Elijah Clark and McCormick SC

 A lot of today was a Skye day.  We took her down tho the lake for a good long swim & splash session.  Even got her to bring a stick back to shore 6 times!  That’s really good for her.  She’s pretty long on Golden and short on Retriever.  

We went up to McCormick SC, a town about 10 miles north, to see a tire garage about a new valve stem.  That took 10 minutes and $15.  Then a Food Lion grocery store.  An hour and $200 later we came back to camp.  

After lunch Skye got another swim.  She needed a good walk around the park to start drying off after that.

Later this afternoon we got a new neighbor.  He has 4 dogs and a huge Siamese cat with him.  No human company, he left the wife at home.  Oh, wait, she arrived with her own car.  

The jet skis have a great time in this lake.  This is the Storm Thurmond Reservoir in the Savannah River on the GA-SC border.

I tuned in to the Artemis launch just as they reached orbit tonight.  That was about 9 minutes after liftoff. It should make the next several days very interesting   

I started this hours ago.  Then I stayed out in my chair until 9:30.  Nice and comfortable in shorts and T-shirt.  No bugs either.  Occasional thunder!

That’s the driveway to our campsite

She doesn’t rally like that first step.  I used all but one piece of cribbing on the trailer leveling.  Nothing left to make a step!

Sunset

Elijah Clark State Park, Lincolnton, GA

 Happy Birthday & celebrate it with a flat tire!  For a flat tire this really was a happy birthday 🎁 

24 miles from the park the Tireminder Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) started beeping.  That’s nothing new, it finds some silly reason to beep a few times every day.  I always look at it to check what’s happening.  This time it was a real deal.  The tire that was alarming was showing a pressure that was 4 pounds lower every 2 seconds!  That gave me a bit of time to find a place to get off the road.  Of course this was a place with steep shoulders offering no place to pull off.  Then there is a small dirt road with just enough room to pull in.  I go our and find out the valve stem is leaking with a really good hiss.  I twist it around a bit and it gets worse before it gets better.  Well, before it goe flat I maneuver around so I’m not blocking the side road and have a little more room to work; it’s the tire on the highway side.  Now ot get the big Jack under the axle before it gets flat enough to make that difficult.  The 6 ton jack is tall enough that it doesn’t fit under the axle if the tire is completely flat.  Made it!  Now its a quick and easy tire swap.  Back on the road again!

Before I had a TPMS that tire would have gone flat and destroyed itself and tore up a bit of the trailer before I knew about it.  It has now paid for itself.

Nice drive over here other than that.  Oh, there was a glitch in a construction area in Macon where the navigation didn’t work well because the road wasn’t where it was supposed to be.  That was easy, just wait for a recalculation.

Here in the park we found our site.  It doesn’t look the same as it did in the online map.  Little things like 2D vs 3D, it didn’t appear to be a long uphill twisty back in.  That took a couple minutes but we made it fine.  It’s listed as a 50’ site, no mention of the 100’ driveway!  But the view of the water is excellent.  We took a walk around the campground and met a few people, and a couple dogs.  Some of these folks seem to have a trailer, 3 cars and a boat in their site.  One near us has 4 generations of family too, plus a couple friends.  And a couple tents, big kitchen array, coolers etc.

I am a numbers guy in terms of liking certain round numbers.

Check the odometer this morning!

Is there a squirrel out there?

Our view from the camper in our new site

Flowering Dogwood

Americus, Georgia

 This was a pretty decent day to drive to another state.  Here we are in Georgia, this completes our crossing of the US, nowhere to go east anymore!  I guess we’ll have to go north.  Tomorrow we head to a state park on the GA-SC line.  Odd to think that our nightly camping is all planned, reserved and paid for the next 15 days!  

We got some coffee before leaving Falls River this morning.  Miss Jill said it’d be ready at 8, but we went over at 9 and they had to make it for us!  We talked with a nice Jamaican lady for a while.  She’s been here for a year and a half and is working at the market.

