Palace Campgrounds - Galena, IL

This Memorial weekend, we camped at Palace Campground near historic Galena, IL. This was our first 3 night camping trip in our new trailer. While it rained heavily all 3 nights, the rain stopped and allowed the sun to peek in each day. We were not able to get in any hiking, but we got in a lot of shopping in downtown Galena, made a run to the "marts" (K and Wal) in Dubuque and had some great campfires and meals.
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Pictures of this trip
(low-resolution thumbnails - click image for high-resolution image)


Downtown historic Galena	Another view of the downtown area	One of the original streets of Galena

Grant Park	A couple of the items you might find in the dozens of shops in the downtown area	The rig

The trailer - all set up	Relaxing by the campfire	A row of trailers in the terrace below us

Trip Out:
Time: 3 hours & 30 minutes
Route: US-20 west all the way (long construction delay on US-20 in Streamwood)
Miles: 149
Weather: Mild and sunny

Campground
Palace Campground is the closest campground to Galena, located at the west edge of town on Highway 20. It's been here for many years, but the sprawl of Galena has begun to catch up with this location. A Wal-Mart is about to go up nearby and a Culvers is located adjacent to the campground to the west.

Palace Campground offers over 133 individual campsites in and several open areas. The sites and areas break down as follows:

- 50 RV full-hookups ($28)
- 47 RV water/electric hookups ($26)
- 14 RV electric only hookups ($24)
- 16 Tent electric only hookups ($24)
- 6 Tent areas with electric only hookups ($24)
- 26 Tent areas with no hookups ($19)
- several cabins with electric/water/air-conditioning (rate not know)

The campground covers more than 50 acres of exclusive natural parkland nestled in the rolling hillsides of the Galena countryside. While we did not use any of it, the campgrounds also offered weekend hayrides, a heated outdoor pool, a nice looking mini-golf course ($4.50), an arcade building, basketball, playground area, camp store and evening outdoor movies.

Being the Memorial weekend, all sites except for the tent-only sites were sold out. As such, there were a lot of small children and bikes on the mostly paved, 5 MPH roads throughout the grounds.

Restroom/shower facilities are located at the front of the campgrounds near the office/pool area and in the middle of the campgrounds. We only used the middle facility and found it to be spacious and clean. The showers worked fine and the water was hot!

In comparing the full-hookup site (#43) we stayed on to the electric/water only sites on the terrace below us, we felt that the full-hookup sites were larger. The sewer hookup ended up being under my rear bumper, so my 10' hose was too short. The trip to Wal-Mart cured that with a nice 20 footer with a 90 degree elbow. I knew I'd need to get one of these at some point anyway. I also picked up a couple so I can add the 10 footer on when needed.

The fire ring was in the back of the sites on our side of the road while other sites on other roads had rings in the front - it seemed to vary. The permanent (seasonal) sites had real metal fire rings while the rest of us had a round bare spot in the grass. They were all scooped clean before the park opened and most of the driveways seemed to have new gravel. One thing interesting to me was the pull-through sites here. They are dual sites (an A & B designation after the site number). So the first party to arrive truly had a pull-through but the guy sharing the site had to back in. Seemed odd to me. That said, if you were camping with friends, your trailers could be end to end and that makes for a great common area in the middle.

The park takes personal checks and cash only. We mailed a check for the first night as a deposit a couple months in advance (and got the last full-hookup site!) and paid the balance at check-in. A garbage bag is given at time of check-in and is collected from your site in the morning. New bags are available upon request, but we found that they pickup our own garbage bags each morning.

Galena
Due to the rain and trail conditions, we decided to leave the bikes at home and we were not able to explore any of the area hiking trails. This left us a lot of time to sit by the campfire, cook, take walks in through the campgrounds and shop in town.

If you've never been to Galena and if you enjoy civil war era history, antique shopping or shopping for home decorator items, this is a must-see/must-do place. There are several Bed and Breakfasts here as well as a few hotels. And if you like to golf, Eagle Creek and other golf courses are nearby. Two years ago, we stayed at a B&B and visited all of the historic sites in town and learned a lot about this thriving river community. Today it thrives on commerce via the shops in its historic downtown district and all of the B&Bs in and around town. In the 1900s, Galena and the surrounding area thrived on mining and was a huge riverboat port. This area is also home of 9 civil war generals and 1 US president.

This trip, while in town, we skipped the historic sites and tours and spent most of our time shopping. Ruby met a lot of new human and canine friends as we walked her, leashed, all over downtown. We put her in her carry bag when we went into the shops. Few people noticed her and shopkeepers that noticed, did not mind.

Cellular
- AT&T Wireless (TDMA): 1 to 2 bars at campground
- T-Mobile: no service in or near Galena or Dubuque
- IWS: 1 to 2 bars at campground (auto-roamed on T-Mobile phone - no data service available)

Trip Back:
Time: 2 hours and 50 minutes
Route: US-20 east to I-90 east to IL-53 south to US-20
Miles: 146
Weather: Cloudy, cooler with some periods of light rain

Trip to Galena, IL May 28-May 31, 2004

Trip to Galena, IL
May 28-May 31, 2004