Gay owned/straight operation in the Leatherstocking Region…

Jimmy, who owns Susquehanna Trail Campground along with his partner Vaughn, bought the campground a few years ago and have been cleaning it up. He tells us they started Spring Creek Campground in Alabama, but sold it to the current owners. They have reseeded the grass and now have a nice huge lawn and several RV sites at the rear where we were located. He indicated they had also rewired the electricity, leveled a hilly area and cleared brush in some areas. They are off to a great start in making this a quality campground and as monies permit will continue to improve it!

Susquehanna Trail Grass Area

The dogs loved having grassy areas again to play. There also are very few bugs to drive us or the dogs crazy, as they had done for the past week in the Adirondacks!

Jimmy joined us at our campfire and we spent some time chatting with him about our venture. He tells us about their campground and other business, they also own a gay bar in Binghamton called Zippers Bar & Grill. Right now, the bar is closed for ten days, apparently they close it every year for 10 days to work on the campground, so they are here making improvements. Specifically, they were renovating the office/store.

The area around Oneonta is called the Leatherstocking Region, and is named as such from James Fenimore Cooper’s, The Leatherstocking Tales, written in the early 1800′s. It sounds like a leather queens dream come true!

Susquehanna Trail Pool

The main business of the campground is the families that come for the Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Fenimore Cooper’s, father founded the community that is now Cooperstown. Jimmy also says, they get a fair amount of traffic from travelers just stopping for the night off the Interstate, he is planning an undeveloped section just for them.

Jimmy had invited his bartender from Zippers, Chris and his lover Billy and two customers were also coming on Saturday to stay the night. Chris and Billy were on our left side in the rental trailer and the two customers were on our right side in their Class C Motorhome. The rear of the campground became the “gay section”.

We joined them at their campfire with our dogs. We watched as their dogs, Benny a Chihuahua and Greta a Dachshound, played with Sarah and Rosemary. Benny weighs 6 pounds and is an average sized Chihuahua, but is hung like a horse and walks bow-legged. It is really very odd to see. They got the dogs to breed them, but Greta seems to have something wrong with her, she has never gone through her cycle and therefore is not interested in mating.

Susquehanna Trail Gay Section

We enjoyed our time here and come to think of it this was a perfect 4th of July weekend for us–a quiet place to rest!

We’re ready to leave and I checked and added air in all but one of the tires–the air compressor stopped working. Then I checked the torque in our lug nuts of the trailer wheels–I am excited to finally do this regularly. We’re leaving here to go to Jones Pond Campground in Angelica, NY.

Read the next sequence in our blog: Where can you get the largest campsites ever?