Just Singin' in the Rain...

The young lady in the form-fitted red dress calls it a “rain event.” She looks as if she is in high school, but she is the weather person for a local television station so I'm sure she knows what she is talking about. Just the same, calling the constant rain we've had for several days now a rain event doesn't require a college degree. It rained daily while we were up in Asheville at Lake Powhatan, and now it is raining constantly with only occasional breaks in the persistent drizzle. Constant rain really does dampen the camping spirit, so to speak, and we've seen many tent campers pack in early and head home. We left Lake Powhatan early Friday morning while it was semi-dry and got to pack away the mats and awnings while they were also semi-dry. We barely got out of the mountains before it came down again in earnest.

We opted to not take the Blueridge Parkway just outside the main gate, but rather we picked up NC 280 just south of Asheville and cruised along the mountains into pretty Brevard, not too many miles down the road. There we picked up the “waterfall trail,” US 64 and headed to Cashiers, a road we last drove in 1980. The rain faded away so it was an overcast, chilly day; perfect for towing a trailer.

Back then, U.S. 64 was a narrow, twisty road that really suited the turbo Mustang Cobra I owned at the time. The McLaren orange sports sedan had a Michelin handling package and made mincemeat of the mountainous highway. It was an absolute dream to drive through the mountains. The countryside back then was still Appalachia, with roadside vegetable stands and people sitting on their porches watching traffic. It looked like it had in my youth.

The highway hasn't changed much in thirty-three years. In fact, most parts don't appear to have even had any maintenance since the last time we drove it. Beautiful drive, but definitely not the right road to tow a camper! It was a scenic, if somewhat busy ride, with several anxious moments watching high-dollar SUV's crossing the double yellow line while headed toward us.

What has changed, though, is the landscape. With sterile, man-made waterfalls and gated communities dotting many corners along the roadside to Cashiers and Highlands, it looks like the money has found where to go for the summer. Asheville looks practically poverty stricken by comparison. There are more Audi's, Mercedes Benz and Lexus here this time of year than in Palm Beach or Naples. The highway traffic jams are made up of Porsches, BMW's, and Jaguars, many of which have Florida license plates. Appalachia has a new face, at least in the far southwest corner of North Carolina, and it doesn't spit tobacco anymore.

By the time we drop out of the mountains into Dillard, Georgia, the rains start again and it appears we are back in reality as normal traffic seems to be made up of Toyotas, Chevvies, vans and pickup trucks. The ride down to Richard Russell State Park near Elberton is an easy, uneventful, if wet, drive.

Since rain is forecast for the next five days or so, we've decided to stay at Richard Russell State Park in Georgia instead of heading up the road a short distance to Lake Hartwell and Watsadler Campground, one of our favorites, as we first planned. Since we can't go outside to play, we'll stay inside and take advantage of the basic cable television service and the free Wi-Fi, neither of which are available at Watsadler.

Hopefully, the “rain event” will pass by before we all get cabin fever.

NEXT: Alone, At Last, at Richard Russell State Park, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/08/alone-at-last.html

Asheville: A new definition of diversity

The popular Biltmore Estate, the former Vanderbilt summer home in Asheville, North Carolina, is just a few minutes from our campsite at the Lake Powhatan campground. We used the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway as a short cut since it is adjacent to the campground and allowed us to avoid the traffic-filled byways of this summer residence for many Floridians. The number of Florida license plates here is second only to the native North Carolina plates.

The Blue Ridge parkway offers a serene, somewhat slower connection to the U.S. 25 Hendersonville Road area than the other alternatives. Asheville itself is no longer the sleepy little mountain hideaway of years gone by. In fact, it is the intersection of two major Interstate highways, I-26 and I-40, and the bypass that rings Asheville, I-240. The Interstate traffic is incessant through this pretty little corner on the edge of the Smoky Mountains.

After being presented at the entrance to the beautiful estate with the option of seeing how the old rich ostentatiously lived in the past for a mere $59 apiece, or using the $118 bucks for a great dinner and wandering through the city with fewest number of fat people in America, the choice was easy. Asheville is the last major hippie refuge on the east coast, and is worth a walk back through the '60's. For $118 bucks, I'll read about the Vanderbilts.

