At the beginning of April, we began our move to Tucson, AZ. Well, more than just a move, we shipped a few things out west, then hopped in Charlie, our 20-ft RV, to start a 6-month trip.
We took the first month to figure out just how we were going to do this- - and to get warm. That was April. We quickly learned that the trip you plan is rarely the trip you take.
Short Version: We went south to Raliegh, NC, then farther south to South Carolina, camping near Myrtle Beach, before settling in near Santee, SC, at a real red-neck campsite on Lake Marion. Got cold again, so went to Savannah, GA. Finally warm! Did a little touring--saw the only archeological remains of the Oglethorpe settlement--, did a little kayaking and then headed north to near Augusta, GA, and more kayaking before continuing on across the top of South Carolina, on our way to the most perfect campsite near Chapel Hill, NC, in the beginning of May.
Pictures: For what we saw in April, click on this link or copy and paste this link into your browser: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8BbNmrZo2bMRi . You don't need to log in--find the View Pictures button and then Slide Show for larger shots. (Can you tell, I do lots of shots as we drive along--enjoy the view!)
Long Version--Bill's Journal: The journey begins with Charlie—our RV—and the Toad—our Forrester, a towed vehicle—both packed to the gills and reminiscent of a cross between Ma and Pa Kettle and Fibber McGee and Molly’s closet. It’s noon, and we’re heading south in early April to find some warm weather and relax after the work of packing up, moving furniture, and totally deconstructing our home.
(What we learned—Never get caught in a closed parking lot. We can’t back up the RV with car attached, so a quick stop for fast food turned into a disconnect, move Charlie and the Toad, reconnect—for the second time in our life and the second time that first day.)
Our goal—Durham—where we’ll see Shawn and hang out in the area basking in the warmth of the Southern sun for a couple of weeks. We found our campground after a little bit of difficulty. We choose a site in Falls Lake Park at the Holly Point campground. Nicely private and few people in the camp. No waterfront sites on the water have water and power on the water, but we’re satisfied with the beauty of this inland location.
The next day, in true MRE (Maritime Republic of Eastport) tradition, we arise at the crack of noon, eat a simple breakfast, and settle into reading in the warmth of the sun: Elizabeth in her hammock and I under the awning—extremely pleasant 70s. But surprise—no hot water in the showers. The ranger arrived to collect for our 5-day stay, and we planned then to move to Jordan Lake for a second week in the area.
The next morning was substantially cooler so we hiked the 6.5 mile trail to get the blood flowing, create some warmth, and get the lay of the land. A ranger let us know that a cold front was coming in and it would be much colder but did not recall the details. This was not the news we wanted to hear.
All day as the temperature dropped and the breeze stiffened, we prepared things for dinner with Shawn and Jamara. Our plan—a simple dinner and talk around the fire, however, a high wind advisory and current drought conditions meant fires were prohibited for the evening. We ate inside and decided that with the predicated temperatures dropping to the 20s the next night, we would bail and head farther south.
Morning began with breaking camp, hitching up the toad, and going to Shawn and Jamara’s for hot showers, a computer search to find warmer weather, and breakfast before heading to Longs, SC.
(What we learned: The trip that you plan is seldom the trip you take.)
April continued—Still seeking warm weather.
Next stop, Willow Tree Resort—a RV resort north of North Myrtle Beach. We drove along the back roads because they are more congenial to our soul and in this case a bit more direct. Elizabeth, as usual plotted an excellent course and kept me on it. We gassed up Charley with high test because he didn’t seem to like pulling the Toad on regular, and he quit being so noisy after. It was a beautiful day and the azaleas were near their peak in southeastern North Carolina.
Willow Tree is one of those very nice RV resorts with excellent facilities, but not our cup of tea. Sites are close together and all the amenities are things we don’t use. The wifi was too slow, and the laundry expensive. But the bathrooms were hot, warm, and wonderful.
I cooked a steak on the grill, and we ate over looking the pond and the forest behind it—chilly, but happy that we’d escaped the freezing NC area. But, some time during the night the wind came up to near gale force. In the morning we found our doormat and Bill’s crocs had blown away (we did retrieve them). Not a day to commune with nature, we set up the van for reading and games when a piercing, totally disconcerting alarm went off. Our carbon monoxide detector.
We have two, and Bill took the portable one outside—that wasn’t it. Bill started to take the built in detector off the wall to disconnect it, but was thwarted by the lack of a #1 square drive screw. We were both totally discombobulated by the piercing blast. We left in search of screwdriver bit of the right size. Two hours later, we had our tool, lunch, and returned to the van. Elizabeth elected to remain in the car while Bill proceeded to enter the van and deal with problem summarily.
