speaker 1:
I think that’s the biggest thing folks have discovered out of this covert thing is that if they’re not where they want to be, if they’re not doing something they absolutely love, they’re not really getting value out of it. And in your life value’s important. I love my life. I live full time on the road. I get to travel to all these amazing places. In fact, this, this Kobe crisis has been a crisis because we’ve been stuck somewhere. Nice thing is we’re stuck with my brother on his property. So it’s been a lot of fun here. But nonetheless, the inability to travel has been hard. And I look forward to traveling again, like many of you, I’m sure you’re all looking to travel again. And so through this podcast, through this experience, we’re hoping to get you excited about traveling again. Share some ideas on places that you can go. And today we talked to a park owner up in Clearlake, California. It’s North of San Francisco on a beautiful freshwater Lake. Lisa joins us to talk about her park in her area, to give you a unique spot to go discover once this COVID19 crisis is done.

Speaker 2:
Super to be here with you, Mark.

Speaker 1:
So we’re talking about Clearlake and let’s go ahead and start at the high level because clearly it’s got a really storied history and a lot of folks probably don’t even know where it’s at or what it is. So let’s start out with the basics. What is clearly, how did it get started and you know, how do people who are the best people to come to Clearlake?

Speaker 2:
Great. I’m happy to talk about Lake County, which is just about two hours from either the San Francisco Bay area or Sacramento and we are like a time warp. Actually. We are in a high Valley. We were at 1300 feet and you do have to go over a couple of mountains to get here. And I think that that remoteness makes us really appealing. We only have 65,000 people in the whole County and we have the cleanest air in the state of California. They were like with over a hundred miles of shoreline is also the state’s largest natural Lake. I’m in Clearlake, which is the city on the Lake and I’m on cache Creek, which is the only outlet of clear Lake. So a hundred miles of shoreline, this huge Lake in it. It goes out, right? Well, I, my park, my park is on cash Creek and our fishing is really on the bucket list for lots of bass fishermen. We are an ESPN top 10 bass destination. We’re also famous for catfish Derby. We have the biggest catfish Derby West of the Mississippi every year. And the wineries have really become important for our visitors here. We have over 30 wineries and for decades we’ve been growing grapes and actually Napa buys a lot of our grapes, but we’ve got a good award-winning wine program now across all of our wineries here in Lake County.

Speaker 1:
So folks, when we talk about time, more of it, it’s actually, there’s even a more storied history behind it because clear Lake it’s heyday, you know, for like building of houses and stuff like that. What was it in the fifties or sixties? I mean, is that one? Yeah. Is that where we’re going back?

Speaker 2:
Yeah, so this, our park was established in the fifties and at that time it was a resort area, lots of small cabins and cottages and you know, miniature golf and fish camps and Hart hot Springs. The heirs were very good and the people would come up to take the waters and the air’s clean air and hot water

Speaker 1:
And the Lake itself, it’s not super deep out in the middle. Right. I think it’s only like about 50 or 60 feet deep in the middle. Is that right?

Speaker 2:
That’s one of my favorite things about the Lake. The average depth is under 20 feet. We do have a couple of pockets of deep water, but in general we are considered a warm shallow Lake. And being the oldest, possibly the oldest Lake in the Northern hemisphere, we really should be a meadow. You know, the, the way that things go is that a Lake would get silted in and then become a meadow. Well, this Lake is on a trapdoor fault. So the fault is moving at the same rate that the sediment is building up. So we still have a Lake and people who are Lake enthusiasts and following that part of our scientific world. Really, I think it’s fascinating.

Speaker 1:
Yeah. Isn’t there an old cinder come kind of right in this area? Am I looking at it right? Kinda in the middle of Lake?

