Pop Up House

Before we return to the final installment of our time at Kolomoki Mounds State Park in Georgia, here is something that I think might interest you. Have you seen a finer sight than this in the last few weeks?

Me neither! If they do what they say they will do, sometime Tuesday I will be back in the baking business and not a moment too soon as far as I'm concerned. After all, what would Christmas be without cookies? It was bad enough not having a working oven for Thanksgiving, but Christmas would be the final straw! Fortunately, David and Michelle took care of us for Thanksgiving which I'll share more about in my next post. 

Before Covid-19 turned the world upside down with shopping in person becoming a no-no for many, pop up shops were becoming quite the thing. These days, I suspect more folks would love to be able to enjoy a pop up house, in our case a tent, allowing them the ability to vacation while social distancing.

Say what? Sunshine? This was taken on the late afternoon the day before we were leaving. 

But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

We had plenty more gloom Thursday morning and we took that time to do some further exploring of the park which is actually huge and on two sides of a major road. We came across the dam that creates the lakes we camped along.

As well we explored an area that was once home to the CCC men who built the park, seeing their enormous grills,

which reminded us of the pits we saw in Fancy Farm used for the annual picnic. 

Outhouse anyone?

By this time the onsite museum was open, so we made our way there, seeing this outside.

While I would love to show you what we saw inside, photos were not permitted, although it has not stopped some folks as I've seen a video of the museum contents on Youtube should you be interested. At any rate, it was super interesting seeing the artifacts and the excavated mound. Of additional note is that the building was built on top of it, as you see below.

Indians are not the only people buried here, there is a tiny graveyard containing the remains of the folks who farmed the land in the early 1900's.Following lunch we did a mini hike through the woods, stepping over downed tree trunks, trying not to trip over exposed roots, and seeing more mushrooms which I find endlessly fascinating.

Seeing colorful mushrooms are to be expected, what is not to be expected is a stray dog who appeared as if it were an apparition.

One moment it was there and the next it took off again, never to be seen again as we kept walking. At times the path was so narrow I kept pushing the vegetation off of my legs, however, the closer we came to the "plaza", the path widened significantly. 

Oh sunshine, how we missed you!! (By the way, in case you are wondering, Bruce rarely knows I am taking his photograph.)

Once we returned to our "pop up house", Bruce started a fire, enjoying it while whittling away on a new fire stick.

You might note behind Bruce's head, the bath house which was within easy walking distance. As well, I mostly had the place to myself as there were only folks in RVs during our visit. I push the door in with my body and use a paper towel, once my hands are washed, to cover the handle as I exit. We are doing our best to stay safe. 

Not only was it dry our last night there, it was a wee bit cooler making for a pleasant night's sleep.  Just after sunrise, we arose, fixed our breakfast, and began dismantling our home away from home. Once we moved the tent, oh my, look at the water underneath!

We can't say enough about how impressed we are with our new tent as not a drop of water came inside. While the inside was dry, the outside was wet as can be from sitting on the tarp, so Bruce fashioned a way to dry it out before we packed up.

It would have been pretty messy had the rain continued and we had to pack wet gear, that's for sure. He showered while the sun worked its magic, after which everything was stored back away in their carrying totes. Ever the optimist, I was hoping we would be done in two hours, however, optimism only goes so far, especially when wet equipment is involved. Nevertheless, after 2.5 hours, our site looked the way it did when we arrived, waiting for the next folks to enjoy.About six hours later, after a relatively easy drive, we arrived back in Orlando to our lovely stationary home. 

The pickleball courts were patiently waiting....

Here's another recent update that needs sharing....somehow or other, the privacy setting on my facebook page was on private even though I'd not done anything to change it. That mystery is now solved.

And here's something else that some might find interesting if they click on this link.  Coming across this post from 2009, not only had I forgotten about the joy of seeing my photographs on the New York Times digital front page, mostly it is about how when we do something, we are all in. Perhaps you will connect the dots.

That adventure over, I will be getting back to the here and now in the next edition of Camera Crazy. 

Until then...

your friend, 

Gail

 

 

Franklin Roosevelt State Park

Fallon does it again! Remember her buying us the camp stove oven for Christmas and how much we love it? Well, after learning that my oven is still broken, for the foreseeable future no less,  Bruce returned from helping Bill on Sunday with not just an oven, but a gadget that seemingly does it all, the Vortex Plus! Should you have never heard of it before, neither had I, but after using it for a few days, I'm sold! Not only does it bake, but it has an air fryer function, broiler, dehydrator, and two more things I can't think of. Knowing how much I was missing the oven and baking, she thought of a solution to my dilemma that had not occurred to me. So far I've made the best fried chicken you can imagine, as well as using the rotisserie spit (the function I could not recall). I made a cinnamon and walnut coffee cake and it cooked so fast it was a good thing I had my eye on it, checking it at 15 minutes. Yes, you read that correctly, that's how long it took to bake.