Bill: I entered the van to the bellicose blare of the detector. I rushed into action and quickly unscrewed the detector from the wall and disconnected it. The blaring continued. I took the detector outside to leave it there and suddenly noticed it was not the source of the sound. I girded my loins and returned to the lists. I soon discovered that our backgammon set was resting against the LPG test button and that was the source of our problems.
Another check on the weather, and we decided to head farther south into South Carolina to Santee State Park. But with the cold, miserable weather, we first took a free night we had coming and stayed in a motel in Orangeburg, SC. There we had wifi to check our e-mail and a warm bathroom attached to our room—simple but to us it was living in the lap of luxury.
We move on—still seeking warm weather
Santee State Park is on Lake Marion. We elected to stay in the Lakeshore campground because we wanted some waterview. This campground was primarily used by fisherman. So this was a learning experience for us. In fact in the camp next to us were a professional bass fisherman and his family. There was group of fisherman that must have run a trot line because every time we passed their camp there were scores of catfish being cleaned.
The weather was warmer and much more agreeable. We spent the first day sorting and cleaning stuff because we had been on the run for the last week. So we cleaned up the bikes, kayaks, the car and van, and reorganized everything.
The next day the morning was damp and a little windy. We decided to take the toad and drive south to Old Santee Canal Park. The canal was one of the early ventures of government in partnership with private investors. It was a canal connecting the Santee and Cooper rivers so that goods could get to Charlestown. Surprising enough it took much longer than predicted and cost so much over the estimate that the investors never made any money off their investment. The park museum entrance is through a replica lock. And it has nature trails and boardwalks through the swamp to give you an idea of what being in a swamp is like. Very nice.
The next day I coerced Elizabeth to hike a 6.5 hiking trail with me. We did complete it, but I most say it was probably a little ambitious for the first hike after a winter lay over. When we came back, we found there was no longer hot water at our bathhouse.
The next day we drove down to a paddling trail in the lower part of Lake Marion. We had spotted Spiegler’s Landing Road on our trip to Old Santee Canal. We had a delightful paddle through the islands and trees. We visited a Confederate graveyard on one of the islands. We did not poke around the swamps and marshes which is normally our wont because a local good ol’ boy regaled us with stories of hostilities of the local large alligators during mating season and the intimated that my 14-foot green kayak might be the target of some amorous advances. We stayed in open water, having decided to forego our explorations of the back creeks.
We saved that for a Saturday boat tour of Stump Hole swamp. It was very nice. I missed seeing the alligator but Elizabeth saw him. We all say lots of osprey, even a couple on branches bathing in the water.
Still trying to stay warm . . .
We headed south to Savannah and stayed for 2 days at the Savannah Oaks campground. A private campground selected for its laundry, wifi, and a lauching ramp on the Oceebee River (sp). The laundry and the wifi were excellent. The high winds precluded using the launch. The place, like most of the commercial RV sites, has a seen better days. The lack of ambience at private sites and the sense of being so crowded together means that we generally don’t care for them, but sometimes they are all that’s available.
While there we looked at another campground and went to Savannah for a quick a tour of the city and lunch.
We immediately moved to Skidaway Island State Park. We really liked this park, and our site was just on the edge of the swamp with deer traversing at sunset. The bathrooms were some of the best we have encountered—and they had laundry! Georgia has a system that you pay for a site but not a particular site, so you can drive around and choose what you like and post your exit day. We wanted to stay through the weekend but the park was booked, so we could only stay for 3 days.
Here again it was much to windy to kayak in the open water so we went on a nature hike and visited the nature center in the park which had a bird feeding station. We added a couple of new birds to our list (well, we don’t really keep a list and we’re definitely not birders, but it is the first time we saw these) a painted bunting and a red bellied woodpecker. We could hear Chuck Will’s widow at night.
The next day we went to Typee island in hopes of kayaking and seeing Sandra Bulloch but no luck in either instance—too windy for kayaking, not sure what the problem was with Sandra. We had a nice lunch at the Crab Shack (it had numerous 2-4 foot alligators in cage to observe) and visited Fort Pulaski. This post-1812 fort took 18 years and 25 million bricks to build. In 30 hours the Federal troops defeated by breaching the walls with rifled cannons. Good tour, and the moat with alligators and turtles provided a good walk.
Time to move . . .
