Finger Lakes State Park

Heading to Mount Rushmore from Virginia; this stopover was just 10 miles or so from highway. I didn't need electrical hookup, so with veteran discount only $11. Site 27 & 28 are directly across the dumping station, but also mostly in sunlight (I have a Lithium Travato with solar, so sun is important). There are motocross trails/bikers here, but I'm only here for 1 night. The bathhouse shower was plenty warm. Great value stopover.

Our stay was Thurs., Aug. 5, 2021. We chose Finger Lakes State Park as a convenient, reasonably priced overnight stop on our way to South Dakota. It was a forested campground, not large, with sites nicely spaced. The pad was asphalt, not terribly level. We were in the first loop with 30 amp. electric. Potable water was near the dump station.

Because of Covid concerns, we used our facilities in the RV and can't rate the cleanliness of the park facilities. The park as a whole seemed clean. It could use mowing.

It should have been a clue that we could hear a distant roar of four-wheelers and that our neighbors seemed to all be towing dirt bikes or multiple four-wheelers.

The land Finger Lakes State Park is located on was originally a strip mining operation for coal. Trees were planted and the land reclaimed for a recreational area. The park is one of two Missouri state parks that serve motor-cross and off-road bike lovers.

Praise to them for reclaiming the land for a useful purpose. It's just not a sport we want to be around. To each his own. That's why we would not camp here again.

Signage to campsites is very bad, making you have to ask where & how to get to your site. People riding ATVs through campgrounds even though signs say you can't, which is very noisy. People washing ATVs at their campsite using the shared water (no water at individual sites), causing water and mud to run down into our campsite, resulting in standing water on our site. Plus, that is wasting resources and costs me in my fees to camp, because they are using the campground water to wash their vehicles, they need to set up a separate area for washing vehicles, away from campsites and charge like a car wash. Camp host allows friends to to circumvent the rules but nags others about things they haven't done (i.e. make sure your car is off the grass, which is so small it can't help but be off the grass), or why are you at the dump so long, even though no one was in line behind us. Because we needed to dump both tanks and fill our fresh tank because there's no water at any of the sites????? Camp host also allowed a big rig to drive through the camp the wrong way so he could pull in to his site front first when it clearly says they are back in, plus he drove at about 35 mph instead of 10 as posted. Our site was not level at all
Rangers are not helpful at all, and almost non-existent in the campground. Bathrooms not that clean because all the ATVers go in there and wash off all their mud. Park is supposed to have free wifi, but during our stay it only allowed us on once, and it was slow. Luckily we have our own.

If you are an ATVer this is probably for you. If not, skip this park.