Spring Break 2008

Since we haven't been able to have internet access each day I will combine days when we do get access.

Sunday March 9 was our first day out. We had an uneventful drive to Staunton River State Park in Virginia. This is a nice park and we were here last year. It makes a nice first day and short trip. We attempted to pull into one of the 3 sites that are said to be for larger rigs but didn't initiate the turn correctly so we decided to go to site 13 where we were last year. Nice site, easy in and out.
The temperature dropped to 24 overnight but we were quite warm in our camper. We had our furnace set to 60 or so and used a small electric heater to maintain about 64 overnight.

Monday March 10 Staunton River to Little Pee Dee State Park South Carolina.
Again an easy trip combining both back roads and interstates. We arrived at Pee Dee about 2 PM. But this was not my best day towing/parking. First I noticed in a shadow of the camper as we were leaving Staunton River that I had left the TV antenna up. I pulled over at a wide spot before we left the park and lowered the antenna. No damage. Whew!

Later I realized that I wasn't sure I had picked up the 6x6 blocks I used under the tongue jack. I didn't.

When we arrived at Pee Dee there was no one at the Ranger/Check-in station so we went to the campground. The site numbering is a little strange and we had a hard time finding site 15 which was a pull-thru. Once we found it looked like I had to go thru site 14. NOT. But I found myself in the site heading the wrong direction. I had thought I could make a loop through 14-15 and be heading in the correct direction but couldn't make that swing. So I figure I will pull out and drive the one way loop backwards and get to where I can reenter the campground in the correct direction. That's where things went from bad to worse. To make a much to long story a little shorter I kissed a tree with the trailer breaking the lower awning bracket and enduring much discussion from Suzette. Well with several attempts we were able to get out of the site and turn around and back in. Now what?

Oh that little episode only took about 2 hours.

On Tuesday we headed to Myrtle Beach to see if we could get parts. There is a Camping World there but they don't carry our brand of awning. But they did give a business card for "The Awning Man" and he is the MAN. I contacted him and was told to meet him at his shop. Not finding his shop I called him again and he drove by to have me follow him. He had the parts so I bought 2 lower brackets and needed screws. All for $20, not bad. Now to find Margaritaville Cafe for lunch. We found it and had a great lunch.

Back at Pee Dee I replaced the bracket and adjusted the upper bracket. I choose not to roll out the awning fearing that there might be other damage that I couldn't see in the upper bracket. We will make that test when we will be one place for 4 or more days.

Wednesday March 13 Little Pee Dee to Crooked River State Park in Georgia.
When we left Pee Dee we decided the dump station wasn't worth the effort since the twists and turns and trees were not to our liking. We drove back road to I95 and stopped at the Petro at x169 to dump and top off. The drive to Crooked River was just following the slab to GA exit 3 and then about 10 miles to the park.

Crooked River is a very nice park. All sites will take 50' units, water, electric and cable TV. We took a nice eyebrow pullthru site. Lots of folks camped here and there seemed to be a Casita TT convention with about 8 of the little trailers here.

Ed did a little shopping, site seeing and fueled up. Back at the campground we rode several of the trails and considered taking the kayaks out but decided to just chill out since we head for Stephen Foster SP in FL tomorrow.


Larry

Some readers may be interested in what we are paying for fuel and what we get for mileage pulling this heavy trailer so here goes;

We are averaging about 11.8 mpg and we have paid between $3.599 and $3.819 per gallon. Outside of Viurginia, where we paid $3.59 the day before we left, South Carolina at $3.659 was the best price we found. Today we tanked up at Murphy USA (Wal Mart) at $3.799.