Luckily I was able to find a spot on the counter!

Here's something else from the here and now. On my way home from Costco this afternoon I saw something that frankly, I could not have dreamed up had I wanted to. Yup, a roadside ventriloquist who works for tips, giving rise to the notion that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Back to camping fun, speaking of which, if you missed my last post, and seemingly everyone did, I ended it with our setting up camp in the rain following our arrival at FR State park. Fortunately for us, the rain ceased, leaving behind cooler air and calm water in front of our tent. The reflections were mesmerizing.

Night fell and the lights came on. Yup, we got to use our market lights not only in our shelter, but along the fencing behind the tent. 

You also learned from the previous post that we stopped in Columbus to have our tire checked and were given the go-ahead. Unfortunately, the next morning, Bruce checked his tire and it was again low. Thankfully, as is not often the case, this campground had wi-fi, so I checked for the closest tire store which turned out to be far closer than I was imagining. The quaint town of Pine Mountain was only about two miles away and the tire shop was easy to locate. Hearing loads of bird calls, I walked a bit in the adjacent neighborhood while the tire was being plugged, and was so pleased to see my first ever, Eastern Bluebird!

Sure enough there was something in the tire; before long it was fixed, leaving us with time to explore the downtown which is on both sides of Hwy 27. There are several murals depicting the area's history, 

and the one below giving a nod to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the nearby Little White House.

We spent some time in a neat bike shop that opened just before the pandemic struck, where Bruce gave some serious thought to this neat bike rack, imagining it in the second bedroom Fortunately, clearer minds prevailed. Perhaps I should say more practical minds?

The bike store was just past this adorable restaurant that was open before the pandemic and is now closed because of it. Seriously, a Hallmark movie type town.

Most of our time was spent in a super neat gallery with mostly local art. Coming home with some great finds, Bruce had to use his superior packing skills to find a spot in our already full Subaru.

After lunch, Bruce decided he needed to head back to town for a small hatchet, so I went on, first a hike amongst the woods where the red clay of Georgia was very evident.

Hopping on my bicycle, I rode around the lake, stopping at the boat rental place where they have these super cute pedal boats.

Can you imagine how beautiful this scene must be right about now when the leaves are changing?

While it would have been nice to be there in the second week of October, not only would reservations have been next to impossible to get, especially lakeside, but the larger truth is, I could not wait another minute to go somewhere!! 

Back at the campsite, Bruce puts the newly purchased hatchet to work.

With plenty of time to plan and cook, unlike the previous night, I sliced a huge potato, along with an onion. using the camp oven (thanks Fallon!) to cook them, while Bruce prepared the fire for our steak. I'd brought along some corn as well.

You might notice that little teepee looking thing on the table and that is a mesh tent to go over outdoor food which was put to use for the first time and worked beautifully. 

One thing that kept this site from being absolutely perfect was the bathroom proximity. Generally that is a priority when booking a site because we are tent campers. A silver lining for us is that because the majority of folks in the state parks are camping in RVs, the bathrooms are underutilized, especially important as we do our best to minimize the risk of Covid-19. At any rate, the bath house in section one, where we were located, was under renovation, meaning I had to walk a fair ways up a hill to get to the section two bathhouse. Not a deal breaker, however, when one gets up in the morning, being closer has some real advantages! Following the rain, the weather was cool and dry, with temperatures in the middle 50's overnight, the first time we have had the good fortune to use more than a sheet as a cover in at least six months. Hallelujah! 

Night fell and the nearly full Harvest Moon rose in the sky, somewhat obliterating my beloved stargazing, but that was okay because the moonlight was pretty great. There will be other camping trips when stargazing is on the agenda, or so I hope!!

your friend,

Gail

More Camping Fun

Before we delve into more camping fun I'd like to mention that Cris has finally been released from the rehab center, heading home after a little more than three months after contacting Covid-19. What happens next is the question, but one thing that is for certain is that it will take lots of sacrifice and dedication on both his and his family's part. Judy, Cris, Katie and Jessica can use all the prayers and good wishes you are willing to send their way.

Secondly, our son David had some long awaited shoulder surgery on Monday and I'm thrilled to report that the doctor is confidant he was able to repair the serious muscle tear. While he remains in some pain from the procedure, he and Michelle will be doing all that they can as a team to get him back in shape in the coming months. In both instances we are praying for better days ahead.

