Winter Excursion 7, Day 208

The drive today was nice, most of the way was I-99 to I-96 to Rt 13, to Rt 11, to Home!

So here are the stats for this years trip.

We only stayed at 16 different campgrounds, as we were Camp Hosts again this year at George L. Smith State Park

We drove a total of 10584.7
The camper now has a total of 32440.2 miles on it (in six years)!
Average MPG was 11.1 for the whole trip (towing and when not). So we used 953 gals of gas, at an average of $3.00/gal (estimate) we spent $2860 on gas! The lowest we saw for a gas price was $2.80/gal in South Carolina, although in some states it was much higher and as the year progressed it just got more expensive. When we got to New York it was $3.75!
Here's a pic of our route this year.

It was a good trip this year. We only stayed at three new campgrounds, Douglas Dam Headwater TVA, Middle Creek CG, VA, and Ives Run (COE), PA.

We are already planning next year's trip and have most of our reservations already made, including our camp host position at George L. Smith State Park in Georgia (1 Jan 24 - 30 Apr 24).

We have two trips planned for this summer, The Forest River Owner's Group (FROG) Rally at Chenango Valley State Park and a late summer trip to Eel Weir State Park, so the next blog posts will be 14-25 Jul 25 and 25 Aug - 4 Sep 23.

It's good to be home!

Winter Excursion 7, Day 207

Today is the last camping day on this year's trip. We will be home tomorrow, so there will be one more blog post tomorrow with the stats from this year.

We hung around camp this morning and left around 1300 with our friends. We went to a bar in the local area for some cheese steak subs. They were excellent! We will definitely return to this joint when we are here again.

After lunch we drove to the other side of the lake we are camped on to check out the dam. This dam and drainage system was built in 1974, two years after the historic flooding in Pennsylvania. I remember this flood as a kid (teenager). It was built to control the flooding on the Susquehanna River.

Here's a few pics:

If you open this pic and look across the lake you can see the campground we are in.

Back at camp we did a little packing in preparation for our departure tomorrow.
  

Winter Excursion 7, Day 206

We stayed at camp all day. We did some scrapple for breakfast, did the dishes, and just relaxed. Sounds like a normal camp day!

Spent some time on the E-bike and watched all the campers arriving/leaving. The campground is 100% full for the holiday weekend.

We spent the afternoon with our friends and then returned to our camp to get dinner ready.

We did Gyros on the flattop with Greek salad. After dinner we enjoyed a nice campfire. Our friends left around 2030. It's been another fun day!
 

Winter Excursion 7, Day 205

Temps did get in the mid 30s last night and the sleeping was great!

We did a little exploring of the local area today. We visited Hills Creek State Park just a few miles from us.

It's a nice park, with some modern sites, well dispersed. Although we like it, if we are in this area will will stay at Ives Run.

Our friends came over to the site in the late afternoon. We spent a few hours yakking and trading stories.

We fried the last of our fish for dinner, watched a little TV and then hit the rack. Forecast if for mid 30s again tonight!

 

Winter Excursion 7, Day 204

We went to breakfast with our FROG friends. It was a "hole in the wall" and as usual at such a place it was a super breakfast! Our friends are locals and know all the joints! After breakfast we followed them to Wellsboro, PA. What a nice small town. The downtown can brag that every store front is occupied. We checked out our friends house and then headed back to camp.

Back at camp I did an E-bike ride. This park is big. Sites are spread out nice. The day use area and boat ramp are huge. And some of the views from the campsites are really nice.

We will be back here again!

Did a little camp maintenance after my ride. Got the grill and Blackstone all set.

The wind picked up in the late afternoon as a front is blowing through. Temps are forecast to be in the high 30s tonight and only low 60s tomorrow. Suits me just fine! 

We spent the early evening with our friends then headed back to our site for a nice steak dinner.

Winter Excursion 7, Day 203

As planned we left camp around 1100 after a lazy morning pack up!

The drive today was really nice. For the most part we were on Rt 15 from Harrisburg, PA to our new campground near Wellsboro, PA, just south of Corning, NY. Most of this route we had never traveled before.

Our new campground is Ives Run, a COE campground. We have full hookups and a nice site.

We are meeting some FROG friends we met last year at the FROG Rally in Chenango Valley State Park near Binghamton, NY. So after we got set up they came down to the camper and we yakked and caught up on news until 2000 in the evening! There were a few toddies involved.

We are here for five days and then head home. It will be fun to explore this area, our friends are locals.

It's also nice to be back in cell service and get caught up on the blog.

