Oak Mountain State Park

January 23-25, 2009

This weekend we decided to stay closer to home and try out Oak Mountain. We had heard poor to average reviews about the quality of their campground and we agree with that. I went home at lunch and hooked up camper and pulled it out to the park so I could get her set up early 1) so that we would get a better site pick and 2) so we would not be stressed in having to pull at rush hour and set up everything at night. This turned out to be the best move of the weekend as I was able to get us one of the better looking sites (A6) in the campground. The site privacy was not too good (about same as Cheaha) in the A Loop of the campground and absolutely ghetto tight spaces in the B Loop. After a quick set up, and the afternoon at work, we headed out and finished setting up. We had a wonderful dinner (baked fish with lemon/garlic, cilantro lime rice, and salad) then went to bed early watching a movie from the Apple TV we brought along this time. We converted the dinette into a bed and the dogs slept up there and absolutely loved it!It rained all night long and into the morning. We got up late and had breakfast (eggs, turkey sausage, biscuits, and oatmeal) and Amy G had her breast milk.
Later that day the clouds left and sun came out. Dave and Lori Cooper came out with their baby for the afternoon and we had lunch and then went on a hike/geochaching experience.

We hiked to Peavine Falls and it was flowing great after the rain event the night before. Wow, I discovered how out of shape I have gotten. It is about a 0.8 mile round trip walk to Peavine Falls and I had to stop a bit to rest coming back up the the trail! But, gotta start somewhere to get in shape and be more active!
On the way out (the batteries had died in camera) we found our first geocache with Dave's GPS. It had experienced some rain damage, but it was still fun to look for it. The Cooper's went home and we headed back down the mountain to camp. Right before dark, we started up a nice fire utilizing some kindling from the weekend and some wood chopping.
We had another good dinner (chicken tacos and mexican rice) and then we hung out by the fire. We had a few marshmellows and listened to the Ipod on random. Kuddos to random Ipod play (thanks Jessica). We went to bed shortly thereafter and fell asleep to another movie. The next morning we had breakfast (eggs, turkey sausage, and pancakes) and then broke down camp and left before noon and were home and unloaded by 2:00. We also installed the new levels as we were able to get the trailer completely level on the site Friday.

Weather: 45-60 degrees, windy, rain, overcast till lunch Saturday then sunny and pretty until we left Sunday
Campground notes: sites are tight, if we had not got the site we did or at least in the A loop then we would have been unpleasantly close to our neighbors; water and power
Lessons learned: we left our splitter and regulator at Cheaha and had to use the backup regulator
Things to buy: small step ladder, level blocks, short hose and splitter for connection to water, backup regulator

Until we set out again...

Cheaha State Park

January 17-18, 2009

We spent the week organizing and buying things for the camper. We made our yearly trip to Wal-Mart and walked away upset as always at the lesser than quality items that they sell and at the prices they sell the crap for this year!!!! We did buy some side mirror extensions and a small television from Amazon.com and it still continues to impress me how easy and helpful Amazon is when buying SOME items! We go next day delivery on those two items for $3.99 per item and saved over $70 on the TV versus local store prices. Not everything is great off of Amazon (you still have to research stuff extensively and go look at some items at stores to check quality) but these two items will work out great!

We watched the weather all week and Thursday-Friday was going to be the coldest days of the year, but things looked a bit warmer on Saturday-Sunday, so we decided to go for it. We added a small electric space heater to our gear in the camper so we could save on propane. We also turned the electric heater on in the camper when it was extremely cold at home (Thursday and Friday) so we could help in keeping the pipes from freezing. Saturday morning Joel, Jessica, and Dusty came over and we all loaded up/hooked up the camper and we headed out to Cheaha. We arrived around noon (under 2 hour drive) and set up camp. We found a great site with a older pine tree that was split and had fallen that was loaded with good kindling. It was one of those days when the sun was not going to come out and it feels like 30 minutes before dusk all day long. With the cold, overcast, and sleety mist we were experiencing, we opted not to hike so we started a great fire and just chilled around the campsite. Joel and I took the axe and attempted to chop down a semi-fallen tree. Only, it did not fall and wound up getting hung up and angled towards a fall of destruction which required constant monitoring when sitting around the campsite. It also required movement of the truck. Every windy gust kept us on alert. We had sandwiches for lunch and snacked on home made trail mix all day (Note: don't cook raisins with the trail mix in the oven!). For dinner we had hot dogs, chili, kraut, and chips. We sat around the fire off and on all night as the rain, sleet, and wind drove us in the camper some. Eventually, we all fell asleep watching a movie in the camper.

