We departed this morning from Country Oaks Campground in Kingsland, GA around 9:30 AM. We had a good drive although I-95 started getting rough as soon as we crossed the South Carolina state line and I-26 was no better. We hit enough rough road that the audio on our TV wasn’t working when we parked. One of the wires attached to the switch that determines whether the stereo plays music from the car stereo or audio from the TV had disconnected.
We are staying at Barnyard RV Park in Lexington, SC. It’s a nice park that’s not far from I-77, I-26, or I-20. Our site (A-2) is a pull through site with full hookups that is 100′ long. The trees here are fairly young and we had no problem picking up the Dish Western Arc satellites from our roof mounted satellite antenna.
It was very hot today (mid to upper 90’s), but the nice, clean bathroom and shower facilities here are air conditioned, so our showers “took”.
Once again, Beth was excited because they have varmints. They have a private pond with ducks and turtles to feed. The ducks apparently weren’t hungry, but the turtles were happy to eat the 25 cent duck food.
We started our big road trip today by heading out for Albany, NY to visit Beth’s family. Now that we’re retired we are trying to limit our daily travel to 250 miles (or 5 hours) per day. So far, this is a nice comfortable pace. We pulled into Country Oaks Campground and RV Park just prior to 2PM. It’s located just across the Georgia state line from Jacksonville, FL (close to I-95, but not too close). There are a lot of oak trees providing great shade but obstructing the satellite reception. Fortunately, we were placed in Site #11 which has a clear view of the Dish Eastern Arc satellites from the back of the site. We had to break out our portable satellite receiver (R2D2), but we are now relaxing to the final round of this year’s US Open golf tournament.
The Verizon cell phone and data coverage is excellent and the Jacksonville TV channels are easily picked up on antenna. The campground WiFi is excellent. Not only are we able to connect to it (although we are fairly close to the office), but it has good bandwidth.
The owners of the campground must be animal lovers because they have a campground cat that greeted us at the office and a miniature horse named Flash that lives underneath the office building.
We camped here Monday to Friday and enjoyed perfect weather. During our stay we managed to hike all of the trails designated for hiking (as opposed to bike or horse). We also spent time with some close friends who experienced a loss during the week.
The park reserves 15% the sites for “walk-ups” which are released on Fridays. We managed to get one of these sites stayed Monday to Friday. The site (#150) was a bit tight and includes a couple of trees that forced us to park at an angle, but we were right on the water. Beth got to kayak a couple of days and we got some nice sunset photos while we cooked some meals on the fire. We also enjoyed a few meals out at some of our favorite beach restaurants including a meal with close friends who live on the island leading out to the park.
Beth decided she needed to spend a couple of days on the beach before returning home and managed to get weekend reservations at Camp Gulf RV Park for the weekend. This is a very large RV Park that’s located right on the beach in Miramar Beach, FL. The sites are a little tight but that is to be expected at a beach campground. The campground is very clean and well run. We really enjoyed being able to see the water from our site (although we didn’t have a beachfront site) and be on the beach within just a few steps of our site.
We moved from Vicksburg to an Army Core of Engineers campground along the Alabama River. Our site (#40) is on the shore of the Alabama River. The view is excellent and you can see the dam and lock from our picnic table. Beth managed to guide us into a position where our satellite could access the Dish Network satellites between a gap in the trees so we could watch World Series Game 3 (along with the Miami vs Boston College football game) once it was too cold to enjoy sitting outside.
This is a great campground with at least 10 great sites along the river, but due to its location (middle of nowhere), the roads coming in from the north were very “tight”. We will have to see what the roads from the south are like (on our departure tomorrow) to determine whether or not we would want to visit here again.
Just like last year, we migrated from the Hot Springs, AR area to Vicksburg, MS taking the same route. It was interesting to see the amount of cotton left in the ditches along US-65 from the cotton harvest. I assume it blew out in transport.
We arrived at mid-afternoon on Wednesday and once we were parked we made a trip to the local Kroger grocery store to stock up on supplies. Thursday was a complete washout (it rained all day long) so we took the shuttle from the campground to the casino and spent the afternoon there. Fortunately for us, we didn’t contribute much to the local economy (one of us might even have come out slightly ahead).
I know that just a few posts back I stated that Twin Fountains RV Resort in Oklahoma City was the nicest campground we had ever stayed in, but I think Catherine’s Landing has surpassed it. The sites here are very large and and each one has a a huge cement pad, picnic table, charcoal grill, fire ring, full hookups, and cable TV (analog). The campground is a former 400 acre dairy farm which has one mile of waterfront along the Lake Catherine waterway. The office and pool area are at the top of the hill (at the entrance) and overlook the park. The pool is heated through November and includes a “splash pad” for the kids where there are all kinds of sprinklers and fountains and they can blast each other with all kinds of water canons. Due to all these features there are a lot of high end rigs here (Entegras, etc on Prevost bus chassis, Newells, Allegro buses, etc). Seeing all these high end rigs works out quite conveniently since we are going to win the $1.6 Billion Mega Millions lottery tonight.
Catherine’s Landing – Site #51 – Passenger Side
Catherine’s Landing – Site #51 – Driver’s Side
The weather was so nice that we decided to setup our outdoor TV so that we could watch football outside all weekend. In attempt to offset our slovenliness and debauchery we went for walks each day. On Friday we walked the outer perimeter roads of the camping area and one additional internal road to knock out 2.1 miles (it’s a big facility). On Saturday we walked their hiking trail (which goes around their 9 hole Frisbee golf course and most of the property at the entrance). This hike was easy, but nearly 2.5 miles. We stuck to the campground roads again Sunday.
