“We’re looking forward to having a wonderful celebration with families who have been camping with us for many years,” said Gina Lenhard.
The Lenhards previously owned and operated a plumbing business in Rochester, but got tired of dealing with unhappy people who were upset about their plumbing problems or the cost of plumbing repairs.
So after they become empty nesters, they sold their plumbing business and bought the campground that they later fixed up and converted into a Jellystone Park. “We now spend our time running the park and helping families create wonderful memories,” Lenhard said.
Vickye Grey, her husband, Dan, and their five children have been camping at Jellystone Park for almost 20 years. She remembers her first experience with the Lenhards’ chocolate Slip n Slide like it was yesterday.
The Lenhards had just set up the slide on a hill and wetted it down with water and chocolate pudding. But Vickye was pregnant with twins and ended up having to rush to the hospital to give birth.
“I didn’t want my 6 and 9 year-old children to miss the slide. But we had to go,” she recalled.
But a year later, the Greys celebrated their twins’ first birthday at Jellystone Park and the timing worked out so they were there on another one of the park’s famed chocolate themed weekends.
“Mike and Gina were so sweet,” Vickye said. “They let me and the twins be the first to go down the chocolate slide.”
The slide is a hysterical experience, she said with a laugh. “You get up and you look like you pooped your pants!”
Jellystone Parks are famous for providing fun, family activities and themed weekends with Yogi Bear™ and Boo Boo™.
Upcoming themed weekends at the Adirondacks Jellystone Park include a wet and wild revenge weekend June 23-24, with squirt gun wars, water balloon relays, wet wagon rides, games at the pool and a DJ dance. The park’s annual chocolate weekend will take place July 7-8 and will include a chocolate tug-o-war as well as a carnival with a dunk tank, carnival games and a best dressed clown contest. A Christmas in July weekend is set for July 21-22 and will include a campsite decorating contest and a Christmas turkey dinner on Saturday night. Pre-Halloween themed weekends will take place the first two weekends in August and will include campsite decorating contests, Halloween crafts, trick or treating, a haunted house and haunted forest and a monster mash dance. A non-scary Halloween weekend has been set for Sept. 22-23 and will include a corn maze, a costume contest and pumpkin painting.
In addition to organized activities, the Adirondacks Jellystone Park features two heated pools; beach volleyball courts; kayaking and tubing along the Schroon River; an 18 hole miniature golf course; a mining sluice; a jumping pillow; and a train.
The park has RV and tent sites as well as 28 rental accommodations, including three yurts. The Lenhards plan to install a bunkhouse for large groups and family reunions later this summer.
But beyond the activities and themed weekends are the connections with other families.
Lorie Turpin of Hawksberry, Ontario has been camping at the park with her husband, Gaytan, and three children for the entire 25 years that the Lenhards have owned the campground.
“We’ve been with them every summer,” she said. “We’ve met all their relatives and all their siblings. Our kids are over 20 and they still want to go back.”
The Greys, for their part, have enjoyed the park so much that after their third year camping there they became seasonal campers and would leave their RV parked at the campground all summer.
Vickye, in fact, would often stay at campground with the kids all summer while her husband, Dan, would commute to see them on weekends.
“It’s like a vacation home with a lot of neighbors,” she said. “You all get together and sit around the campfire. It’s an extended family. And Mike and Gina are the ones who helped create that feeling.”
For more information, please visit www.adirondacksjellystone.com.
END
