Shenandoah Crossing RV Resort

Upon arrival we were greeted at the guard house with our site information. We were directed to our site and told to set-up and get settled in then go to the lodge to finish checking-in. The property is beautifully landscaped and well maintained. The Elite sites all have concrete pads and had a table with chairs, fire ring, and outdoor grill. The Presidential sites come with all of the previously mentioned site amenities, but also included a fenced in spa; however, these sites are not made available to Coast to Coast members. The landscaping allowed for privacy between the sites and it appeared that management purposely left sites open between guest for additional privacy.

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The site wasn’t exactly level, but our auto-level was able to handle the slope with out difficulty. The kids really enjoyed the pad because it meant they could use their scooters on the site. We also had a grassy area which was nice, but it needed mowed. Overall we were very happy with the site and were able to get settled in quickly. We then made our way to the lodge to check-in for our stay.

The drive to the lodge brought us by the general store, stables, green house, playground and mini golf areas. We were very impressed with all of the amenities that this campground had to offer. Once in the lodge check-in went smoothly. We were given information and prices regarding the amenities and were then directed to another desk for our wrist bands.

At this next part of check-in we became aware that Shenandoah Crossing RV Resort is part of Bluegreen Vacations which is a timeshare company. The nice lady who was completing our check-in informed us that if we sat through the presentation we would receive a $100 gift card and a free stay or a $175 gift card with out the stay. We decided that we needed more time to talk about it and left for the evening.

Amenities

Shenandoah Crossing has many fantastic amenities. They have many pools, an arcade, fitness center, stables, mini golf, movie theater, and more. There were so many things to do that we were only able to choose a few of them in our brief stay.

The Stables

One of the first things you see upon entering the property are the stables. The red barns with white trim and wooden pasture fences with the many beautiful horses grazing peacefully set the scene of a dreamy equine getaway.

Both Hannah and I love horses and were excited to find that they offered trail rides for her age range. The prices for the trail rides were very reasonable and they have multiple types of rides to choose from. We selected the beginner 45 minute ride as this was Hannah’s first time riding solo. She was paired up on Buttercup, a cute little palomino mare, who took very good care of her on the trail. I was given Fetch to ride as he was good buddies with Buttercup and would allow me to keep close to Hannah during the ride. All of the horses were very well behaved as we took a leisurely ride through the property.

Horses turned out on pasture with the lodge behind.

Hannah on Buttercup and Brittany on Fetch on a trail ride

Fetch and the other trail horses in the front pen.

The General Store

Directly across from the stables is the general store. It is well appointed with food basics, snacks, and gift shop merchandise, but no RV supplies.

There is also a kitchen in the general store which provides food from breakfast to dinner. We were told that they have great thin crust pizza; however, orders must be placed 30 minutes before the kitchen closes and we found the store closed randomly during our stay so we were not able to try any.

Be prepared to pay the “resort tax” as the prices in the store are very high. You can save 10% by bringing in a bag of recycling or if you shop on your check-out date.

General Store

General Store

General Store Restaurant

General Store Pools and Splash Pad

Giant Board Games

In addition to the store there is also a pool and splash pad, giant chess/checkers, movie theater, and banquet hall all located in or around the same building.

The Lodge

Through the front doors of the lodge you are greeted by a reception desk where they have guests check-in. The decor shows some of the history of the area and there is a TV information board which cycles through the amenities that you can watch while you wait.

The upper floors are hotel style private rooms that can be rented, but the basement is full of fun activities for all guests to enjoy. There we found a fully stocked arcade with lots of great games. The fitness center in located in a separate room in the arcade. This is a great set-up for parents who would like to work out, but have the kids occupied close-by. Down the hall from the arcade is the natatorium (indoor pool) which was equipped with a pool and spa. Through the glass exterior doors of the natatorium was access to another large outdoor pool.

Laundry Facilities

While we do have our own washer/dryer in the fifth wheel we often utilize the campground laundry facilities to handle our larger loads such as towels and jeans. Each campground we have been to charges around $1.50-$2.00 per wash and another $1.50-$2.00 to dry.

When I went to the laundry room at Shenandoah Crossing I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were free to use and the laundry room was kept very clean. Additionally, they had one oversized washer and dryer which allowed me to wash all of our bedding and Ruggable, machine washable, rugs. I wish that more campgrounds would offer this amenity.

Walking Trails

Another great amenity at the park were the hiking trails. They were not listed on the park map, but I had fun wandering through the different trails while walking Maya, our dalmatian puppy. The trails were easy to navigate and beginner friendly so I could even bring the kids with for some fun exploration.