On the road we traveled SE for a bit, came to Dothan for fuel and discovered that the station is being remodeled, no truck diesel island!  We sat there for a bit while I found another station.  I had the fuel calculated fairly close, I didn’t have another 50 miles in the tank.  I did have another 5 gal. Stored in the back of the truck, that’s been there all winter.  I learned that out west a few years ago.  And hunting in Maine.  I’m still paying under $5/gallon in most places.  Occasionally 5.19, and seen it a bit higher.  Terrible compared to the under $4 coming out here in January.

It came as a surprise when we came through Plains GA on our way here.  Saw the road to Jimmy’s birthplace and saw Billy’s gas station in the village.  That gas station doesn’t look like it has had any attention since Billy was there!  It came up quickly enough that we don’t have any photos of it.

Tonight we are at a Baptist Church.  There are many churches in HH but this is our first.  Nice big parking lot.  Looks like a lot of big flood lights.  Don’t need that.  Somebody in a review said there were enough lights here that they felt safe.  Good grief.  City folk.

And this brings us back to Eastern Time too.

This morning in Falls River

She had to wait while we got our coffee

Doc McCoy is getting closer to home!

Another day, another state

Coming into Plains GA

Waiting…

2 honkers

Spiderwort

American Painted Lady

Southern Rockwell

Andalusia, AL

 Another nice driving day.  A bit overcast to start but the only recent use of the wipers has been with the washer.  

260 miles is a bit longer than usual for us but there was a big gap in the HH map in our direction.  No matter.  

This morning Timmy brought over two cups of hot tea for us, yup, delivered to the camper.  Peach tea for Carlene and smoky peach tea for me.  We bought a bag of peach tea.  It was a fun and educational HH stay.  

On the road we had 4 lane Rt US-84 in MS then two lane Rt 84 in AL.  All good roads, not much traffic. It’s Saturday of course. 

Here at the River Falls Diner and Market we are in a good size gravel parking lot beside Rt 82 but it’s Level!  Nice market.  So far we only bought some ice cream, we’ll look again in the morning.  They have fresh coffee at 8!  Also a good assortment of salsa and such.  Hot pepper jelly too.  Their own label.

We spent the late afternoon searching for a campground for the coming week.  We’re due at the shoot camp Tuesday 4/7, so we have a week to spend before that.  Found one we have stayed at a couple times. Also have to play the Rx refill game again.  Geez.  Hope it works better this time.  

A comment from the comments; all the flower photos are Carlene’s.  Other photos are a blend of ours.

The MS tea bushes 

Alabama

We got involved in the camp search and didn’t take any daylight photos of the camp!

Brookhaven, MS

 The Great Mississippi Tea Co. In Brookhaven MS is a good HH.  It is a tea grower, it has been 14 yers on a former dairy farm that has been in Timmy’s family for over 100 years.  He came home to help care for grandparents and was told he and his brother now had farm.  They didn’t want cattle but settled on growing tea.  They have 7 acres planted and still have at least 20 acres left of the old farm.  They sold off a lot of the land that wasn’t needed for this venture.  Timmy gave us a tour of the crop land and the processing facility.  He also explained the production and processing of tea.  They do several kinds and a lot of it, green tea, yellow tea, black tea etc. is all from the same plant but with different harvesting and processing.  We had no idea!  He is going to bring us some hot tea for breakfast.

We had half interstate and half US-84 four lane today.  US-84 looked just like an interstate, even bypassed the villages.  In this case we didn’t gain a thing by not being on the big I.

We stopped for fuel and lunch in Jonesville, LA!  And just to make me feel even more at home there were two big corn sprayers there too!  And their nurse trucks.  Ahh, the memories.  With two rigs, if I played it right I could get a week’s work done in that stop.  If you didn’t know me that long ago I made a living keeping tabs on those guys (and others) for the Ag Agency.

Spraying 4” corn in March!!

Camping beside the tea trees

Texas Toadflax

Red Dead-nettle

False Garlic

More Texas Toadflax

Hairy Buttercup

Lady Banks’ Rose