Winter Excursion 7, Day 202

We spent most of the day in camp although we did do a little food shopping for the rest of the trip. Gassed up the truck in preparation for leaving tomorrow. The farther north we go the worst the gas prices are. Paid $3.59 today! So we are back to the land of the $100 fill up!

We did a little packing up, but are not leaving until 1100 tomorrow. 

Spent some time talking to our neighbors. They are novice campers on their maiden voyage. Gave them some pointers and repaired their water heater.

The weather has been great! We are both thankful to be out of the humidity! 

Winter Excursion 7, Day 201

We just hungout at camp today and watched the mass exodus. It's Sunday and 90% of the campers are leaving. There is over 70 sites here and checkout time is 1500, so the exodus last almost all day. By evening everything was very quiet.

Played some cards and got a little E-bike riding in.

We got the Blackstone fired up and made some Cashew Chicken Stir fry for dinner. We will tone down the hot sauce next time!

Winter Excursion 7, Day 200

Sorry I'm a few days behind on the blog. We've had sketchy to no cell signal most of the time here at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in PA. This is a great SP and we've been here before in site #39.

The camp host remembered us from last year. We all traded "host stories".

We drove to one of our favorite grocery stores (Saylors) in Newville, PA. I get to stock up on all the PA stuff I had growing up in this area, Lebanon Baloney, Tastykake stuff, pickled eggs and scrapple! We will spend three nights here, then off to Ives Run COE CG in northern PA, just south of Corning, NY.

 

Winter Excursion 7, Day 199

With a little maneuvering we managed to get out of the site. Good thing none of the weekend neighbors arrived early or it would have been a different story. 

It was an easy drive to Candy Hill CG in Winchester, VA. We arrived around 1200. We had a quick lunch and then decided to do laundry. This will be the last laundromat for this years trip. We will be home in a few more days.

We have full hookups here and will dump and clean the tanks tomorrow morning. Cath and I are both having a Spa Day today (Long showers and plenty of time).

Delivery pizza and fixins' for dinner and some wine to go with it.

Check out tomorrow is 1100. We will use that to the max..LOL. It's only 100 miles to our next campground!

I'll post pics tomorrow of our site here. 

Winter Excursion 7, Day 198

After a fitful night's sleep worrying about how to get the camper out of here we drove to the nearest town (village) in search of some fresh food. That was not to be had! The Lady at the Family Dollar (only store in town) told us nearest grocery was 45 minutes away. We decided to eat what we had in the camper, but we need to re-stock soon. We were able to get some more bottled water!

Back at camp I took an E-bike ride on the local roads (trails). Took this pic. It may be from the 1700s (not the door), there is lots of history here.

After the ride we had a discussion about the camper placement situation. We decided we are out of here tomorrow morning as we are going to get weekend neighbors on both sides of us. That would give us zero room to maneuver this camper out of here. Here's another pic from up the hill from of site.

It's hard to see in the pic, but once I hook up the truck we block the road and there is a good size hill in front that limits our turn out of here. With campers and trucks on either side it would be damn near impossible to leave without disturbing our neighbors.

The campground folks are really nice and are doing a lot of renovations to bring the CG up to date, but they aren't there yet!

Our plan is to head to Candy Hill CG (Winchester, VA) tomorrow morning. We stayed here before and consider this our COVID CG...LOL When we arrive we will have full hookups. We will have a spa day. The shades will be drawn and there will be no pics! And pizza will be delivered! And some wine!

Winter Excursion 7, Day 197

We were on the road by 0930. Douglas Dam Campground will be one of our go-to CGs.

Interstate driving is not our favorite, but we did almost 300 miles today. We decided to get off the Interstate around mile 230 and follow US 11 for awhile as we needed gas and some lunch anyway. We missed the sign for US 11 and ended up on a bunch of goat trails. Gypsy was no help, because there was no cell reception! After about 20 miles of goat trails we found our way back to I-81.

Arrived at our new campground around 1500. It's a private one, nice, but not our favorite type of CG. The owners were great and we yakked awhile, trading CG stories.

We finally drove down to our site. Supposedly a 40 footer, but it's more like a 20 footer. With a little swearing we got the camper in place. The camper is not level and aside from using a crane we will not get it level! Our site is supposed to be a pull-thru, but I'll never be able to turn the pull-thru corner getting out of here! These sites were made for 1960s campers! As an added benefit when we hook up the truck we are blocking a road. Not just a road, but a VA Rt 613! We are thinking of ways to get the camper out of here with no damage! Here's a few pics.

All is sort of well in the Boss camp!

Winter Excursion 7, Day 196

Woke up this morning and waited for 1000 hours EDT. We were super anxious (worried) as there is only one site left at Buck Hall USFS campground for the time we need to stay there. Pushed the button at exactly 1000 hours EDT and BAM! Got the site! This is the campground closest to the Kids and Kiddos in Charleston, SC area.

