Quote:
Originally Posted by Lt Keefer
That's a Buff Soldier Girl. How's Barksdale's FamCamp?
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Hey L-T, Barksdale has a great deal to do both on & off base. It's very secure & has limited access at all times. Don't bother trying to order a pizza & you can't use an uber or lyft if you don't have a toad. They also don't have a shuttle anymore on base (which seems to be the norm everywhere I go now). But it's a very busy base, home to the B-1 bombers & it's a global response base.
There are parks, places to fish, arts & crafts, tons of MWR & outdoor rental available. & they have a great skeet & trap range open to even temporary residents (like me!), it's a VERY nice shotgun facility for a military post. The base is large & spread out, & a toad is really a neccessity if you plan to do anything other than hang out in your rig.
There's all the normal things you expect on base, like automotive, a package store, gas, & lil px, along with a regular px that's well stocked & fairly new. The commissary is decent, but older (& just doesn't have room for much variety )
Barksdale added a new pull thru fhu fam camp that's built to the side to their older established camp. There are 62 very level concrete slabs that will easily fit up to 40 ft or a smaller rigs & toad. The gravel roads are very wide & easy to utilize.
The sewage won't allow you to screw in your drains, so a large rock or board (I used two of my heavy rubber leveling jack pads to keep it securely in place).
The power post allows a choice of 30 or 50 amp & I'm not sure, but think I recall a twenty amp available, as well. There is one trash bin at the north end of the park. All the slabs have your cockpit facing due west
The only issue with the new fam camp side that I encountered is that they cleared every last tree when they built it. It's definitely going to fell like your parked on a cast iron griddle come summertime.
The old side has some nice trees, not so big & old that you worry about the next storm, & not so small as to be of little shade value. The new side has newly added lawns on the side of each rig & a round blue metal picnic table, no fire rings or bbq's on a stick.
Fire is strictly regulated & the very friendly & responsive fulltime office staff will let you know if you're able to pull out your own bbq setups during your stay. They have ice available for your use when you arrive, which was a real novelty for me (though I can't fit a bag of ice in my freezer, I appreciated the availability).
The restrooms/showers & laundry is centrally located in one smallish brick building (if you need them). The bath areas are coded & you receive the current pass when you arrive, along with a wifi pass (which is extremely limited in range, but it's there).
I never went into the bathrooms, but I saw several families make the trip accross with flipflops & shower gear each day (so my assumption, for what that's worth, is that it's at least well maintained). There is also a family/handicapped facility & at least one woman with a walker utilized that shower.
There is a very clean & efficient laundry room w/four washers & dryers at $1.50 per wash & the same to dry. The laundry is not coded. It's located in he same building as the baths. I used the laundry & it was well maintained.
The folks who were there at the same time I was were very friendly. A few were active duty & only peeked out for duty & quickly disappeared after Colors. The rest seemed to be maimly just passing thru after a day or two. I spent two weeks at the fam camp.
Their routines at fam camp follow the bugle calls, very similar to my entire military life. Ft Bragg's camp was too far from the main post to hear any bugle calls, sadly. Ft. Eustis followed the normal Army protocol. This post is definitely attuned to the calls!
Every morning at Barksdale starts with reveille (strangely, reveille isn't untill 0730 hrs, nearly halfway through a Grunt's morning - guess the high tech Airdales keep banker's hours, lol!).
Colors is at 1705 hrs, & I appreciated that no one tried to hide out from it.
Those of us in the park all rendered hand salutes or hand to heart & the base plays the National Anthem following the call to Colors which extends Attention to a full 3 minutes. Even the Military Bratts showed respect & at least attempted to stay wiggle free, according to age, to show their respect.
I really enjoyed it & wondered if all AFB's now play the Natl Anthem w/Colors (or if this was jus a Barksdale thing). Taps was early, at 2100 hrs. The sound system at Barksdale was pretty impressive. The clarity of the calls was beautiful.
During the day, you'll enjoy the bombers as they take off & land, about twice an hour, on average - but sometimes several take offs or landings that are one right after another. If you don't like the sound of aircraft, you won't be happy (I noticed somebody actually complained about them on RV Parky, like, what did they expect on an AF base?)
If you don't know the base layout, be careful heading to the commissary from the fam camp. Once you are on the range road, if you are relying on gps it will suddenly drop, & if you aren't paying attention when it happens (like I wasn't), you'll find yourself lost in, or near, the impact zone & come upon the flight line - which merely has some barbed, not razor wire, strung across the roadway preventing run in's.
If that happens, hopefully you will run across a very surprised SF, as I did, eating his lunch. The SF won't threaten to shoot you, as I would've expected from the Army MPs (& the Marines would've launched a full assault against the RV, lol!); but he will help you get your tail end out of danger & even escort you all the way to the commissary (my SF was outta of coffee), lol!
Again, the moral of the story, look at a "real" paper map (if you even have one), before you head towards the commissary. Thankfully, paper maps don't suddenly erase themselves when you need them the most. This tech phobic girl Hates gps (but I'm slowly learning to use it).
Anyway, it's a nice set up at Barksdale & I hope you enjoy your stay!
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