Blue Green Vacations- a timeshare company

We did not know that Shenandoah Crossing was part of a timeshare company when we booked the site. When we were checking in the lady at the desk invited us to the presentation and told us that we would receive a gift card and free stay in one of their two RV resorts. We decided to talk it over before making any commitments.

We discussed going to the presentation because as a full time RV’ing family we are always looking for memberships that provide great value to us. However; both of the RV resorts were located in Virginia and as we are leaving the area a free stay would not be beneficial for us, but the $175 gift card would have covered the cost of our stay.

We were seriously considering going to the 2 hour presentation, but during our research of Shenandoah Crossing and Bluegreen Vacations we saw that there are a lot of complaints regarding the company and it was common that the incentives were never received. With all of this information we decided not to attend the presentation.

The sales team came by our site on Saturday, but we were gone for the day and only received the note when we returned. I spoke with the sales team on Sunday before we had decided not to go to the presentation and I told them I would reach back out if we wanted to schedule a time to go to the presentation. After that conversation we were not contacted further.

Shenandoah National Park

The weather was forecasted to be mostly cloudy and rainy for the duration of our stay so we chose the best day out of the forecast and headed to Shenandoah National Park. The park was a 45 minute drive from Shenandoah Crossing. Once entering the park we drove the famous Skyline Drive, stopped at many of the beautiful scenic overlooks, visited one of the parks visitor centers, and drove through a really neat tunnel.

You will be able to read more about our trip to Shenandoah National Park in an upcoming post.

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When we first arrived at Horseshoe Lakes RV Campground we checked-in at the guard house where we were given instructions on how to get to our assigned 50amp site. The drive to site 9 was fairly mild and the back-in spot was easily handled. We unhooked the truck and began our first full hook-up set-up. I auto-leveled the RV while Sam hooked up the water and electric. Shortly after we began we discover that the power wasn’t working at the pedestal. We were alerted by our Power Watchdog when it reported a voltage error. Sam retrieved the multi-meter and discovered that one of the voltage lines in the 50amp plug was not supplying any voltage.

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I called the office and the line went straight to voicemail so I headed off to the guard house. The office was also closed, but there was an after hours number provided. We were able to get a hold of a ranger who told us that he would come take a look at the issue. A few minutes later a couple of rangers arrived and determined that they would not be able to fix this issue today and that they would to move us to another site.

We had learned our first major lesson on the road: ALWAYS check the power first. We packed up everything we had set-up, hooked the truck back up, and followed the rangers us to the new site. It was a long drive with many hills and tight turns. A few places on either side of the road dropped into deep ravines or into, one of the many, lakes and ponds which were right next to the road. After a long drive through the campground we arrived at site 18. The site was a pull through, but had many large trees and one of those previously mentioned ravines to navigate around. e checked the power and were happy to find that it was good and provided 50amp service as expected.

Conclusion

We did not get to spend any time enjoying the amenities or local attractions as this was just a one night stop, but It was a nice quite night and the campground was beautiful in the morning light. Based on our limited experience we would stay at Horseshoe Lakes Campground again.

Products in this post

	Power Watchdog PWD50EPO, Bluetooth Surge Protector with Auto Shutoff, 50 Amp, Portable
	Hughes Autoformers PWD50-EPO-H, 50 Amp Spike Power Watchdog with Shut Off, Hardwired
	Hughes Autoformers PWD30-EPO, 30 Amp Spike Power Watchdog, Shut Off
	HUGHES AUTO Autoformers PWD30-EPO-H Power Watchdog Smart Bluetooth Surge Protector Plus EPO with Auto Shutoff – 30 Amp Hardwire Version

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Day One – October 25:

This is the story of our week long visit to the Lost Valley Lake Resort and RV park during the week of October 25, 2021. We have not been compensated by Lost Valley Lake in any way for this review.

Our trip was planned to begin just after lunch on Monday, October 25th. As will sometimes happen, plans changed before they even began.

Like most people who live in an RV full time, we have move day checklists. There are three stages to this checklist – T24, T12 and T0. The lists are to be checked and checked-off at the number of hours in the title; T24 is 24 hours before travel, T12 is 12 hours before travel, etc.

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We had planned to be on the road after a morning appointment on Monday. We expected to be on the road right after lunch, but got a late start and had to do almost all of T24, T12 and T0 _at_ T0. The National Weather Service was expecting a severe storm carrying tornadoes and large hail.