I'm just guessing about the statistics of the number of obese people here, but one thing is certain: more people here are fit and health conscious than any place we've been in several years. The area appeals to the outdoor-types who crowd the hiking and bicycle trails that seem to be everywhere. Perhaps they are the ones who live on the outskirts or in the many surrounding urban areas. Downtown Asheville may be a somewhat different story.

I haven’t seen tie-dyed shirts or tops seriously worn as clothing for many years, but the first trip into downtown Asheville was a trip through Alice's looking glass. Many old fashions and styles appeared to be quite common. We even saw haircuts that were popular when Hee Haw was a prime time TV show back in the last century. Asheville is where the hippies and the hillbillies meet. It is a diverse, uniquely tolerant atmosphere that confounds many out-of-towners. It is definitely unique.

The old hippies, and their young imposters, are tolerated perhaps as an odd quirk, or perhaps as an eye-wink to a place where mountain-grown herbs take on a different meaning. Maybe there are just too many of them. They seem to have come from all over the east coast. Whatever the reason, diversity flourishes in Asheville more than most towns further east. So does good music and good dining. A diverse, eclectic population inhabits downtown Asheville.

Asheville is where the hippies and the hillbillies meet

NEXT: Singin' in the Rain, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/08/whether-or-not-weather.html

Pleasant Surprise - Lake Powhatan, NC

Pulling our 21 foot KZ Sportsmen travel trailer up the gradual incline on U.S. 25 from Greenville, South Carolina, into the foothills of the Smokey Mountains was no problem. It was a short, easy 186 mile trip from Athens, Georgia, to Asheville, North Carolina, and took us just over four hours. By the time we reached the junction with Interstate 26, – Interstates are great to use through the mountains – we were practically there and the climb was just about over. I don't think we downshifted into second gear more than once. Quite a bit different from our Toyota Sequoia's baptism of fire towing a trailer in the West Virginia mountains during last year's camping trip. 

Our pad, number 53 on the Lake Side Loop, was paved, and had thirty amp electrical service with water and sewer. With no camping pads across the access road in our part of the loop, privacy was great. We could easily have been in an isolated outpost, but in fact the campground is just around the corner on North Carolina Highway 191 from the entrance to the famed Blue Ridge Parkway and the beautiful North Carolina Arboretum.

Lake Powhatan Campground is open from April 1st to October 31st, as are the other three camping areas that are part of the recreation area, North Mills River, Sunburst, and Davidson River Campgrounds. Lake Powhatan has 85 sites, but only 6 have RV electrical service, and only 5 have standard electrical hookup. All the other sites are standard non-electric or tent camp sites. Our pad had all the civilized amenities of any RV campground except for cell phone coverage. A quirk of the local hills and valleys puts most of the campground in a dead spot. No Wi-Fi Internet service either, not even for Verizon users.

Our first stay at a National Forest Campground – it is run under permit by the Cradle of Forestry Interpretive Association – and we can't help but notice the number of volunteers working and staying at the campground. Each of the four loops, Big John, Bent Creek, Lakeside, and Hardtimes, has at least two sets of full-time hosts, and the campground shows the result: it is spotless! 

The toilet and showers are sparkling clean, and the camp pads are raked and swept almost as soon as they are vacated. There is no camping store or “headquarters” so to speak, a huge fifth-wheel camper parked behind a wooden privacy fence at the main gate serves as the office. The group of hosts meets there in the morning before heading out to their respective tasks. One of those tasks, of course, is to man the front gate which is open from 7:00am until 10:00pm, which in our experience are extraordinary hours for a manned gate. The gate closes at 10:00pm, and there is no access until the gate reopens at 7:00 am the next morning. You may be fortunate enough to meet a sympathetic guard after hours, but don't count on it as they make rounds of the entire campground.

The campground also honors the Federal Senior pass, or in my case, the now obsolete Golden Age Passport, so costs are quite reasonable for a full 14 day stay. Many of the sites are first come, first served, but the full-service sites are available through on-line reservations at Recreation.gov.

Our site has full service, which means it has a sewer hook-up. This can be a terrible experience for first-time sewer users in an RV as many people mistakenly believe their RV systems work exactly like those at home. They do not, and leaving your RV's black water valve open continuously so it drains constantly into the sewer will normally end up in an embarrassing service call to unblock a solidified black-water tank or drain. We simply use the sewer hookup as a dump station, emptying when it is full, then filling the holding tank back with two gallons or so of fresh water along with the chemical packs we normally toss in at the beginning of each cycle. I don't keep the gray water tank valve open, either, as I use that water to flush the drain hose after emptying the black water tank.

