Always full on weekends. Popular destination for locals and people from Illinois. 4 stars because it's not the camping in nature experience I am looking for. Lots of noise. Lots of kids. Lots of dogs. It's park area is very nice. Nice playground for kids. Volleyball nets. Lots of picnic tables and grills available. Dogs not welcome in most of the park. More of a party place. But the staff is very active. They clean sites quickly, clean the bathrooms regularly.

We stayed on site 50. We were closer to our neighbors than I'd like, including the campsite behind us. The campsite behind us had a path thru it to get to the bathrooms. There was a thin layer of growth between sites but not much. Our site had a nicely placed tree providing just enough coverage but nothing stayed wet in the rain. We camped in a popup, if we had a tent I think we would have been soaked. Lots of pooling water on the backside. The campground just added new gravel to the sites and asked that all trailers and vehicles stay on the gravel but the gravel doesn't go back far enough for both car and camper to stay on.

The inner ring of the campground are smaller(shorter) sites. The outer ring sites are better for RVs. Except for site 70. That should be tent only because there are 2 trees right in the middle behind the gravel. 50, 69, 74 seemed the best for both shade and sun combo. Site 79 is paved but not marked as handicap because it isn't being maintained as handicap and is not close to the new bathrooms. Not enough sites with electric, however we didn't need it for the weekend.

This year we brought our dog. He tends to bark a lot but the campsites were spread out enough that he rarely barked.

It was busier this year compared to last year. Very few campsites were empty. A lot of kids on their bikes. Since the campground is a small loop, it's good for bike riding but also is close to the bike trail.

Same camp hosts this year. They are seriously so clean and organized.

We got a different site this year. This time we are right on the creek. We heard running water all day and night. Kinda nice. We brought our pop-up this year. No electricity but honestly didn't feel we needed it.

Northern Highland American Legion State forest- Plum lake is a long name.

They check in is at Crystal Lake and it's kind of hard to find plum lake if you don't know the area. That is THE ONLY bad thing I have to say.

This is a rustic campground. No electricity or running water. It does have a hand pump if you need water (it was really cool and easy to use). Vault toilets.

Most campsites are "non reservable" but we were able to reserve 1209. Right on the lake and next to the creek. The map makes it look like it is a "hike to" campsite. It is not. There are 4 stairs. You just can't bring a trailer.

I cannot say enough on how great the camp hosts were. Toilet paper replenished every morning. Vault toilets were the cleanest I'd ever seen. It didn't ever smell like a vault toilet! They racked each sites sand after the campers left and stacked left over wood. It was wonderful.

The beach isn't really a typical beach. It's a grassy field that has a set of stairs to the lake and all the sand is under water. But holy moly, the view! See the pictures.

We had a wooded site in the Sunset campground, mid-week.

The sites are rustic but nicely groomed with a tree line between most campsites, although almost none of the spots had occupants. The camp hosts were very nice and very communicative about all the happenings. Picnic table and fire pit included. Long enough drive in for RVs. But enough grass for tenting. Not many trees available for clothes lines.

Unfortunately, we might have had bad timing. The beach was closed due to high levels of bacteria. The pit toilets closest to us were also closed due to a bee hive being found so we ended up driving to the flush toilets if there was any urgency but could walk if you wanted. We also picked a spot by the water fountain. The water was yellow from iron. It had just stormed so the bugs were bad and everything was wet. So mostly a series of unfortunate events but we still enjoyed our time.

Because this is a prairie, there is so much to look at! The hiking trails are great through prairie and woods. The sunrise over the prairie and the sunset colors of the sky were great.