Since we still have our sticks and bricks, we closed the slides on the RV, went inside, and down to the basement to ride out the storm. The sky was dark by the time the weather threat had passed. As is often the case with severe weather, the system passed us without tornadoes, without hail and even without rain. Fortunately, this meant no property damage. Unfortunately, it also meant pushing T24 out to the following morning, which was already taken.

Day One – October 25

Once once on the road our first stop was to the CAT scales at Love’s Truck Stop in Strafford, Missouri. It was important to weigh our combined rig to make sure that we weren’t too heavy. We had been living in the RV for about a month at this point, and had everything that we thought we would need to carry. There are also some things that we will learn we don’t need to carry.

Our truck, which we lovingly refer to as “The Dreadnought”, weighs 9,220 pounds with the family on board and an (almost) full tank of fuel. Our combined weight with the RV on back is 22,900 pounds. With only 10,500 on the trailer axles we can add nearly another 2000 pounds of cargo to the RV before we have to upgrade the tires.

The 2022 Sabre 36BHQ comes equipped with 7000 pound axles, but only E rated tires. Upgrading to F rated tires matched to the 7000 pound axles results in a 36BHQ with c CCCW of 4150 pounds.

After a quick stop in Uranus Missouri, we headed to Lost Valley Lake.

It was another three hours to Lost Valley Lake using directions provided by RV Trip Wizard. RV Trip Wizard lets you plan your trips on a computer, and then download the trip directions to your mobile device for use in the RV. The software allows an RV owner to enter their vehicle information — length, height, etc. The software supposedly uses this information to plan routes that will accommodate that vehicle.Sometimes though, the software will route all 60+ feet of truck and fifth wheel down a dirt road barely large enough for the truck alone. We would share dash cam footage of this with you, but this footage was accidentally destroyed.

When we finally arrived at the campground it was nearly dark. By the time we got checked in and to our campsite, it was completely dark.

Parking a 42 foot trailer that is also your house can be a stressful experience. Parking a 42 foot trailer between rows of trees, and in the dark, can be downright nerve racking.

After watching me struggle with it for a few moments my new neighbor across the road came out to ask me if I would like him to move his truck. I admitted that it would make my task much easier if he happened to have his keys handy. We were nearly there with his truck in place. With it moved we were parked in very short order.

Our new neighbor introduced himself and his companion as “Chuck and Dee” before adding “Well, Charles and Dianna, but we’re not formal.” We thanked him very much for his help getting backed in and situated.

Tired from the day, we put the landing gear down, slides out, hooked up power and water, and went inside for the night.

Day Two – October 26:

After breakfast we decided to go fill the truck with fuel. We planned to do some exploring both in and out of the resort, and we had expended most of our fuel getting to the campground the night before.

The lowest price for diesel fuel was in the nearby town of Rosebud, Missouri. The Rosebud General Store is a pretty typical fuel station and convenience store, and met our needs perfectly. Unfortunately we did not have time to try Ruthie’s Family Restaurant on this trip, but we did hear that it is a good place to eat.

On returning to the campground we went to Lost Valley Lake Resort reservations office to meet the staff there. The staff was all very friendly. We had already decided to extend our stay rather than travel on Halloween. Reservations was able to extend our trip, and without changing spots. In hindsight, we got pretty lucky. More on this later.

While in the reservations office we spotted this old fashioned cigarette vending machine. These things were nearly everywhere in the long long time ago when smoking was fashionable, and less expensive.

Near the reservations office outside we found this slightly out of place piece of art.

There was no marker to identify what the statue is intended to symbolize. The piece consists of three cubes sitting on a large rock. The cubes feature wheels with eight spokes and leafy scroll work. On top of the cubes is a globe representing the Earth. On top of that is an eagle with it’s wings outstretched. Can you guess what it means?

Perhaps the Eagle is looking at the bounce pillow.

Most people are familiar with a “bounce house”. They are giant inflatable “houses” that allow people – usually children – to get inside and bounce around. Lost Valley Lake does not have a bounce house, but they do have a bounce cushion the size of a tennis court.

It’s fun for adults, too.

The bounce cushion directly next to the natatorium. We had intended to take advantage of this amenity, but didn’t find the time before the week was out. The facility looked very nice.

Adjacent to the indoor pool is a large parking lot. There is an on-site restaurant on one edge of this parking lot. Note that the restaurant is is only open on Fridays and Saturdays. Plan accordingly.

Further past the restaurant is a playground with platforms, slides and a “monkey bars”. We visited the playground briefly for some “whee” on the slides.