The campground is criss-crossed by hiking and biking trails of all skill levels. In fact, the entire area around Asheville is an outdoor enthusiasts dream. Unfortunately the run-off from the continuous summer rains that feed the small, pretty lake have contributed to a high bacterial count that closed the lake to swimming. The lake isn't large enough for even a kayak or canoe and can be circled on the adjacent hiking trail in less than 20 minutes. It is perfect for the two Canada Geese that decided to spend the summer. Incidentally, the water monitoring service determined the geese were not at fault for the contamination.

We'll post more photos as we explore the campground and the surrounding area, but our first impression of the campground is very good. In fact, it is a pleasant surprise.

NEXT: Asheville - A New Definition of Diversity, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/08/asheville-new-definition-of-diversity.html 



 

Anastasia – Third Time is a Charm

The St. Augustine light house is a few blocks north of Anastasia State Park

We planned our third visit to Anastasia State Park just outside St. Augustine, Florida, to coincide with a full moon. The brilliant, full Florida moon rising out of the Atlantic Ocean over the expansive, empty beach that stretches to the horizon, tempted us to try for yet a third time. The two times we have camped here in the past during a full moon left us with wonderful memories. But, as always, timing is everything!

We checked on-line reviews of the popular park while we patiently waited as Hurricane Chantal teased the northeast Florida coast before finally fading away, drenching the Atlantic coast as far north as New York. Ilse and I thought we might have to delay our arrival in northeast Florida, but Chantal obligingly allowed us to make the trip on schedule, leaving behind only occasional Florida showers. It was a six hour trip up from Port Charlotte. I avoided all Interstates, using only state and county roads. It was a marvelous, relaxed Sunday drive, and we were set up in the Sea Urchin loop, a first for us, in site 77 well before dinner time.

We read several comments about many of the campsites having no drainage, or worse, the drainage ending up in the campsite itself. Having never been caught in a deluge here, we were concerned about our unknown campsite. The hard-packed, sand-based sites here, are mostly flat, but only one or two are paved in the entire 139 site campground. Some though, are a little quirky in their layout.

The first six camping loops, sites 1 through 105, have better privacy than the newer seventh loop located further south of the other loops. There are no campsites across from each other in the first six loops as there is an island of vegetation in the center, and the one-way road only has campsites only on the right side of the road. The newer Coquina loop seems somewhat crowded by having double the number of campsites. They eliminated the center island and doubled the number of campsites.

The toilet and shower facilities are clean and well maintained as always, even after the hoards of toilet-paper-stuffing children blocked up all three commodes in our men's room on Sunday. The toilets were spotless just a few hours later.

Our first day was spent catching up on reading and just relaxing. Intermittent rain showers made it comfortable just to stay in the camper anyway. Getting ready for a two month long camping trip is hard work. Putting up hurricane shutters and closing up the house, prepping the car and trailer, planning the food and itinerary take time and effort. Why is it so much work to have fun? Monday was spent as the relaxing first day of vacation, after an early morning walk to the beach, of course.

Tuesday was the start of the real vacation. With sunshine and mild temperatures, I unloaded the bicycles and finally got into vacation mode. We eventually drove to town, did some grocery shopping and had Thai food for lunch. Well, it was supposed to be Thai food. I think it was just a matter of taking the correct numbered meal out of the freezer, putting it in the microwave according to instructions for whichever meal we ordered, punching a couple of buttons and serving it piping hot! Yum!

Really?

We got to do things we never had time for in the past. First on the list was a visit to Fort Matanzas National Monument, just a few miles south on famous US A1A. The weather held on Wednesday for our free boat ride to the small, but impressive fort that only fired its cannons in anger once. We had seen it from a distance when we brought a boat from St. Augustine to Ft. Myers way back in 19993, but only the teasingly far-off view as the Inter-coastal waterway passes on the other side of Rattlesnake Island from where the Spanish thoughtlessly built their fort hundreds of years ago.

Ft. Matanzas

We decided to check out Gamble Rogers State Park, some 30 miles south, as an alternate to Anastasia if we need to park our little trailer somewhere else. We were already south of St. Augustine, so why not take a look. Scratch Gamble Rogers, it isn't for us. We got back to camp just before the afternoon rains started.