Fort Mc Allister State Park, not far south of Skidaway, is near Richmond Hill, GA, and became our next very private and beautiful campsite. The fort itself was earthen and built during the Civil War. The Federal ships could not defeat it even their best ironclads. Hastily constructed of sand, which could be quickly repaired after every attack, the fort fell, but the troops did not surrender—they but were overrun by troops under Sherman’s command.
We awoke Saturday to strange noises that appeared to be coming from inside the walls or ceiling of the van. We could not determine what they were—mice? birds? Later sitting at our picnic table having breakfast, Elizabeth noticed some Carolina Sparrows were flying back and forth, entering our vents with nest-building materials. I temporarily covered the vents with a heavy towel, which confused the birds with their beaks full of twigs. They made valiant tries for five minutes to get around, over, under, and through the towel but failed. Nest they started to build a nest in Elizabeth’s kayak. When I left for the hardware store, they were really confused and realizing the new nesting place was gone, went back to try to get to the vents. Finally they moved on to some new, and I hope better, nesting area. I found a hardware store, got supplies to seal the vents, and spent the morning cutting and gluing screening.
Sunday was our anniversary, so we went out to a Mexican restaurant I’d spotted during the screening expedition. We settled down, ordered our Margaritas, and found out we were in a dry county. Oh, well. We had a good meal, came back on Monday for the 2 for 1 special, and all was well.
Near our campsite was a boat ramp where we could put in and kayak on the creek along side the campground. We could bike ride and had great privacy between campsites.
Plans Change . . .
Next would be Okeefenokee Swamp, but the local ranger let us know that it was on fire and closed. Thousands of acres in GA and FL are burned—bad for the campers but evidently good for the swamp. On the ranger’s recommendation, we headed north toward Augusta, and Mistletoe State Park. There we found a waterfront site from which we could launch our kayaks, that had trees for Elizabeth’s hammock. The wind blew down the lake from 10 am until sunset, so we went out early and late. We even enjoyed listening to the sounds coming from the fishing camp across the cove from us as the good ol’ boys partied late into the evening.
Yet again we learn—we do NOT like private campgrounds
We spend 1 night in the Hartwell Lake Campground and Cabins. We came for the wifi, which was only available in a dirty, open air pavilion. It’s a private campground, cheek-to-jowl sites—not to our liking. Nuff said—we moved on.
Heading northeast …
Leaving Harwell Lake, a quick look at Clemson and breakfast turning into the driving day from hell—getting lost a couple of times, waiting for ever to eat at Huddle House, to mention a few events. (We have sworn off them and Waffle House—equally rated by us as poor quality, ambience, and service.)
Driving the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Byway was a trip into Americana across the northwest corner of South Caroline. Nicely signed but no information about it anywhere—just listings of the local businesses along the way. Even the National Park at Table Top provided very little, but their conference room did have a couple of interesting cases of artifacts. We decided to treat ourselves to a motel, and the Hampton Inn at Gaffney, SC, turned out to be the one. We were really looking for WiFi, the set up at Hartwell being less than adequate. There was an Outback Restaurant nearby so went there for dinner and to celebrate surviving the day with a nice drink—Caught again, Sunday in a South Carolina dry county.
(What we learned—Never get caught in a closed parking lot. We can’t back up the RV with car attached, so a quick stop for fast food turned into a disconnect, move Charlie and the Toad, reconnect—for the second time in our life and the second time that first day.)
Our goal—Durham—where we’ll see Shawn and hang out in the area basking in the warmth of the Southern sun for a couple of weeks. We found our campground after a little bit of difficulty. We choose a site in Falls Lake Park at the Holly Point campground. Nicely private and few people in the camp. No waterfront sites on the water have water and power on the water, but we’re satisfied with the beauty of this inland location.
The next day, in true MRE (Maritime Republic of Eastport) tradition, we arise at the crack of noon, eat a simple breakfast, and settle into reading in the warmth of the sun: Elizabeth in her hammock and I under the awning—extremely pleasant 70s. But surprise—no hot water in the showers. The ranger arrived to collect for our 5-day stay, and we planned then to move to Jordan Lake for a second week in the area.
The next morning was substantially cooler so we hiked the 6.5 mile trail to get the blood flowing, create some warmth, and get the lay of the land. A ranger let us know that a cold front was coming in and it would be much colder but did not recall the details. This was not the news we wanted to hear.
All day as the temperature dropped and the breeze stiffened, we prepared things for dinner with Shawn and Jamara. Our plan—a simple dinner and talk around the fire, however, a high wind advisory and current drought conditions meant fires were prohibited for the evening. We ate inside and decided that with the predicated temperatures dropping to the 20s the next night, we would bail and head farther south.
