Hiking at West Dam on the Berlin Trail

 We went back to the West Dam area, that’s where we found beach areas for Skye to swim a couple days ago.  They had told us that the trail was functional even if not officially open.  We found that to be true!  And since the trail follows the lakeshore Skye had numerous opportunities to swim.  Of course she took all of them!

The trail showed signs of having been hot by Helene and also having logging right up to the edge of the trail.  And sometimes right over the trail.  The trail actually uses log roads in places, maybe i should say the log roads used the trail.  Following the Topo Maps + app and walking the log roads they matched perfectly.  It might be part of the plan, the log roads are now the trail.

Back at camp later I put the repaired tire back on the trailer and did some packing.  That sentence was good for an hour’s work.

Tomorrow we move over to Givhans Ferry State Park in SC for several days and the South Carolina State Shoot.  We’ll meet a few friends there too.  It’s the closest campground to the shoot so there should be plenty of cowboys around!  It’s about 150 miles from here so we should be in fairly early afternoon.

We are trying to keep track of the Artemis mission during days of doing other things.  I see they have surpassed the farthest distance from Earth record today. That’s a fine milestone all by itself.  Naturally it’s a record setting flight.  Christina Koch is setting records for every single thing she does since leaving earth orbit!

Got to talking with the neighbor tonight.  They live near Savannah and come here about twice a month for several years.  He stores a boat and a golf cart here.  Says the lake is often this level this late in winter but it fills up during the spring/summer.  Although this is a big drought now.  He figures this is down maybe 7’ now but he has seen it down 25’.  At that point some of the town that was flooded by the reservoir becomes visible again.  He says that’s a bit spooky.

Southern Dewberry

Blue Toadflax

Violet Wood-sorrel

Carolina Crane’s-bill

Just camping today

 Rain in the forecast so we stayed in cmap.  It did rain for a while mid day. I mostly spent the time on the computer getting some necessary business done.  I still have to do the taxes and that would have been more fun!

We got out to walk Skye in the early afternoon.  Now it looks like the rain is finished.  I’m done with this part of my computer work, but still have to submit stuff.  Then do the taxes.  Someday.

We just took Skye for another walk and met some new people.  They come and go constantly.   We saw a great sunset too.  That’s probably the only photos we took today.

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