We had a hint things weren't going to go as planned on Wednesday when storms really began to roll in. By Friday morning, it was obvious the comments on the Internet were accurate as some campsites had been flooded more than once. Most of them drained within hours, but some sites, such as 67 and especially 81, were under ankle-deep water for many hours. Definitely not for tent campers!

Site 81 after a good rain

We met Susan, from Naples, on Friday night after she backed in to site 81 and set up her tent. The original reservations had been canceled so she picked up the spot for a one-night stay. It rained almost as soon as she was set up, but it was a light shower and the water didn't encroach her tent. We later sat outside our trailer in the pleasant, but moist evening air as the sites drained and chatted well into the night. We joked about drying out the tents and bedding, but by the next morning it wasn't a joke. We had a torrential downpour just after she packed up and site 81 was soon under four inches of water.

Saturday night was an adventure, to say the least. Ilse commented on a sign she saw on the nearby Elks marquee that stated “Sat - Latin Dance.” So, we planned to stop by and see what was happening.  The adjacent St. Augustine Amphitheater was holding a concert by Sublime at the same time, so A1A, the street outside the park was jammed with police and flashing lights by the time we headed to the Elks club. The Elks parking lot was full, but not for the Latin dance. Turns out the dance had been held the previous weekend. They didn't take down the sign until the day before we showed up looking for some Salsa. The Elks club itself was fairly empty, save for a few regulars who looked at us nonchalantly as we walked in. The Elks make extra money by providing extra parking for the amphitheater.

We met Shirley, a thin, attractive blonde who was fending off the hands of Jack, somewhat heavier and younger by several years, as he tried to win her favor, obviously with Braille. Ilse and I sat next to them at the bar and ordered two gin and tonics that had to be thrown in the drain as the tonic water dispenser turned out to be empty of anything that vaguely resembled tonic water. The White Russian Ilse ordered as a substitute turned into a Miller High Lite beer when it was discovered their milk for the mixed drink had expired. It didn't take long for the bar to empty out. Not a real good night so far. Not for Jack either. Shirley kept telling him he wasn't going home with her and she wasn't going home with him, either. He kept asking, "Who hurt you, baby?" Poor Jack. We had free popcorn and played the jukebox. At least we got to dance to Patsy Cline. Not a real hot time in the old town that night.

We eventually made four trips to the beach without seeing sunshine even once, and the unending cloud cover made sure we didn't see any hint of moonlight during the full moon. Not until 3:00 am the next Tuesday, anyway.

So, even though we didn't get to see our full moon, we have had a great time. Tourists have a knack for crowding me out of anywhere they decide to congregate, and St. Augustine in the summer is a prime tourist attraction. We have another week here, and plenty of things to still see and do, depending on how much rain we get and how well we squeeze past the crowds.

We'll come back to St. Augustine, one of our favorite places, probably in time for the Christmas lighting ceremony in November. I'll have to see when the full moon occurs in November. We'll try for four, the third time didn't count.

[Update Note: Full moon will occur November 17th, 2013; the Lighting Ceremony will be the Saturday before Thanksgiving, November 23, 2013.  Festivities start for one of the best lighting ceremonies in the country (per National Geographic) at 6:30pm]

NEXT: On to Asheville, NC, and a great discovery, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/08/pleasant-surprise.html

 

1 http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2011/05/anastasia-state-park.html

2 http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2011/08/anastasia-state-park-revisited.html

3 http://piddlepaddler.blogspot.com/2011/11/bringing-baby-home.html

Watsadler – What RVing is All About

Sunrise at Watsadler on Lake Hartwell

Aaaah, now this is what it's all about! That was how we felt the three days we spent at Watsadler Campground on Lake Hartwell in northeastern Georgia. It wasn't all that much work to prep and load the camper, we have that down to a science. The only thing we forgot to bring was the soy sauce for one of Ilse's dishes. No problem there. 

We had stayed overnight at Stephen C. Foster State Park near Fargo, Georgia, the first night out, and traveled north to Watkinsville the entire second day on U.S. 441, enjoying the oddly empty highway through the massive strands of Georgia slash pines, wiped out in certain areas by the forest fires of two years ago. Replanting has been finished, but it will be years before it all comes back. 