Morning began with breaking camp, hitching up the toad, and going to Shawn and Jamara’s for hot showers, a computer search to find warmer weather, and breakfast before heading to Longs, SC.
(What we learned: The trip that you plan is seldom the trip you take.)
April continued—Still seeking warm weather.
Next stop, Willow Tree Resort—a RV resort north of North Myrtle Beach. We drove along the back roads because they are more congenial to our soul and in this case a bit more direct. Elizabeth, as usual plotted an excellent course and kept me on it. We gassed up Charley with high test because he didn’t seem to like pulling the Toad on regular, and he quit being so noisy after. It was a beautiful day and the azaleas were near their peak in southeastern North Carolina.
Willow Tree is one of those very nice RV resorts with excellent facilities, but not our cup of tea. Sites are close together and all the amenities are things we don’t use. The wifi was too slow, and the laundry expensive. But the bathrooms were hot, warm, and wonderful.
I cooked a steak on the grill, and we ate over looking the pond and the forest behind it—chilly, but happy that we’d escaped the freezing NC area. But, some time during the night the wind came up to near gale force. In the morning we found our doormat and Bill’s crocs had blown away (we did retrieve them). Not a day to commune with nature, we set up the van for reading and games when a piercing, totally disconcerting alarm went off. Our carbon monoxide detector.
We have two, and Bill took the portable one outside—that wasn’t it. Bill started to take the built in detector off the wall to disconnect it, but was thwarted by the lack of a #1 square drive screw. We were both totally discombobulated by the piercing blast. We left in search of screwdriver bit of the right size. Two hours later, we had our tool, lunch, and returned to the van. Elizabeth elected to remain in the car while Bill proceeded to enter the van and deal with problem summarily.
Bill: I entered the van to the bellicose blare of the detector. I rushed into action and quickly unscrewed the detector from the wall and disconnected it. The blaring continued. I took the detector outside to leave it there and suddenly noticed it was not the source of the sound. I girded my loins and returned to the lists. I soon discovered that our backgammon set was resting against the LPG test button and that was the source of our problems.
Another check on the weather, and we decided to head farther south into South Carolina to Santee State Park. But with the cold, miserable weather, we first took a free night we had coming and stayed in a motel in Orangeburg, SC. There we had wifi to check our e-mail and a warm bathroom attached to our room—simple but to us it was living in the lap of luxury.
We move on—still seeking warm weather
Santee State Park is on Lake Marion. We elected to stay in the Lakeshore campground because we wanted some waterview. This campground was primarily used by fisherman. So this was a learning experience for us. In fact in the camp next to us were a professional bass fisherman and his family. There was group of fisherman that must have run a trot line because every time we passed their camp there were scores of catfish being cleaned.
The weather was warmer and much more agreeable. We spent the first day sorting and cleaning stuff because we had been on the run for the last week. So we cleaned up the bikes, kayaks, the car and van, and reorganized everything.
The next day the morning was damp and a little windy. We decided to take the toad and drive south to Old Santee Canal Park. The canal was one of the early ventures of government in partnership with private investors. It was a canal connecting the Santee and Cooper rivers so that goods could get to Charlestown. Surprising enough it took much longer than predicted and cost so much over the estimate that the investors never made any money off their investment. The park museum entrance is through a replica lock. And it has nature trails and boardwalks through the swamp to give you an idea of what being in a swamp is like. Very nice.
The next day I coerced Elizabeth to hike a 6.5 hiking trail with me. We did complete it, but I most say it was probably a little ambitious for the first hike after a winter lay over. When we came back, we found there was no longer hot water at our bathhouse.
The next day we drove down to a paddling trail in the lower part of Lake Marion. We had spotted Spiegler’s Landing Road on our trip to Old Santee Canal. We had a delightful paddle through the islands and trees. We visited a Confederate graveyard on one of the islands. We did not poke around the swamps and marshes which is normally our wont because a local good ol’ boy regaled us with stories of hostilities of the local large alligators during mating season and the intimated that my 14-foot green kayak might be the target of some amorous advances. We stayed in open water, having decided to forego our explorations of the back creeks.
We saved that for a Saturday boat tour of Stump Hole swamp. It was very nice. I missed seeing the alligator but Elizabeth saw him. We all say lots of osprey, even a couple on branches bathing in the water.
Still trying to stay warm . . .
We headed south to Savannah and stayed for 2 days at the Savannah Oaks campground. A private campground selected for its laundry, wifi, and a lauching ramp on the Oceebee River (sp). The laundry and the wifi were excellent. The high winds precluded using the launch. The place, like most of the commercial RV sites, has a seen better days. The lack of ambience at private sites and the sense of being so crowded together means that we generally don’t care for them, but sometimes they are all that’s available.
