Beautiful Lake View Campgrounds in Iowa - Plus Some Route Planning Tips

Rathbun Lake, Iowa (72 blue skies, lots of pretty clouds)

We are on our way to Colorado and decided to take a different route due to the very crazy weather. Routing our trip  through Iowa and Nebraska seemed like the safest option (sorry Barry ...avoiding Kansas this time) and so far the weather has been very good. We are taking more of a back road approach this time since we are not in a hurry to meet a deadline of a workamping job. Leaving on Memorial Day we passed through many small towns in Indiana and Illinois. Many of them were decorated very patriotically for the holiday with the streets lined with flags. Nice!

Our first stop was a Corp of Engineer Park (COE) near Centerville Iowa. We try to stay at this type of campground as much as possible. Being able to have a lake view site is always a treat and this type of campground is very inexpensive and usually well managed.. This is the view out our front window tonight. 

Buck Creek COE campground

I use Streets and Trips software by Microsoft to help plan our route. I can drop pin sets right onto the map to help find campgrounds. Pin sets are a beautiful thing. There are ones for just about everything ...State Parks,Walmart which allow camping, Elk Lodges, National Parks, Escapee Parks...the list is endless. The   map below is of this area. If you look closely you will notice on this lake there are five Corp of Engineer Parks. Wow! To sort this all out the website RVParkReviews.com comes in very handy . It turns out all of the COE campgrounds here received good rating and we choose Buck Creek because of its location on our route. I use this website a lot when trying to find a campground and oftentimes  add reviews  to help others along the way.

We are spending two nights here. Today we decided to go on a road trip and check out the other campgrounds. Why not join us and come along too. All of the campgrounds were sparingly populated. However, over Memorial Day weekend every site was taken. It looks like from the COE website most of the sites are taken on the weekends too. 

Pretty Eastern Kingbird

Many of the sites in our campground (Buck Creek) would be difficult to level a big rig on. The campgrounds are somewhat  hilly and most have quite a few sites on the water. All five parks provided 30 amp electricity and there are a few with 50 amp. All sites are electric only with water spicket and a dump site  available.  Each campground offers a boat launch.  

This lake is huge and over 21 miles in length. The dam and reservoir were constructed in the 1960's and dedicated by President Nixon in 1971. We saw lots of land set aside as prairie.

Prairie Ridge COE

Bridge View

There is also a State Park here with full hook ups. However, the sites are very close together and the bathrooms are old.  The campground has lots of weeds and had an unkempt look to it.  In comparison the  COE parks looked dramatically different where everything is very neat, tidy, and sites are well spaced.

Horny Creek State Park Campground 

Bridge View Campground

Dam

Island View

Island Vieware  two favorite

After our road trip visiting each of the campgrounds we decided  our two favorites  COE in this area are Bridge View and Island View. The are more level sites and may with  beautiful views of the lake 

We ended our road trip at Centerville, the closest town to our campground. It's a pretty town with many historical buildings and it was once centered around coal mining. We had a delicious dinner at Lucile's Steak and Spirits located in the Continental Hotel established in 1893. Some interesting people have stayed here including Jesse James, Al Capone, and recently Al Gore and Joe Biden. 

Continental Hotel

Continental Hotel

We enjoyed our stay here very much and it will definitely be on our "keeper" list. Tomorrow we are Nebraska bound. and we will be staying at a military campground.  Happy Trails!