We avoided the Interstate highways altogether, enjoying the vast expanse of mile after mile of empty asphalt. Once above Dublin, the road is mostly four lane, divided highway, up through the center of the state. We spent the Easter Vacation week with our daughter and her family near Watkinsville, just south of Athens, Georgia.

Flax Fields near Athens, Georgia

The weather at first week was rainy and chilly, but it decided to cooperate just before we headed to the campground, and Spring sprung right before our eyes! It only took a week! Marvelous time to be in Georgia, a marvelous time to be at Watsadler, a really great campsite.

We spent the second day at Hartwell site-seeing, driving up the South Carolina side of the lake to see another Corps of Engineer campgrounds at the Springfield Campground before heading over to Anderson, South Carolina for lunch. The Springfield campground is larger than Hartwell, but is a seasonal campground.

Lake Hartwell, Georgia

It opened on April 1st, the week before we got there. It appears to be as well laid out as Watsadler with only a few sites not directly on the lake, but it has a swimming beach which must be popular with the kids. 

Go to http://www.recreation.gov/ for more details on Corp of Engineer campgrounds at Lake Hartwell.

20 feet wide and 82 feet long, this house boat is en-route to Kentucky

We kicked back, read books, walked the dogs, walked the dam, and took hundreds of photos of the dogwoods and azaleas that were in full bloom in the Hartwell area. We used our new hotspot to check e-mails, again proving that we really don't need to do that very often, and to keep an eye on the weather which threatened to turn stormy late Thursday, the day we were to check out and head south. No problem, we planned to be on the road early enough to miss most of the bad weather.  For a video bicycle tour of Watsadler, click on

A Bicycle tour of Watdsadler Campground at Lake Hartwell, Georgia

Athens, Georgia.  That's not smoke, it's pollen!

We checked out reluctantly on Thursday morning and headed back toward Florida, having spent a great two weeks in Georgia. We made it even better by calling Monica, our daughter, and arranged to meet her and Claire, our granddaughter at a Publix supermarket parking lot in Watkinsville for lunch as we rolled back through once again, this time headed south.

We had a great lunch, then called ahead to Stephen Foster Folk Cultural Center State Park, the one in Florida near White Springs, to get the late arrival gate code in case we were delayed by the storm. No problem there, either, as the main entrance is manned until 8:00pm after April 1st. After a leisurely ride back down U.S. 441, we pulled in to the beautiful Florida park a little after 7:00pm, and within minutes were fixing dinner and once again checking e-mails.

Site 9 at Stephen Foster Folk Cultural Center State Park, nestled amid the giants!

NEXT - On the road again: Third time is a charm, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/07/anastasia-third-time-is-charm.html 

Watsadler RVisited

Actually, it's Watsadler revisited as this is the third time we have camped at the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Campground on Georgia's Lake Hartwell.

We planned to meet our friends Arlene and Richard at the campground for a three-day reunion since we have shared side-by-side campsites here twice in the past, but illness forced Richard to cancel their reservation and kept him home under Arlene's special care. We will simply have to reschedule for Watsadler again next year.

Still all nice and shiny, we prepare to leave the Watkinsville grocery store.

We spent the previous week outside of Watkinsville, Georgia, parked next to our daughter's house. We had the opportunity to babysit our granddaughter, Claire, during her school break while Mom and Dad worked. A great time for us to get to know our granddaughter. We also got to share her fourth birthday. The only problem is there is no place to empty our gray and black water holding tanks as we sleep in the trailer while we are there. The only RV park in the area doesn't accept outside dumpers, even for a fee, so we usually just haul it, carefully, to the next campsite and dump when we get there.
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By the end of the vacation week, the weather turns warmer, trees begin to show the first shades of light green, and pollen covers us like a blanket. We leave Watkinsville late Monday morning, but by the time we pull into Watsadler campground on Monday morning, my blue SUV is green. The yellow pollen sees to that. Funny thing is it rained all day Tuesday the week before and washed everything off, only to be inundate us once again as soon as the trees dry out. I even hosed off the Toyota before we left the house that morning. Hay fever season is in full swing here. Yellow pollen swirls up from the road behind each passing car as if to say “don't leave without us!”

