West Lake park, Davenport, Iowa

     We love parking our motor home at West Lake in Davenport, the majority of sites are well suited for larger motor homes.  We've been coming here for at least 8 years now to begin our journeys and enjoy the many large trees, camp sites, wild life, and so many Cardinals adding brilliant red color to those green trees.  If there is a negative to this wonderful place it's the fact that it's not traveler friendly..........let me explain.
     When we're traveling we stop somewhere each night and sometimes stay more that one night depending on the place and what we find to see or visit.  Golf courses attract us a lot, historic places, also lakes and streams, if you know what I mean!  Even a Walmart will do if we're running late or find no place suitable to stop.  All travelers whether on a 2 week vacation or a 3-4 month trek like we do each summer do this, we're all looking for a place to stop for the night or longer.  At West Lake park RV spaces are always at a premium, they do not take reservations and all spaces are first come first serve.  If you are wanting to stay at West Lake, you need to get there on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday to find a spot to park your rig.  Traveling across country and decide to stay or visit family or friends in the Quad Cities you pretty much have to plan your arrival on one of these days if you want to camp at West Lake.  A good guess would be that 95% of the campers at West Lake no matter if it's a motor home, trailer, tent or whatever are from somewhere within a 25 mile radius!  The locals dominate these sites in all the sections of West Lake, and they show up starting on Wednesday and park there rigs and go home until Friday night!  Yes, the cost is very low compared to most RV parks no matter where you stay, so they put out the $20 just to have that space come Friday night.
     Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure the parks would not get the excellent care they get and be in the great shape their kept if not for the locals supporting these parks..........hell if they weren't there you might only fill 10-20% of the sites on a daily basis for quite a while until RV'ers learned that the place had spots available on a regular basis.  We've come to learn that if we want to stay at West lake we must arrive on Monday-Wednesday or we go somewhere else until the next Monday.  That is what I mean by traveler friendly, there are only 3 out of 7 days a week you are most likely to get a site here.  I would guess even if they did take reservations locals would make those calls whenever they had to in order to get those sites............hell then the park would lose funds because the locals wouldn't have to pay for those 2-3 nights they don't stay in those empty rigs!
     My suggestion is this, the new Rhythm City Casino which will be located off of I-80 would be wise to have an RV park for all the retired travelers that love to stop at all casino's they encounter along their journeys.  You all can put this in the suggestion box if you'd like.  One way or another we'll be making the stop in the Quads as long as we have family and friends living in the area to visit each year.