After “whee” on the playground we went to explore the Lake Center Expo located across the street from the playground. This is a large building which houses a movie theater that can be reserved for screenings.

The building also houses a basketball court, adjacent volleyball court, mini-golf, arcade, pool (billiards) and shuffleboard room, day spa and more.

We returned to the RV for lunch and were reviewing the details of big sister’s horseback riding lesson planned for the next day. It had not been previously mentioned that she would need lace-up shoes for the riding lesson. We decided to leave the campground again to go to Walmart as we had not packed appropriate shoes.

Before we made it to Walmart we had a detour at Hidden Oaks Pond to re-flash the truck from its previous “tow” tune. We took the short hike to the pond while waiting.

After the detour it was off to Owensville to Walmart.

We were pleasantly surprised to see t-shirts featuring messages of hope and faith available for purchase at the Owensville Walmart.

Lace-up shoes secured, we headed back to the resort.

And back to our camp site for our first campfire of the trip.

The fun would be cut short by a cranky toddler. S’mores were delayed for some of the family.

Day Three – October 27:

We took a short walk to Racoon Hideout Pond this morning. The pond is within walking distance of our camping spot. The pond is clearly marked on the resort map, along with a trail leading to the pond.

We were unable to find the trail, but did make our way down to the pond.

This pond is located in a small valley between two sections of RV parking spots, but we could not see the RVs with the leaves on the trees. It is worth the walk downhill to see the pond.

Do be careful on the path beside this pond!

While there are trash receptacles around the pond indicating that people are expected to be there, the path is quite narrow in places. No one in our party got wet, but there was a close call. Suffice to say that the path is narrow enough that a person could fall into the pond quite easily in places where the bottom is not visible.

The kids had expressed interest in returning to the bounce cushion at breakfast. We decided to do that after making it back from Racoon Hideout Pond still dry. Unfortunately, big sister fell on her arm, temporarily removing the fun from the experience.

Meanwhile, little brother saw the playground and remembered the “whee” slides from the previous day. Undeterred by the long walk, he set out across the vast parking lot desert to reach his prize.

After some fun on the playground we decided that it was time to visit one of the swim beaches located around Lost Valley Lake. We didn’t want to do any lake swimming in late October, but there was interest in beach sand.

The swim beach was what you would expect, plus goose poop. There are lots of geese at the Lost Valley Lake. Consequently, there is also lots of goose poop.

Lost Valley Lake has two large lakes on the property. This lake with the swim beaches, boat house, and all the human amenities close by, and another lake on the other side of the resort.

The other lake is definitely “off the beaten path”. We made it down the washed out gravel “road” and back again without any problems, but it might be a challenge for those who do not have off-road driving experience.

The view was worth the drive.

It was so quiet there that a person could forget there were other people anywhere nearby. The only sound was the wind through the trees.

Day Four – October 28:some

It’s raining and cold today. Luckily, Lost Valley Lake Resort has a lot of indoor activities to enjoy. Off to the Lake Center Expo!

The kids wanted to try the arcade at the Lake Center Expo. The arcade has a pinball machine, air hockey and a couple of video games. There is also a “claw” machine and a “test the strength of your punch” type game.

After a few rounds of air hockey we went to try out the mini-golf course. We played through most of the course and found the holes to be fun and challenging. Unfortunately putt-putt had to be cut short due to some bad sportsmanship from the younger players.

We perused the movies available to be viewed in the movie theater. While there were some movies suitable for children, we did not find anything that we liked enough to reserve the theater.

We returned to the RV so that little brother could nap.

Big sister and Dad made a “lava lamp” from a Tinker Crate.

Day Five – October 29:

Today is another cold and rainy day.

We took the opportunity provided by this rainy day to investigate the laundry facilities at Lost Valley Lake’s “Fort Wilderness”.

Note: Fort Wilderness is the only building on the resort which has both laundry facilities and Internet access available. Lost Valley Lake Resort definitely lives up to its name when it comes to cellular reception. Both T-Mobile and Straight Talk struggled to maintain signal at our site.

We did not have a lot of laundry, but It took much longer than we expected. The facility only had two washers and dryers, and only one dryer was working. The dryer that was working was not terribly efficient. We had to run both loads for one and a half cycles to get them dry.

The resort wifi was very good at Fort Wilderness which allowed the adults passed the time on laptops, catching up on online business and sister to get caught up on some online school work.

Big sister tried to introduce herself to some other kids who had arrived after we did. The whole exchange was terribly awkward. Kids in our Brave New World do not know how to be kids because their parents, teachers and community leaders have been teaching them to be scared of one another for more than a year. Thank you, leaders of the world for mind screwing everyone, and messing up an entire generation of kids.