It Pollened last night

The Watsadler campground, located on Highway US 29 just before you cross the state line into South Carolina, is one of the few campgrounds in the area that is open all year long. They close one loop on December 1st of each year as the demand simply isn't there to keep the whole campground open, but by Easter, the whole campground is back in service.

We take our time driving up from Watkinsville, Georgia, but it is still a short trip, less than fifty miles. Despite my dawdling and slow driving, we still arrive a little after 11:00am. I checked the reservations the week before on the possibility we might check in a day early and found our site was open until our first reserved day. Usually it isn't a problem to arrive early if the site is vacant. We have been allowed in early at many Corps campgrounds. If your site isn't cleared yet, you have to wait until the other camper checks out as happened to use last year at Raystown Lake. There, we simply drove to the visitor center parking lot and waited until check in time.

For the first time in the many, many times we have checked in at Corps of Engineer campgrounds, we meet Grumpy. Grumpy informs us she has our on-line reservation but the site is not yet vacant. Someone reserved our spot and hadn't yet checked out. [It turned out to be vacant - the site had not been used.] We are informed we can not be admitted. OK, fair enough, rules are rules. We decide to go back into town and wait at the Walmart parking lot. But I mention I was going to pull through the dump station and empty my holding tanks as I turned around.

“I'm sorry but I can't let you do that!” came the grumpy voice from inside the dark gate shack.

“Excuse me?” I said, looking around the almost empty camp ground.

“I'm sorry but I can't let you do that!” she repeated.

“Why not, there's no one here?” I asked incredulously.

“Someone might check out and you'd be in the way,” was her illogical answer.

Even the Corps of Engineers can't get it right every time, so we toodle back to town with full holding tanks.

The town of Hartwell is only a few miles west of the campground, so it is no big deal to wait in the parking lot at the nearby Wal*Mart. We use the time to shop, pick up groceries and even buy a mobile hot-spot. We buy the Virgin 3G/4G unit for $89 and a $20 access card. I know, I know, coverage is Sprint so we will have spotty coverage at best. But, it is exactly what we need to check e-mails and pay bills. We won't be watching Netflix, though. At least we won't have to lug everything to the nearest library just to see e-mail. 

I have to charge the battery in the new hotspot before we can activate it so we'll have to wait until we get settled in the campground. No, we don't have smart phones with built in hot-spots. We have two old, flip-open cellphones on a Dinosaur Verizon plan that only costs us a little over $70 a month. No reason to double that for a smart phone and a hotspot since we won't be on the road for more than a couple of months. Not yet, anyway.

When we finally check in at our appointed time, we have to deal with Grumpy yet once again, and yes, it is just as frustrating as the first encounter. Some people just know have to have a good time. But, we are in our slot within fifteen minutes, most of that time waiting silently while watching a closed window in the gate house, and completely setup within a half hour. It is going to be a great three days. 

The weather had been anything but good the entire preceding week, from cold and rainy to rainy and cold. Not much fun to camp, or RV for that matter. We packed our trusty electric blanket, despite heckling from our Viking friends, when we headed out from Port Charlotte, Florida, two weeks earlier. The blanket was used gratefully every night of our trip but the first two, so we didn't have to use our camper's gas heater. Not until we got up in the morning, that is. Fifty degrees inside the camper means turn on the heat.

This is the perfect time of year to see the dogwoods and azaleas in full bloom, the weather just has to cooperate with the schedule. The perfect schedule is to pick the week after the Easter week public school vacations when everyone has returned home from the first outing of the year. Nobody here but us. Seriously, the next twenty sites are vacant the entire time we are here. Ilse and I spend three days at Watsadler parked next to a reclusive stranger and his dog, and toast to Richard's health. It must have worked, latest news is he has recovered from his bronchial infection.

Richard, here's to next year! Clink!

NEXT: Another great visit at Lake Hartwell, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/04/watsadler-what-rving-is-all-about.html

Northbound for Easter - Back to Fargo

I get this silly urge to sing Willy Nelson's "On The Road Again" every time we head out with our travel trailer in tow. Just part of the routine, I suppose, but it happens every time. I don't even give it any conscious thought. Ilse just starts laughing and I know I've stepped into the realm of RVing once again. This time we are headed up to Athens, Georgia, to see Monica and Troy, our daughter and her husband, and their daughter, Claire. We'll be there the week of Easter vacation so we get the grand duties of baby-sitting Claire during the school break.