When I sat down to write my last post I'd forgotten to get one camera out of the car, meaning I missed a few things I wanted to document. One of which is getting the kayak on the car roof, a task made easier by a sliding mechanism Bruce bought, but hey, you still have to get it on the roof! I'd gone to the lake with him to retrieve it from the boat rack and I cannot tell you how dadgum hot it was. When I wrote that Fall was here, I was way too optimistic because it is hotter than blue blazes still. Thus, once the boat was out of the water and on the rack, Bruce moved the car into the shade for tying it down. 

Then too I mentioned the cooler which deserves a place in this blog because it such a vital part of our gear. If you are wondering how we can pack so much food, wonder no more.

Empty water bottles are employed for half and half, along with milk, and a smaller than normal bottle of orange juice. Containers to divide the different types of food, along with keeping them out of the ice have been a real blessing. 

Before arriving at our first park, we stopped for gas around Valdosta, and while there had to drive less than half a mile to see one of the very first Darden restaurants Bruce built back in the early 90's, and boy does it still look nearly as good as the day he signed off on the final punch list! Seeing places he has built around the country makes me very happy.

I don't think I did a very good job of showing off the site in Reed Bingham so I'm including another one that shows the entire setting. For posterity you know. Isn't it pretty?

Although we took the Interstate to our first park, that was not the case on the next leg of our journey which is fine by me. The volume of traffic on them is intense and frankly, makes me nervous. I much prefer to glide by on sparsely traveled county roads where you never know what you will see. It did not take much convincing for Bruce to turn around so that I might photograph this incongruous scene we passed. Not a soul was nearby making me wonder what the heck a bright yellow Mustang was doing in front of this worn building.

The scenery was more like this:

Cotton fields as far as the eye can see, along with peanuts and peanut processing plants. Eventually we came across the town of Parrot, stopping there for a snack at the purported country store which turned out to be nothing like we anticipated. We did, however, have a little look around Parrot, which proved very interesting.

No one was manning the tourist information center, however, Bruce did some sleuthing, discovering that this town with a population of around 150 used to be crazy prosperous with many millionaires in residence when cotton was king. The two block downtown had some sad/interesting sights depending on how you look at things.

  

Not quite a flatiron building but close.

I had hopped out of the car to take these photos and not only had it begun raining, but it was down right chilly, suiting me just fine. Here is Bruce coming to pick me up along Main Street.

I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn that it was once used for filming a Western, never mind that it is in the middle of Georgia! A lovely church built in the 1890's.

Had we more time I would have loved going down more of the streets; alas, it was back on the road again.

Because we'd passed loads of Pecan groves, well, we just had to stop for freshly packed pecans.

Is it any wonder it takes us a long time to go from point A to point B? My kind of a road trip is what I have to say about that! Although, stopping in Columbus to have our tire checked was not something we looked forward to, better safe than sorry when your tire light goes on. The guy put the car up on a block, put some air in the tire, and said we were fine. Okay, we'll take that.

Along the road around Columbus is Fort Benning which if I'm not mistaken, my brother Pat spent time there before heading to VietNam as a Green Beret. 

Still raining, we carried on not too much further, coming in the back of Franklin Roosevelt State Park off Highway 27. Beautiful from the get go, we stopped to register then made a left onto the park road leading to the campground. Sadly the rain continued, but when Bruce has a mind to do something, well it gets done whether I'm hip to it or not. Later on I could see the wisdom in setting up in spite of the weather.

BTW-- the photograph makes it look as if the tent is crooked, but hey guys, you know my husband, that just isn't happening! What was happening was glee on his part at the site I'd booked because well, you can see, we were right on the water. Honestly, it was great. 

After setting up our shelters, the kayak came off the Subaru, 

and he was off, well not before dumping the water out of his Crocs. Don't be horrified, he only wears them while kayaking!What with one thing and another, we'd not had a proper lunch meaning food needed preparing ASAP, thus I made chili that was very welcome in the cooler weather. 

The rain ceased, the campfire roared, and we could not have been any more content. Well, maybe a little had there been more stars evident in the night sky, but with a nearly full Moon, what was I expecting?

your friend,

Gail

Reed Bingham State Park

 If you were hoping to read that my oven was repaired while we were gone, I was equally hoping to write that news. No such thing occurred during our absence; in fact, the part is not even in Orlando yet, meaning best case scenario is next Monday. You can well imagine my disappointment.

Aside from that though, the trip went even better than I could have hoped. As with any vacation, there is plenty of before departure planning, however tent camping requires a little different kind. Firstly I figure out the mileage to each park in order to make the driving time reasonable, studying maps from place to place. Secondly, you find a park within that distance, hoping they have open sites. As with seemingly everything, Covid-19 has made finding camping reservations even harder as more people are choosing to camp in order to maintain social distancing which, btw, is very easy to do in a campground. 