Speaker 2:
Yes. That is our volcano and that’s now cannot die. And it’s our biggest geographical Mmm. Touch point here in the County besides the Lake of course. So Lake County has a rich native American history as well. They thrive here. They traded with the coastal native Americans. And as a matter of fact, my park is right across the Creek from Anderson, Mar state historic park. Anderson Mar state historic park has, was created in the state park system to protect native American remains and artifacts. And they have wonderful hiking trails and you can learn about the native American history and also the European history. There’s a ranch house there and a barn and superb trails.

Speaker 1:
You know, what I like about this region of California is, is it’s kind of old school. It’s kind of, you know, it’s got all the amenities you want. There’s grocery stores and fuel and banks and you know, every, everything that you would expect. But it’s all kind of, it’s got a quiet, peaceful sense to it. Is, is that true? Pretty much year round.

Speaker 2:
I think that it’s much more quiet of course from the fall into the spring and in the summer we get a lot more boat activity in general. I think we’re a hidden gem and I think that we, they have the wineries and the hiking and people are starting to understand what a special place this is. And yeah, anybody coming from the Bay area or Sacramento will definitely like they’ve got space to breathe and sky to see. We also are a dark sky initiative County, so we are promoting and protecting our dark skies with any new development. You can still see stars here in Lake County.

Speaker 1:
All right, so now let’s get into your, your campground itself. There’s some history behind this campground. You’ve already alluded to it a little bit. Tell us about clearly campground.

Speaker 2:
So clear like campground used to be called Shaw’s JDE acres because Tom and violet Shaw established this property in the fifties and they had actually been camping here on the shores of cache Creek with the permission of the prior owner and it was raw land and they would bring their kids up from San Francisco Bay area and fish. And at a certain point they made a deal with the owner to buy the property and they put all the infrastructure in. So they put water and sewer in and electricity. And by the time my parents bought it, it was an ongoing concern. My parents bought it in 1980 and it actually was more of a residential park. We had a lot of blue collar retirees from the Bay area and it was really sweet. They would just want, you know, they just wanted to retire on the Creek and fish.

Speaker 2:
And that’s really what that was. And when I got here, things have changed a lot and I converted most of the business to camping. So it’s the perfect place for guests to come for the weekend or the week in camp, right on cash Creek. They can fish from their camp site. If they have a boat, they can launch here and half of our sites have a ramp and dock right at their camp sites so they could have their boat right at their campsite. Also. my parents bought the property in 1980. I came here in 2011 to run it with my brother. And once I got here I just recognized that it was such a gem and I had never run a campground before. So we have this association of RV park and campground owners and I’m a member. That’s our professional association. And I went to the national school of already parking campground management and I’m a graduate. So I now have an outdoor hospitality professional certificate and it’s really helped me serve our guests and maintain our park and market our park here in Lake County. I’m also part of the program called certified tourism ambassador. So I took a training to learn about hosting guests and helping you understand my resources so I can answer the questions and make sure they have a great time here at clear Lake campground. Have a great time in Lake County. We want them to tell their friends and come back. So that’s really important to us.

Speaker 1:
The park itself, what are the different site options people have available there?

Speaker 2:
Great of our sites have full hookups. So we are on city sewer, we have water and electric here and we are also on city water and we do allow tents at all sites. If we didn’t allow tents then they wouldn’t be able to go to the waterfront. And we just feel like we want to appeal to tents and trailers. So if you have a full hookup rig, then we’ve got the hookups for you. And if you have just a tent, you’re going to love camping here on the Creek. We also have a small pool. We have a shower house, a laundry, a small playground and fish cleaning station there for all the cat cleaning. I mentioned that the Lake is an ESPN top 10 bass destination, but here on cache Creek, we’re primarily famous for all the catfish that come out

Speaker 1:
Catfish. You know, we, we, we were there and I had my son and he’s, he stood out on a dock and he caught, I think he caught three catfish and I think the smallest one was about eight or nine pounds, which you can imagine for a five year old is, is a huge cat. So I think it’s tested that there’s not only other fish in the Lake, but they’re biting, which was really a lot of fun to take him to do that.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. And catfish are really easy. Nightcrawlers are there favorite thing to eat?