End of Day One: Stephen Foster State Park, Georgia

We decided to leave late Good Friday morning and make it a two-day trip. It's easier that way, even though we did the 580 mile trip in one day the last several times we traveled. We have a favorite campground right at the half-way point of the trip, so we thought we would stay there Friday night and start again early Saturday morning. I checked the Internet and logged on to Reserve America at http://www.reserveamerica.com/, the account I use for on-line State Park reservations, to check Stephen Foster Cultural Center State Park at White Springs, Florida for openings. No openings, not a single one. The pretty, easy access Florida park was booked solid. Its location near the intersection of I-75 and I-10 makes it a great one-nighter for the flood of RVers headed north at the end of another winter season. A quick check of the other Stephen Foster State Park, the one near Fargo, Georgia, showed plenty of sites available.

Fargo is 65 miles northwest of the Florida park, and unless you're traveling on U.S. 441, it is rather inconvenient. Camping reservations made on-line for a single day over a weekend result in a two-day minimum charge, so we decided simply to drive up and check in at the park. They only charge for one night's stay if you show up and do it in person. We were taking a slight chance, however, as this is the peak season for the popular Okefenokee park. They do 80% of their business during March and April. Luckily, the camp ground was less than half full when we got there. They had both loops open this time, something we hadn't seen before.

We were lucky to get there. We were almost taken out when a tandem, 18 wheeler strayed into our lane just out side of Gainesville on I-75. I don't mean just up against the white line, I mean half way across our lane. Luckily, I had a break in the heavy, bumper to bumper traffic and swerved our trailer into the vacant outside left lane to avoid being torn up by the thoughtless behemoth. If I hadn't had the lane to serve into, we would have been hit hard at 65 miles an hour. We wouldn't have made it to Fargo.

The Slash Pine Forest surrounding the campground

I hate the Interstates when I'm towing the trailer and will gladly accept any reasonable alternative. U.S. 441 from Lake City, Florida, up through central southern Georgia is the perfect answer. The only problem is getting to Lake City from Port Charlotte. I just bite the bullet, take a couple of aspirin, and stay in the right-hand lane of I-75, except when I'm dodging morons who shoot down the entrance ramps and pull into heavy, fast moving traffic without once looking anywhere but straight ahead. Amazing there aren't more horrific crashes than there are. The Interstate portion is only four hours or so, but it is enough for one day.

Here a gator, there a gator, everywhere an alligator...

We pull through the main gate of the Okefenokee Refuge right at 4:00 in the afternoon, and notice two things different from our last visit: The horrific forest fire that closed the park for months two years ago changed the slash pine forest dramatically, and they have had more rain than expected. Water is high for the first time in years. There is a six foot alligator lying by the side of the road as we pull into the trading post/park office. The campground area was spared from the devastation of the fire, but a Ranger told us the once heavy tree canopy surrounding the lake is completely gone.

Gators were everywhere

The young lady working the computerized register system has all sorts of troubles and the registration process takes about twenty minutes. While we wait on computer responses that must eventually be corrected, a young man standing impatiently at the counter rather arrogantly asks if they have any alligators here. A woman behind the counter doesn't say anything, she simply looks out the window. I look out the window and I can see three of them lying on the bank by the boat ramp and two more swimming across the small lagoon. The tourist, with a New York Sweatshirt, doesn't catch the hint and assumes he is being ignored. He mumbles something under his breath and walks off, stumbling around the gift shop. All he had to do was look up.

Sunset in the land of the Trembling Earth

Again, the toilet/shower facilities are spotless, and except for the first swarming wave of new born mosquitoes, are a pleasure to use. The park uses the Georgia system of assigning a camping pads according to the length of your camper and allowing the individual camper to pick any empty pad with the appropriate color designator. We drive through both loops until we find an orange colored site that is convenient to back into, and twenty minutes later we have a glass of wine to celebrate a safe first day on the road. Later, we walk the dogs, staying close to the camper, no reason to look for trouble, and hook up to the community TV antenna. Oddly, it is warmer here than back in Florida.

So far so good, I'm still whistling Willy's song about being on the road again.. No Interstates tomorrow, I have even more reason to whistle.
NEXT: Watsadler on Lake Hartwell, revisited, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/04/watsadler-rvisited.html