Here We Go Round the Campground Loop

Little Pee Dee State Park

Site #27

Dillon, South Carolina

Thankfully we didn’t slide into the lake although the angle for sleeping made it not the best rest we’ve ever had.  Especially when the gun shots started going off just before sunrise.  I had intended to run 5 miles in this sweet park but not knowing exactly where the shots were coming from, nor the borders of the park, nor the lands adjacent to it, I decided to skip that idea.  And I was really looking forward to it too.  A very rare thing for me and running.

I would have walked up to the ranger’s station to check on all of these questions J

But we discovered the night before that the “office hours” are 11:00 to Noon.   Sounds like a job I’d like to have, what about you?   Tiny hours for a tiny station I guess.  J

Isn't it cute?  But now you can see how we drove right by it in the near dark with its lights out.  

When we pulled in last night just before dark David said he thought the ranger was in a truck behind us but then the truck turned left.  As we drove by the tiny Ranger’s station with no lights on we thought there must be another office so we drove on and ended up at the boat launch where we had to take the car off the dolly in order to turn around and go back where we found the lights on and the ranger in the little office.  That’s when we read about the hours.  But they had a site and the price was great so……as Howard would say…all righty then.

Back to this morning, here is a picture of this great but way too sloping site.

We thought we’d be safe walking on the campground loops in terms  of the hunters so even though we have a longer day of driving than I like because of our late start and short trip yesterday,  we got some coffee and hot water respectively and headed out to check out the park and possible level lake sites for “next time”.  The verdict, not many if any along the lake front.  We found one possibility maybe two, but David decided he would design a  leveling string that is as long as the front to rear wheelbase of the vehicle with a string level that he could use to determine how high up off the ground you’d have to raise the rig.  My guess is this will be his 2011 “gadget” so if anyone has already made one, let us know.

The park has one nice trail, a boat dock on the lake (although you could launch a kayak right off site #27, another of its charms)

but the park has no put in for the river which is its southern boundary.  However you can leave the park and go only a short distance and put in so the paddling possibilities, outside of hunting season and bug season, could be nice.  Hmmm does that leave any seasons??

We came back and had a nice breakfast.  David was impressed with the design of Winona's interior which, even with the slides in, allowed the kitchen extension leaf to be used by the cook

In our usual easy (lazy? late?) fashion we managed to leave the park just before noon and headed off to I 95 which is the last leg of our trip.  The route took us up SC 301 which goes right through Pedro Land.  Do people actually stop here?  And what ever for?

 Driving north we were seeing the last of the fall colors on the road.

And we loved this guy also going north, an unusual sight.  He was driving a class A, towing a pick-up with a golf cart in the bed.   However he wants to travel, he’s got it covered.  J

We neared my projected stop for the day, which I'd called and they'd said sure come on, plenty of spaces.  It was only 2:45 and David wanted to get on in to Virginia.  Hmmmmmmmm  I'm thinking that makes it WAY longer than I like to travel in a day.  What’s wrong with a 3:00 stop for overnight?  We just made it in before dark last night and I’m not interested in a repeat of that.  But he said, we’ll make a 10 minute stop for gas and we’ll be there before 4:00.  

So I called the state park he had in mind, no answer, message machine “leave a message and we’ll call you back.”  RIGHT!   But by then, we’d passed my projected stop so we were clearly going on.

Gas stop took 25 minutes due to the pump cut off at $75 feature and our nearly totally empty gas tank.  By the time we pulled into the state park just outside of Petersburg it was 5:00.  No sign of anyone around.  No map of the park or the campground and the sun is just above the trees and dropping fast.

It was ring around the rosie as we tried to find

1) a pull through site to avoid taking the car off the dolly, the dolly off the RV for an over night.

2) a site that had working water and electric AND

3) one with a level enough spot that we could put the slides out for better sleeping than last night

Site 75, looks great, we pull in. David says let’s level it.  He’s clearly fixated on his lack of comfortable sleep.  Sherry, who is tired and over done with way too much driving, says nope  check the electric.  Ahhh her intuition?  Basement electric meter says OFF.  We try it again. OFF.  And Again.  OFF.  So….we are now past the other pull in sites as we looked for one that was pretty level.  And this one was no doubt.  But level and no electric won’t do.  

So out we go and back around the entire loop.  We pull into a site between two other RVs.  It must have  electric since they do.  Meter says OFF.  What??  Impossible.  Then, David discovers that somehow the meter’s switch got bumped and it wasn’t that the electric was OFF it was that the meter was OFF.  Ok, now it’s totally dark and we are checking this stuff by flashlight.  A total NO NO NO in Sherry’s book of RVing.  BUT, we have electricity, we hook up the water, go inside to level and NO DICE.  Cannot get this site to level up.  Jacks all the way down and it's still too far off in the front to put out the slides.  Maybe if we backed up.  Everyone else is level.  No backing….dolly and car remember. 

OK now that we know there wasn’t an electric problem we undo everything here again, in the TOTAL absolute dark, get back in the RV, drive back around the campground in the dark for the 3^rd time.  What were the other campers thinking about these brainless people coming in after dark and then trying out all the sites or playing ring around the Rosie?  

Are we having fun yet???

Back to site #75.  Yes, electric, yes water, yes level.  FINALLY.   A little dinner, read a few blogs and we’re ready for level sleeping.

No doubt all of this happened because of our attitudes or at least mine.  I don’t want to go North or home or any of it.  But tomorrow we’ll be back at the ranch.  Oh, make that back at the farm with a looooong to do list.   SIGH  

But today we’ve got level beds, water, electricity and I got today’s blog posted before I went to bed on the day it happened and that’s a FIRST I do believe!   Pictures of our level site with electric in the morning.  Check back tomorrow!