On Monday we went into Hot Springs to tour bath house row. It was quite interesting. When we were done we drove up to the top of Hot Springs Mountain where they have built a 216 foot observation tower. The views from there are pretty incredible.
Buckstaff Bathhouse
Ozark Bathhouse
Quapaw Bathhouse
Fordyce Bathhouse
Hot Springs
View from Mountain Tower
We had planned to rent a pontoon boat on Tuesday and tour Lake Catherine, but unfortunately while we were touring on Monday the campground pulled all of their rental boats out of the water for the winter. Instead we decided to walk the campground hiking trail again, but were interrupted at 1.3 miles when Beth’s shoe blew out. The weather was perfect, so we spent time outdoors packing for our move the next day to Vicksburg and doing a little maintenance. When we were done we showered and had a late lunch at the Red Oak Fillin’ Station where I learned that I had completely wasted the first 55 years of my life having never thought to put 12 hour smoked brisket on my sourdough grilled cheese sandwich. Live and learn…
After two nights in Oklahoma City, we departed for Lake Catherine State Park at around 8:30 AM. I think I got spoiled on back roads in New Mexico and Texas (two lane highways so straight they have 75 MPH speed limits) and decided to take US-71 out of Fort Smith to US-270 on into Hot Springs which resulted in a lot of two lane driving through the hills with plenty of twists and turns. I pulled over a couple of times to let the poor folks stuck behind me pass. In the future, we’d rather stay on I-40 all the way to Little Rock and then take I-30 back to Hot Springs.
Lake Catherine State Park – Site #52 – Driver Side
Lake Catherine State Park – Site #52 – Passenger Side
We had reservations for two nights at Lake Catherine State Park and since our time was limited we decided not to leave the park (although Beth did sneak into town the first morning, while I slept in, for groceries). When Beth got back from the grocery store, we hiked one of the trails. We chose the Falls Branch Trail (marked “intermediate”) which was close to 2.5 miles (starting from our campsite). We must be getting old, because “intermediate” seemed a bit difficult (just shy of requiring rappelling gear), but it was worth it. There was a lot of great scenery that eventually lead to a creek and waterfall. Along the way, Beth found an excellent walking stick which she had named “Wally”.
Lake Catherine Hike
Falls Branch Trail – Suspension Bridge
Falls Branch Trail – Creek to Lake
Falls Branch Trail – Waterfall
That night we thawed some vacuum sealed Sams Club filets and cooked them over the fire. They were served with Bob Evans Mashed Potatoes and a hint of Cabernet wine. All was delicious.
Phoebe Helping with Dinner and Enjoying Her Freedom
We left Pampa, TX around 8:20AM continuing east on TX-152 until we hit I-40 near Sayre, TX. We dealt with considerable wind, but it didn’t seem as bad as the previous day until we hopped on I-40 at which point the crosswinds were severe and seemed to change directions regularly causing the kayak to start flopping around again on top of the Tahoe. We had to stop at the first I-40 exit and go through the re-securing process again. This time I loosened the front kayak supports and ensured they were completely under the kayak and then pulled the straps down perpendicularly as tight as humanly possible. This apparently worked because the kayak never moved another inch.
We decided to stay at Twin Fountains RV Resort in Oklahoma City so that we’d be close to town so we could celebrate our retirement with a nice steak at one of the local restaurants. Assuming that the resort would be a bit more high end than your standard campground we made our first stop ever at a Blue Beacon Truck Wash to spruce up the Winnebago. I was surprised how clean they got the RV by only using pressure washers (about 8 hand held wands) and hot water with soap. The RV looked great and we didn’t feel like the Beverly Hillbillies checking in at what was the nicest place we had ever camped up to that point. The cats did NOT enjoy the RV wash at all…but that is a story for another day.
Upon arrival I was unable to open the door to our power and water bay. I had to crawl underneath the door and manipulate the latch with a screwdriver to get it open. It turned out that the plastic latch had broken and needed to be replaced. I managed to re-secure the door once we got the power and water hooked up and we quickly showered and prepared for our big meal out on the town (we wore our “going to town pants” and everything).
Beth chose to eat at the Mahogany Prime Steakhouse in downtown Oklahoma City. We were able to park on the street with our kayak and bicycle in tow. Beth chose wisely! Dinner was incredible. I had a Bone-in Filet Mignon and the waiters convinced Beth to try the special which was a Bone-in Cowboy Ribeye (and may now be her favorite steak). We split a side of Au Gratin potatoes covered in smoked cheddar cheese. While we were at the bar waiting for our table we shared an appetizer of Tenderloin on Toast Points (roasted pepper and red wine sauce, served with béarnaise) which could have been a meal in itself. We each had one and brought remaining home to enjoy for multiple future breakfasts (with eggs).
Tenderloin on Toast Points
Filet Mignon
Bone-in Ribeye
The following day I did some research and determined that the local Camping World had a replacement compartment door latch in stock, so once we got around we went there and procured two latches (one spare). On the way back we stopped at a Crest grocery store for supplies and Beth discovered that they stocked Eckrich bologna (it’s like I won the lottery). Forget fancy meals at the Mahogany Prime Steakhouse, I had the most incredible bologna sandwich for lunch the very next day.
Eckrich Bologna
Unfortunately, the compartment door latch was riveted in from the factory and I didn’t have a rivet tool in my toolbox. You know you’re in a high end RV Resort when you can call an onsite mobile RV repairmen and he shows up in less than an hour with rivet tool (and rivets) in hand. By the time he arrived, I had drilled out the old rivets, replaced the latch and all I needed him to do was install two rivets. He was done in 5 minutes and didn’t want any money. I made him take a $20 and we were both happy.