After that we left camp and visited the Lodge Factory Outlet. We had already been to the one in Pittsburg, TN last year, but this one was only 6 miles away

After the Lodge store we checked out SMKW (Smoky Mountain Knife Works). This is the largest knife store in the world. A person could spend days here and not see it all. Here's a pic, but it does not do it justice. The place is ten times bigger than the pic and three stories.

Stopped at a food store for a few items, gassed up the truck, and headed back to camp.

Spent the afternoon playing cribbage.

We don't have much to pack up as we unpacked almost nothing. We are headed farther north in the morning.

Winter Excursion 7, Day 195

We left camp mid morning to check out Cherokee Dam Campground (TVA) just 20 miles north of us. Although it's a TVA campground we were not impressed. The sites are very close together and very few are level or large enough to accommodate our rig.

From there we made the half hour drive to the Bush's Bean Visitor Center. We were there last year and picked up some bean dips we'd never seen before. We loved them, so we returned this year to stock up!

We stopped at a Shoney's for lunch. We can't remember the last time we were there. The current menu is very small, but the lunch buffet was a big hit with the locals. We ordered from the menu.

We headed back to camp and spent the late afternoon being lazy. We waited for the storms that were forecast, but they never happened. They stayed south of us.

It's hard to believe, but we will be home in 12 days!

Winter Excursion 7, Day 194

We got up early and put the finishing touches on packing everything up. We left camp around 0930 CDT.

This was our longest leg of the entire winter trip. We did 354 miles! Although not our favorite way to travel we did Interstates the whole way and we were glad we did. Just south of Knoxville on I-40 and I-75 we hit a doozie of a thunderstorm. It was a real nail-biter! Traffic was slowed to almost a stop at times, the road was flooded at spots, and we added about 45 minutes to our drive! When we arrived at our campground around 1600 EST. There had been no rain, the storms were all south of us.

The new campground is Douglas Dam Headwater Campground in Tennessee. 

We did the absolute minimum set up as we are only here for three nights and forecast to have rain most of the time. We were tired after that long drive. We had a quick dinner, grabbed a shower and then off to bed.

Winter Excursion 7, Day 193

We were up with the sun as this is our last day with the six foot Jacob. He helped make our breakfast!

I think he gets a kick out of the flattop!

We played some cribbage and the boys rode the e-bike till the battery was almost dead!

All to early it was time for them to leave.

As usual we will miss CC & the six foot Jacob. It's been fun having them around. I'm betting next year he will be the six-foot-two Jacob!

Cath and I spent the afternoon packing up as we head out tomorrow on our trek back home.

 

Winter Excursion 7, Day 192

We left camp around 1330 and drove to Hoover. We did some shopping and then headed to the six foot Jacob's house to wait for the school bus to arrive. As soon as he got home we headed back to camp. We arrived around 1730.

We all went down to Ray & Melinda's for dinner. Their son and future daughter in-law were there. It was good to see Andrew again. Allen & Stephanie were also there, we had not seen them since 2019 at this campground.

After dinner we played a game called "Fishbowl" and had a blast. It's similar to charades. 

Back at camp we all fell asleep pretty fast. It's been a long, fun day!

Winter Excursion 7, Day 191

We left camp at 0830 and headed to our Grandson's school for the annual awards ceremony. The six foot Jacob received three awards! The most prestigious being induction into the National Honor Society! He also received one for the school Honor Roll and outstanding achievement in Physical Education.  

Back at camp we were treated to the show this giant woodpecker put on right outside of our window.

Today I learned to check the clearance on our pad when setting up so I have room to get the "Blue Tote" to the dump valves. Picking up 35 gallons of liquid is tough on my back!

And BTW the water is from the AC!

Cath made a really nice German dinner (Schnitzel and Spatzle with Rote Kohl) that we shared with our friends. After dinner we played cards until 2300. These late nights have got to stop!

Winter Excursion 7, Day 190

Hung out in the camper most of the day as the humidity is bad!

Before we headed to Ray & Melinda's for dinner we tried to feed Kaylee. For reasons unknown she would not eat. It may be the occasional rumble of thunder in the distance we can't hear, but she can. So we headed to our friends camper. After a few hours I took Kaylee back to our camper and she still refused to eat. I finally put her food on her bed and she ate her dinner in bed. I'm sure I just made a huge mistake!

We had a good meal at our friends. We were all still tired from the late night yesterday, so we headed home around 2000.

Winter Excursion 7, Day 189

We spent the day in camp. We did a little camp maintenance, some E-bike riding, and just relaxing.