The weekend showed us that the camper did fine holding two couples, a baby, and two dogs (Dusty and Bo; Star was put up on doggy vacation in the kennel). We all slept great and got up had breakfast, loaded up, and took down everything. On the way out we all stopped at the highest point in Alabama and checked out the top of the observation tower. Sunday afternoon was sunny and beautiful!! We left from Cheaha around 2:00 and got home around 3:30 with a gout attack hitting me hard.

Weather: 30-35 degrees, windy, sleet, rain, overcast until we left

Campground notes: sites are tight, if it were crowded here then there would have been unpleasantly close neighbors; water, power, and on-site sewage (this was convenient)

Lessons learned: be more careful backing up (cracked taillight cover on the site number sign), when standing up from bed watch head (after multiple head bangs)

Things to buy: small step ladder, level blocks, short hose and splitter for connection to water

Until we set out again...

Red Top Mountain (Georgia State Park)

January 9-11, 2009

We dropped off Star and Bo at the kennel and went to Acworth, Georgia on Friday to stay with John and Michelle. They were selling their camper and we were in the market. We had flirted with the idea of a new camper and had been dealing with various dealerships only to be turned away by the typical salesman lack of motivation/knowledge. I had been discussing campers with John we were considering their camper. Their camper was the first one I had ever stayed in and I had fond memories when we went to Charlottesville, VA and stayed in it for the Dave shows. We spent the weekend running through the in's and out's of operation with John and Michelle and Emily and I camped Saturday night at a Georgia State Park - Red Top Mountain. It was a nice campground with all the essentials plus cable and most importantly to us, it offered wonderful privacy looking over Lake Allatoona. Unfortunately, this was not a relaxed weekend but a weekend to make a final determination about buying the camper and soaking up all the knowledge we could from John and Michelle.
We backed into our site and were unable to get level because of the height the hitch was set at which kept us from lowering the trailer enough to level her out. We made due with the situation and finished setting up right at dark. We all went to dinner at Chili's and had a good time with some great fajitas, boats, and margaritas! After dinner they dropped us back off at the camper to stay the night to see if it was for us. It was a cold windy and rainy night, which offered us a great opportunity to try out the heater and see how dry and comfy the trailer would be during poor weather times. We sat outside for a while under the canopy and discussed the potential purchase and costs. We then went inside and watched the end of the ballgame and I played around with the camper. During my playing, I accidentally turned off a control switch on the heater unit while putting the cover back on and after a while it started getting cold in the trailer, so I tried to get the heater to work. Wall thermostat would not turn it on? So I went outside in the pouring rain and switched over propane tanks, only to come back in and find no luck! Next, I got out the manuals and finally determined that it was simply a switch behind the cover....Whew! Part of learning something new!

I woke up off and on through the night to hear the heavy rainfall and the heater kicking on/off by thermostat control. Man this camper was more comfy than home! We both slept late and woke up and cooked a big breakfast - eggs, bacon, biscuits, and oatmeal. All the kitchen appliances work great - microwave, oven, stove and especially the smoke detector. After breakfast, John came out and helped us break down and teach us more. I emptied the black tank (poop and pee) and grey tank (dishwater) for the first time and then went back to John and Michelle's home and wrote a check. It was close to dark, so we hit the road towards the house pulling our new camper. It turned out to be a great thing that we did not get on the road before dark because we had no mirror extensions which would have made it impossible to merge or change lanes on the interstate. But the night made it possible because you could read the sides of the road by car lights approaching!
There is obviously a lot to learn with this new activity and my hope is that it will be another good teamwork building activity for our marriage as well as an activity that will get us out more into His creation as well as more active and in shape!!

Until we set out again...