Elijah Clark and hiking attempt

 That’s right, we made an attempt at hiking today.  A bit east of here is another state park on the Thurmond Resevoir and they have a 9 mile trail along the lakeshore.   So we go out to check it out and hike.  But we get out there and Carlene says we’re in the wrong place, back we go and with a mild struggle we find the parking place.  We also find the trail, but it’s not quite like the map shows.  A half hour later we decide it isn’t really here, it has been relocated or something.  Back to the place we had been.  Sign on the trailhead and on the trail itself says “park closed”,  so we ignore that and have lunch at the picnic table.  On to the next place. The West Park and beach is open and the lady tells us the whole trail is closed due to damage from hurricane Helene.  The bit of trail right there is functional and pseudo open.  You can hike it for a ways but she isn’t sure how far it’s not really officially open.  But this park has several nice beaches and our Elijah pass is good there too.  Dogs are not allowed on the marked beaches but they’re OK elsewhere, on leash.  We agree that we’ll find a place where she won’t bother anyone and won’t talk about the leash!  This lady has family in VT, one in St J, one in Winooski or Williston.

We go out and see people on all the beaches but we go to the end of the road at beach 6 and walk back along the shore.  There is a big rocky space between beach 3 & 4 so she got a good swim and lots of rock skipping.

We stopped at the visitor center on the way back to camp and got more general info on the area.

Little Brown Jugs

Elijah Clark, & Augusta GA

 Threat of thunderstorms in the forecast suggested that this would be a good day for some utility kind of tasks.  The laundry was piling up and we needed to pick up some Rx at Walgreens in Augusta.  So that’s how we spent most of the day.  I’s a 40 minute drive to Augusta and the GPS said it was a one minute difference whether to go vis GA or SC, so we went SC.  It was basically the same route we took yesterday but just went farther.  

Augusta is a fair sized city of just over 200,000.  A bit bigger than VT.  It’s the seat of Richmond County.  That’s about all it has in common with home!  Luckily we only had to go into the fringe of the city, really only into Evans, GA, a suburb.  We found the pharmacy easily and they actually had our Rxs.  We had a run around with them in Fredericksburg TX, they told each of us it was too early for a refill.  And they lost the refills coded into my Rx.   I know I had 6 refills when I left home.

Then to the laundromat a couple miles away.  While Carlene did that I found another grocery store a couple miles away for things we forgot last time.  Still not completely successful, still haven’t found y favorite Schweppes tonic.

On the way back to camp we stopped at the same roadside beach in Modoc so Skye could get a swim.  It was also lunch break at 2 PM!  This spot has a good shale deposit on the beach.  Nothing like a small slab of shale for skipping stones.  Skye had a great time with those!  I have not been having any luck loading video on this blog recently, not sure why.  But it worked tonight!  That’s all the photos we took today.

Back at camp Skye needed a long walk to dry off.  And another walk at sunset.  Maybe one more before bed, but that’ll be a short one.

Elijah Clark SP, hiking

 We took Skye for a swim in the lake and then headed out for a hike.  It took a little while to pick one, not because there are so many to choose from—there are not!  It took the most time to find one!  This is a great water rec area, so much so that there aren’t other things like hiking trails.  The lake is almost 40 miles long and extends into at least 3 drainage basins for about 71,000 acres.  Sometimes it seems Ike everyone else in this park has a boat!  And half of them have golf carts.  There is more cart traffic than car traffic.

Anyway, we picked a trail south of McCormick SC and drove over there.  It took a bit of direction finding to get to the trailhead!  But once there it was a very nice trail.  About 2.5 miles around a loop and partially along a creek.  Yup, Skye got another swim.  And a dunk in some muck hole that we didn’t see.  It has been a while now since we were in a green forest for a hike.

Once back out we headed to a spot where Skye could get another swim in clean water to get the mud off!  

Sunrise

Black headed Vulture

Wood Sorrel

Virginia Springbeauty

Chaerophyllum

Spiderwort

Fringtree

Virginia Spiderwort

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