Driving over to our storage space, Bruce picks up all of our equipment, followed by an inventory to make sure we have what we need. And while I probably should write down menus, mostly I just think of them in my head, packing all of the ingredients for, in this case, 13 meals. With our extremely handy camp oven I am able to dream up a little more variety. To be sure, we have our favorites, so it is not nearly as difficult as it might seem. From past experience I've learned that the easier they are to get to, the better, so the dry goods go into a laundry basket along with a big cooler packed to the brim. I started out using very large bags for the dry goods but that turned out to be a bit of a hassle.

Leaving Orlando around 8:30 a week ago Monday, our route for the first leg of the journey was on the major highways, something we normally eschew, however we were in a bit of a hurry to get to Reed Bingham, just off I-75 around 250 miles from home. Pleasantly surprised, although not to be unexpected because Georgia State parks are so nice, once registered we drove to our site. It was not a great site,  but I saw one across the way that was much more appealing. Calling the office, they allowed us to use the prefered site, maybe because it was a Monday with fewer campers? Further from the bathroom, which is not ideal, the shade and grass were totally worth the extra steps. I will say that we drove past the park because the signage was not great, but the handy iPad set us straight before we traveled too far. 

Once set up we began some exploring. While it was warm, it was not intolerable. What wasn't quite so great were the flies that hovered over our table. Using the new fan I bought at Costco, the flies hardly stood a chance.

We began our exploring by heading to the lake for Bruce to do a few casts. 

Meanwhile I was going crazy hearing loads of little birds in the massive oak trees overhead that were so quick I never really even saw them. Lovely wildflowers bordered the lake in places.

With not much happening on the fishing front, we drove to the trailhead area to see what we could see during a hike in the woods. It began on sandy soil,

continuing through marshy areas with boardwalks,

Here and there fallen leaves crunched underfoot, gracing the handrails.

The main park lake dumps into the Little River-- this map shows how meandering it is, thus we saw it on several occasions. It was when we were on the portion of the trail called "birdwatching" that I was wishing I had not left my walking stick in the car. Walking amongst giant tree roots is a recipe for disaster for this klutzy lady, however, we managed without incident.

You know what? I saw one bird and heard several owls. So much for birdwatching!

There were, on the other hand, loads of very interesting mushrooms to be found on the many fallen trees 

                            

in the forest. Had I a better knowledge of trees and plants I could tell you more about them. Alas, I am not very well versed in that area.

Back to our campsite, I prepared our dinner, such as it was. Setting up the camp stove, I boiled water for yellow rice, and when that was nearly done, dumped in some cooked chicken and half of a box of chopped broccoli. Dinner is served in the wonderful Falconware Matt and Tom gave us last Christmas.

Because our stay was so short, I was keeping it simple. After the dishes were washed, I went looking in the woods behind our spot, and here's what was happening upon my return.You might notice some campers in the background and that is because there are plenty of them at all campgrounds. In fact, there was but one other group of tent campers in the park. I seriously don't mind the tent at all and am more than happy to continue the way we've been for a variety of reasons, one of which is simplicity. Unless it is raining, we spend very little time indoors making a tent perfect for us.

Because it was still a little warmer than I would have preferred I went to the bath house for a shower. Should you be wondering what that is like, here is the excellent shower stall.

More than adequate for our needs.

With a campfire going and dusk upon us, well, what's not to like about this scene?

Nothing, that's what! Actually this is our first time putting the tent up on a grassy spot which was a real bonus. Plus this was an extremely private site with only the forest and grass as our neighbors. I was seriously hoping to see a deer, but no cigar.

Riding my bike down to the lake, sun, water and clouds...heaven.

In the morning it was pretty gloomy but after breakfast I took a little bike ride around the park, riding on top of the dam (not to worry, it was low), and back to the fishing dock.

Many Georgia State Parks have mini golf and this one was no exception.

Other parks have full-sized golf courses, which really surprised us last year when we saw it at one of the parks where we stayed.

And of course, the sign of our times was present throughout the park.

Although not pictured, everywhere we went indoors (not a lot of places mind you), there were signs stating that Georgia state law protects the owners from any lawsuits related to Covid. Interesting, right?

With the car all packed up, we headed to Franklin Roosevelt State Park, this time not on the interstate because, frankly, there weren't any to take! Before we left, one last photo.

You cannot be in the forest for very long before this poem takes over your brain. 

Camping is good for the mind and body, forcing you to adapt to whatever circumstance each site gives you. Maybe there are flies as was the case here, or maybe it is raining while you are setting up, as you will see in my next post, obstacles that are a nuisance sure, but that's camping for you. You just never know!

If camping isn't your thing, I do highly recommend a walk in the woods. 

your friend,

Gail