Finding this in the Fort Wilderness library restored some hope for the future:

Laundry chores completed, we returned to the rig to put the now clean clothes away.

Lost Valley Lake Resort scheduled the Halloween celebration for Saturday, October 30. The time to carve pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns and decorate for Halloween is now.

Day Six – October 30:

Today is the day of many Halloween activities. There is a costume contest for the kids at noon, and trick-or-treating this afternoon at three.

The costume contest was fun for kids and adults. There were several contest categories including “best home-made costume”, “creepiest costume”, and more. The categories were split into groups by age of participants.

One adult dressed in an inflatable suit fashioned to look like the 45th President of the United States fondling a woman – a classy choice for a family event. This individual did not win a prize.

Creepiest costume went to a man dressed as a creepy clown holding a smaller creepy clown. The smaller creepy clown was a puppet controlled by the larger creepy clown. We would include a picture or video here, but it was too creepy.

Both Hannah and Adam entered the costume contest. Neither won, but both clearly enjoyed being on stage.

Back at the campsite we meet our new camping neighbors.

Husband and wife Tom and Lynn were in the spot next to ours. Their daughter Laura and her husband Scott were in the site on the other side of Tom and Lynn.

Lynn shared that their family has been coming to LVL for many years, and that Halloween is one of the bigger weeks at the park. By the end of the day, we understood what they meant.

Lost Valley Lake Resort closes the roads between sites 49-209 for trick-or-treat foot traffic. The campers in the closed off sites had gone all out with the decorating of the sites and the candy was abundant. The roadways were full of ghosts, princesses, zombies, dinosaurs, witches and more.

The children had a lot of fun and their bags quickly filled with treats.

Once we returned to our site we enjoyed our second campfire of the trip thanks to a stack of dry firewood from our very generous neighbors. Tom brought more firewood than they would use and insisted that we take some.

It was far better firewood than what we found scrounging in the woods.

Day Seven – October 21 – Halloween in Hermann!

Today is actually Halloween, but most of the campers, or at least the people occupying them, left today. It’s Sunday, so most of them are headed back to their work-a-day lives tomorrow.

Sister was supposed to have a horseback ride on Wednesday, but it was raining and cold that day. We rescheduled the lesson for today, but with multiple days of rain, the stable staff was only doing pony rides on a lead rope.

She did not seem terribly bothered by the change in plans

After the horseback ride we went to the town of Hermann, Missouri.

Hermann is a charming little town of 2500 people. Hermann appears to be supported by tourism. There are lots of little German themed Mom and Pop shops and many antique stores to patronize.

We found a neat toy shop called Blondie’s Dolls Toy Shop.

Inside Blondie’s we met Janet Melzer, one of the owners of Blondie’s. Janet explained to us that all of the toys in the store were made in Germany.

The store offered toys from Playmobile, Kaithe Kruse, Ravensburg Puzzels, Haba Games, and more. With quite a few of the play sets set up for interaction it was an immersive and fun shopping experience. Blondie’s also has an online store.

Big Sister worked on what she called a hotel/resort while we were there.

One thing we that didn’t count on was the lack of vegetarian options for lunch in Hermann.

We had planned to eat at The Tin Mill restaurant based on an online menu that we had found. On arriving at The Tin Mill we learned that the menu that had led us here was out of date. While they did offer a vegetarian bratwurst, it would have been difficult to get the kids interested in that particular offering.

Brittany called and spoke to another restaurant over the phone who said they were “pretty sure we could support a vegetarian”.

They were not.

Fernway had a black bean burger and salads. The entrees were largely flesh food.

Frustrated and hungry, we decided to cut our losses on finding a vegetarian meal in Hermann. Instead we went back to the RV for a late lunch and move day preparation.

Day Eight – November 1:

It’s move day!

It’s back to the Springfield area today after a short three hours of driving.

We do not make any stops, except at a rest area just east of Marshfield, MO.

We have an easy afternoon, and play the new Cloaked Cats game that we purchased at Blondie’s after dinner.

Our trip to Lost Valley Lake was a very good trip. We had good experiences, met great people and had a ton of fun.

With lots of amenities, great staff and great campers, Lost Valley Lake is a fantastic place. We will definitely visit again!

_{We would have liked to include aerial footage of the beautiful scenery, but were informed by resort staff that they have a strict policy prohibiting drone flight. This is unfortunate for everyone, including LVL. The fall colors in the trees would have for positively breathtaking footage.}

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