Coles Creek COE at Carlyle Lake

May 18 - 22, 2015

Mar-E & Colt had the first extended trip (4 nights) down to Coles Creek COE at Carlyle Lake in southern Illinois. It was a learning trip on full-hookups. Full hookups are awesome! No major problems, except for the furnace. The temps dropped to 40-50 at night and once the furnace turned off, it would not turn on again even thought it never reached the set temperature. One more thing for the warranty list. Also found a crack on the inside of a window, so it's not from a rock.

May, obviously, is not the time to try to find a space heater, but I found a plumbing / HVAC home store in Carlyle that had a few in stock. Good price at just $20 and really got Colt nice and cozy for the nights.

Found this 8" turtle crossing the road behind the campground loop.

Found it again in the grass about 15 minutes later. He travelled about 10 yards. Saw it everyday around the site. I decided to name him Michaelangelo.

View of the cove from my site. One site was between my site and the cove. There were only 5 sites with campers out of 35. The rest had reserved signs starting on May 21st for the Memorial Day weekend.

Zorro just checking things out. He's a mellow soul. Good camp dog. Good boy!

View from the campground across the cove to the beach.

Different turtle, but he was splashing up a storm.

Great blue herons were plentiful. Also a variety of other birds such as cardinals, finches, orioles, sparrows, and swallows. One very noisy bird that I never did get a look at, but it's call was 3 short beeps that had the same pitch (tone?) as a smoke alarm.

Zorro on the dog beach. A sign said they are trying the dog beach for the first time and will determine at the end of the summer if it will be continued next year. The other half of the beach is for people.

Look back at the 3 campgrounds from the beach side of the cove. My loop is on the left. The other two do not have full hookups. The loop on the far right can be reserved for groups.