Speaker 1:
Yeah, definitely. So the park is open, people are, can go there. Your Facebook page, you post a lot of photos on here of of the area of, of the catch. When there’s catch going on, on the, you know, on the Lake when your guests are catching fish, he posts a lot of photos on there. It is facebook.com/camp Clearlake is the Facebook page. Folks that are interested in coming here. When is the best time to come to your park into clearly,

Speaker 2:
I love the shoulder seasons because the temperatures are a little cooler and mild and the crowds, that’s a small seat, not a big seat, haven’t haven’t come here yet. In the summer we are sold out every weekend so you should book in advance and and it’s warm and of course that’s what you’re going to want in the summer. I think that my favorite times are late spring and early fall and it’s beautiful here at the campground and there are also lots of good things to do here in Lake County. In September we have a splash in, so that’s where the planes come and land in Lake port. And we also have several big winery events throughout the year. Those are a couple of the big draws. This October we also will have our Canuck dye challenge, which is a a noncompetitive bike ride around the Lake and they have four or five different courses from 15 miles to over a hundred miles, which takes you all around the Lake. That’s fantastic.

Speaker 1:
Yeah. You know there’s great site and those shoulder seasons, cause that’s when we were there also, and I can attest a great cycling, there’s a lot of roads that kind of go along the shoreline. They’re relatively low traffic. It’s California, so people are generally bike friendly, just beautiful. Especially this 20 along that that North Eastern shoreline of the Lake is just stunning if you’re there at the right time of day.

Speaker 2:
Yes, we have lots of guests who come to Lake County as a destination. But with your current view of the map, you can see highway 20 goes across that one shore. The Northeast shore in highway 20 connects I five which is our central Valley corridor and the state of California connects it to one Oh one which is the coastal corridor on in the state of California. So we get lots of guests that are traversing either from the coast to the central Valley or from the central Valley to the coast and we’re just a 10 minute deviation off that highway 24 folks who just want to perch on their bigger trip.

Speaker 1:
It’s actually a really good stopover spot for exactly what you’re saying. If you’re going to, the redwoods are coming away from the redwoods because the thing about the one-on-one through here, especially if you’re towing, is it’s slow going. It’s not, it’s not high speed. So you know, a hundred miles is going to take you two hours easily. And so when you started looking at the time, clearly it’s actually a really good spot as a stopover destination going to and from the redwoods and the coast and so forth. So I completely agree with that. This all sounds good. Lisa, what are the rates people can expect to pay when they come? Stay at your park.

Speaker 2:
So our rates start at $45 a night and they just vary a little bit by $5 depending on the site or the season. We also have weekly rates. So if you pay for six nights, you get your seventh night free. That’s when you pay in advance. And we do offer limited extended stay rates and you should call the office to see if

Speaker 1:
We have anything available. So if you want to learn more, I’d recommend going to camp clearlake.com is that the best way to reach you, Lisa? Yes. Thank you Lisa for your time today. If you’re looking for an amazing destination to go that’s unique in California, clearly campground and clearly California is an excellent spot for you to go. Thank you Lisa. So as you saw clearly California and that clearly campground are amazing destination that you need to add onto your list. I’ve personally stayed in that area. It’s a really unique location, a little bit of a time work, but just purely beautiful. And then it connects you up to the redwoods and just, there’s just so much amazing around them. I hope you’re enjoying these podcasts. My name is Mark cap. Our company is campground views.com in our tire purposes to make camping amazing. If you like this podcast, give us a thumbs up and share it with your friends. If you didn’t like this podcast, give us a thumbs up and tell us what we can do better. You give me a thumbs down. It hurts my feelings. It makes me cry, so thumbs up are always good. You have a good day. Safe travels on Mark Koep Campgroundviews.com.