While there we looked at another campground and went to Savannah for a quick a tour of the city and lunch.
We immediately moved to Skidaway Island State Park. We really liked this park, and our site was just on the edge of the swamp with deer traversing at sunset. The bathrooms were some of the best we have encountered—and they had laundry! Georgia has a system that you pay for a site but not a particular site, so you can drive around and choose what you like and post your exit day. We wanted to stay through the weekend but the park was booked, so we could only stay for 3 days.
Here again it was much to windy to kayak in the open water so we went on a nature hike and visited the nature center in the park which had a bird feeding station. We added a couple of new birds to our list (well, we don’t really keep a list and we’re definitely not birders, but it is the first time we saw these) a painted bunting and a red bellied woodpecker. We could hear Chuck Will’s widow at night.
The next day we went to Typee island in hopes of kayaking and seeing Sandra Bulloch but no luck in either instance—too windy for kayaking, not sure what the problem was with Sandra. We had a nice lunch at the Crab Shack (it had numerous 2-4 foot alligators in cage to observe) and visited Fort Pulaski. This post-1812 fort took 18 years and 25 million bricks to build. In 30 hours the Federal troops defeated by breaching the walls with rifled cannons. Good tour, and the moat with alligators and turtles provided a good walk.
Time to move . . .
Fort Mc Allister State Park, not far south of Skidaway, is near Richmond Hill, GA, and became our next very private and beautiful campsite. The fort itself was earthen and built during the Civil War. The Federal ships could not defeat it even their best ironclads. Hastily constructed of sand, which could be quickly repaired after every attack, the fort fell, but the troops did not surrender—they but were overrun by troops under Sherman’s command.
We awoke Saturday to strange noises that appeared to be coming from inside the walls or ceiling of the van. We could not determine what they were—mice? birds? Later sitting at our picnic table having breakfast, Elizabeth noticed some Carolina Sparrows were flying back and forth, entering our vents with nest-building materials. I temporarily covered the vents with a heavy towel, which confused the birds with their beaks full of twigs. They made valiant tries for five minutes to get around, over, under, and through the towel but failed. Nest they started to build a nest in Elizabeth’s kayak. When I left for the hardware store, they were really confused and realizing the new nesting place was gone, went back to try to get to the vents. Finally they moved on to some new, and I hope better, nesting area. I found a hardware store, got supplies to seal the vents, and spent the morning cutting and gluing screening.
Sunday was our anniversary, so we went out to a Mexican restaurant I’d spotted during the screening expedition. We settled down, ordered our Margaritas, and found out we were in a dry county. Oh, well. We had a good meal, came back on Monday for the 2 for 1 special, and all was well.
Near our campsite was a boat ramp where we could put in and kayak on the creek along side the campground. We could bike ride and had great privacy between campsites.
Plans Change . . .
Next would be Okeefenokee Swamp, but the local ranger let us know that it was on fire and closed. Thousands of acres in GA and FL are burned—bad for the campers but evidently good for the swamp. On the ranger’s recommendation, we headed north toward Augusta, and Mistletoe State Park. There we found a waterfront site from which we could launch our kayaks, that had trees for Elizabeth’s hammock. The wind blew down the lake from 10 am until sunset, so we went out early and late. We even enjoyed listening to the sounds coming from the fishing camp across the cove from us as the good ol’ boys partied late into the evening.
Yet again we learn—we do NOT like private campgrounds
We spend 1 night in the Hartwell Lake Campground and Cabins. We came for the wifi, which was only available in a dirty, open air pavilion. It’s a private campground, cheek-to-jowl sites—not to our liking. Nuff said—we moved on.
Heading northeast …
Leaving Harwell Lake, a quick look at Clemson and breakfast turning into the driving day from hell—getting lost a couple of times, waiting for ever to eat at Huddle House, to mention a few events. (We have sworn off them and Waffle House—equally rated by us as poor quality, ambience, and service.)
Driving the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Byway was a trip into Americana across the northwest corner of South Caroline. Nicely signed but no information about it anywhere—just listings of the local businesses along the way. Even the National Park at Table Top provided very little, but their conference room did have a couple of interesting cases of artifacts. We decided to treat ourselves to a motel, and the Hampton Inn at Gaffney, SC, turned out to be the one. We were really looking for WiFi, the set up at Hartwell being less than adequate. There was an Outback Restaurant nearby so went there for dinner and to celebrate surviving the day with a nice drink—Caught again, Sunday in a South Carolina dry county.
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