Location / Name: Ellis Lakeside Campground, Ellis KS
Date: 08/24//2016 (1 night)
Ellis Lakeside Campground showed up on a Google search for campgrounds in the vicinity of about 300 miles from my prior stop on our August 2016 trip to Boise; prior stop being outside of Kansas City in Missouri. It had good reviews, so I decided to check it out. (Apologies, but I didn’t get any photos of this campground, so I’ll use a couple of “Kansas” photos until I can see what photos my wife may have.)
I discovered as I wrote this report that I had no photos of the campground, so I’ll put a couple of “Typical Kansas” photos instead.
General description of park/area:
Ellis Lakeside Campground is located in the town of Ellis Kansas – it is a city owned and operated campground. It is conveniently located just a mile or so south of I-70 a couple of blocks off of the main street through Ellis (Washington St.) The campground is situated on a small lake formed by a dam in Big Creek. The lake is only about 100’ across, but since this is fairly flat Kansas, even a small dam will form a long lake. There are about 15 or 20 sites, all of them pull-thru. The east end of the campground (past the bathhouse) is fully shaded; the sites on the west side of the bathhouse are mostly sunny. The campground is nice, and the town of Ellis is quaint and interesting. One claim to fame is that it is home to the boyhood home of Mr. Chrysler, the famed automobile manufacturer. Ellis might not be a destination, but if it is a convenient stop on your itinerary, it is certainly worth a drive around town.
General description of campground:
The campground is a convenient place to stay as you cross Kansas. The campground is clean and reasonably well-maintained for an unattended campground. It is easy to access, both the campground and the sites within it. The driveways are gravel. The picnic tables at each site are new, and there is a charcoal grill and fire pit available for each (although I think they may be shared between sites,) There is no privacy between sites, but there are large grass strips between them. The bathhouses show their age, but are “clean enough.” The gravel access road is between the sites and the lake, but there is a pier, and shore fishing seemed to be a popular activity. The site driveways empty onto one of the public streets in Ellis, so there is no access control, but since that street is a dead-end, there wasn’t much activity.
Access: There should be no problems with access in any kind of vehicle.
Site: We stayed in Site #5, a pull-thru site west of the campground. The site driveways are long enough even for a big rig and toad. Picnic table (west of the site; not easy to tell which table is for which site; I had to look at the end site to see) is in the middle of the large grassy median; you don’t just hand things out of your RV to the picnic table. I ran a 25’ extension cord to the table to power my laptop. The power/water pedestals are in every other median; two at each location – shared with the next site. Depending on the site and direction you pull in, you may have a long reach, although I THINK a 25’ cord / hose would do the trick, but check before you commit to your site/position. The driveway is pretty much level; I used a lego block but that was because I pulled to the side of the drive into a low spot.
The Sunflower is the Kansas State Wildflower
Electric: 50/30/20 amp at RV sites; none at tent sites. I used a basic analyzer/surge protector, and the 30-amp circuit passed the tests. It did not test for high/low voltage.
Water: Water connections are available at the RV campsites, shared between two sites, but with separate faucets. They share a hydrant with a single on/off, and one of the two faucet valves leaked on our pedestal, so if either I or my neighbor had wanted water on all the time, it would have been leaking all the time. Pressure seemed “good” – I would certainly have used a pressure reducer if I had connected. A 25’ hose would probably be OK unless you parked at one end or the other of the driveway rather than in the middle.
Bathhouse: The bathhouses are OK, but not a strong point. There were three or four shower stalls, each arranged differently, but the one I used was arranged well to hang my clothes/towel and keep them dry. It also had a nice set of soap dishes. There are curtains providing privacy, but not separating shower from dressing areas of each stall – some of the stalls had the shower pointing toward the dressing area, so they might get wet. The water was hot. There was a single urinal and a single toilet; the toilet stall privacy was provided by a shower curtain. Shelves were available at the sinks, but no hand soap was provided. Paper towels for drying. Cleanliness was acceptable, but barely. It is an aging building, and shows it’s age; and also shows that there is not an attendant/host taking care of the bathhouse.
Other than the dump station, there was no provision for disposal of grey water.
Sewer: No sewer at sites; but there is a dump station next to the bathhouse along 8th St. It seemed like a really strange configuration; perhaps like a small manhole cover to remove, which I didn’t do. I don’t know if it then housed a smaller fitting for your hose or not.
Cell Phone Service: Good Verizon cell service; good 4G hotspot service. They even have wifi available, which I tested a little and seemed to be OK for the sites near the bathhouse. The signal got weaker as you moved away from that central location.
Trash disposal: Dumpsters are located next to the bathhouse. No provision for recycling.
Cost: This is a city-operated campground, and they are not getting rich doing it, but it brings folks into town. $20 for a water/electric site is pretty good. Even less if you don’t need power. You can pay at town hall, or fill out a form and leave it with a check in a lock box at the corner of the campground. This is a good deal.
Supplies/Food: This campground is basically in town. It’s a small town – no Walmart – but they do have a grocery store and pretty much everything else you’d need for a household. Not sure you’d find camping specialty items as easily. There are restaurants, but most seemed closed while we were there.
T@b Note:
Missouri and Kansas were not kind to my fuel economy; 14.5 MPG for the 300 miles to Ellis from just east of Kansas City.