We had such a great time at Mountain Lake Campground last year, spending the Fourth of July with them and enjoying their exclusive campers only fireworks display that we just had to go again this year. Not to mention, Santa’s Village. We did however have an unforeseen challenge this year as Linda broke her foot and had to have surgery just weeks before our trip was to start. After consulting the doctor we planned to still go and just see how things went.
Needless to say hiking was out and I apologize for the lack of hiking videos from this trip but there were a couple things we didn’t get around to last year in this location. If you can’t hike up a mountain why not drive up it? That’s exactly what we did. We drove up the twisting road (some of it unpaved) to the 6,288 foot summit sometimes feeling we were mere inches from the cliffs. It wasn’t the clearest day but we did get to experience driving through a cloud.
On the back into town we found a park with some retired train engines and rail cars. Ryan got to get up close and personal with them naming the different cars as we walked by. This one’s a box car, that one’s a caboose.
We really enjoy Mountain Lake Campground and some days we didn’t even leave. Aside from the waterslides, Ava, Ryan and I rented a canoe and ventured into a remote part of the lake. The water was warm and the kids spent all day swimming out to the floating dock and jumping off.
On Monday afternoon we went to Santa’s village to “preview” the park before we went on the following day. Santa’s Village has a policy that if you arrive after 3:00 and buy tickets for the following day that afternoons visit is basically free.
We went to the water park first for a couple of hours, rode a few of the smaller rides and then went on Rudy’s Rapid Transit Roller Coaster. I’m happy to say that this year everybody met the minimum height requirement. Because it was close to closing and there was literally no line to get on they let us go around continuously as long as nobody wanted to get off. I counted Sarah and Ava go around 17 times. Ryan and I went 11. A big thank you to Linda who watched us go on all these rides while she stayed in a rented scooter.
We came back the following day and did the rest of the park, riding the flume two or three times. Sarah and Ryan got their slingshots which they’ve wanted since last year. Time will tell if we’ve made a good decision buying those for them.
I must say these kids are daredevils, riding these rides with little on no fear. Now that they’re taller they can ride almost anything in this park. Ava really surprised me as she has just about enough excitement over coasters and thrill rides as Sarah does. They never will cease to amaze me.
You can see more of our adventures at Mountain Lake Campground and Santa’s Village in the video below. Stay tuned as we’re off to Nova Scotia next. Thanks for stopping by.
travelingterrells.net 