We spent the late morning and early afternoon making "sticky chicken" as Ray and Melinda are arriving in camp and will be here for dinner.

Temps are pushing 90 and the humidity is stifling. We spent lots of time inside with the ACs humming!

I did manage to get all the wood split and stacked. The six foot Jacob will be happy.

Ray and Melinda arrived around 1830. We had dinner around 1930 and yakked and caught up on news until almost 2300. We will sleep good tonight!

Winter Excursion 7, Day 188

Laundry day! Our favorite! Not! It wasn't too bad and we met a really interesting couple. This guy was retired Airforce, 77 years old, and quite the character! He talked my ear off for almost the entire time we were there. It made laundry day go really fast for me!

On the way back to camp we did some grocery shopping to get ready for Ray & Melinda's arrival tomorrow. We will have dinner ready for them when they arrive.

We spent the afternoon around camp. Cath did some reading and I rode the E-Bike. I met one of the hosts, a retired Army guy. The host schedule here is 3 on and 6 off! He also gave me a bunch of firewood which I will save for the six foot Jacob on Friday.

Crab Cakes and Tater Tots on the flattop for dinner....YUMMY!

Winter Excursion 7, Day 187

We did another nice breakfast on the flattop. The six foot Jacob learned how to flip pancakes!

After breakfast there was more E-bike riding. I think the six foot Jacob put over 30 miles on it!

The two cribbage cheaters had a match and then we had a quick lunch.

We headed back to the six foot Jacob's house and had a fun afternoon with CC, Ferdie, and the six foot Jacob. They made a yummy dinner for us and we all did a lot of yakking!

We left for our campground around 1930. We did not want to be late as they lock the gate and there is no combo.

It's been a really nice weekend with the six foot Jacob and his family!

  

Winter Excursion 7, Day 186

The six foot Jacob and I made the "Waffle House Breakfast" on the flattop. I think he had a fun time.

There was more E-bike riding this morning, then Cath wanted to go checkout Burchfield Branch Campground. We all piled into the truck and drove the sixty miles to the campground only to find the gate closed and we didn't have the combo!

On the was back to our campground we wanted to stop and get some firewood for this evening. We stopped a Publix, no luck. Then we went to Winn-Dixie and Tractor Supply, also with no luck. The guy at TSC said they sold over three pallets worth in the last few days. We gave up the search, drove back to camp, and the six foot Jacob used the E-bike to scrounge some dead and down wood to use for a fire after a nice steak dinner.

Of course smores were on the desert list!

Winter Excursion 7, Day 185

We left camp around lunch time to do some food shopping and pick up the six foot Jacob!

It was good to see CC and Fergie again. They surprised me with a belated birthday card and a bottle of my favorite hooch! It was a great gift as I was almost out. They have done a nice job on their new house. We left there with the six foot Jacob and were back at camp by 1730.

As today is Cinco de mayo we had tacos for dinner.

The six foot Jacob fell in love with my new E-bike. I think he explored the entire campground about a dozen times.

It's been fun catching up with all the six foot Jacob news.

Winter Excursion 7, Day 184

One of the marker lights on the camper went bad, so we headed to Camping World to get a new one. Camping World was about 70 miles away so we got to see some of the Alabama countryside. We stopped and got a sub for lunch, then headed back to camp.

I took a nice ride on the E-bike and then we played some cribbage. 

Weather remains nice, but it's going to change.

Here's another view of our site.

Winter Excursion 7, Day 183

We left Chewacla State Park at 1000. Set Gypsy (GPS) to avoid highways and headed to Deerlick COE Campground near Tuscaloosa, AL. Most of the drive was on US Rt 82, not a bad road, but there are lots of trucks and they are hauling butt!

Arrived at our new campground around 1400 and took our time setting up. Our site (#11) is really nice. Here a few pics.

We even got a satellite shot from here!

The weather remains perfect (40s & 70s), but is forecast to change with thunderstorms and temps in the high 80s, YUK! Hopefully the "weather-guessers" in this area are just as bad (wrong) as the ones in Georgia.
  

Winter Excursion 7, Day 182

We took a short drive to the other end of the park to check out the waterfall.  Chewacla Waterfall was worth the short walk (hike) from the parking lot. The trail was maybe 1/4 mile, but it was very steep and lots of loose rocks and dirt.

From there we drove to the nearest gas station and filled up the truck in preparation for our drive tomorrow to Tuscaloosa, AL and Deerlick COE Campground.

Back at camp we spent the afternoon reading and enjoying the weather. 

I noticed this dead tree behind our site. If this thing ever comes down it will crush a camper in this site.

Yep, that is part of our awning!