Skip to main content

Winter '23

After a week of packing, vacation day #1 started on Saturday morning.  We left the house at 9:45.  Very windy day, but at least no snow.  Pretty uneventful day. Paid 12.75 in tolls to have the pleasure of driving through (instead of around?) West Virginia.  It was 4pm when we got to ouR campsite for the night.

Stone Mountain State Park NC Site #66. I was relieved to find out I booked the right day/time/place when we checked in, since I’ve been known to mess up those things in the past. I told this to the lady checking in and she said that sometimes people book campsites at Stone Mountain Georgia and show up here instead.  Just that day two people asked her where to find the tram to the top.  Too bad for them, it’s 328 miles away in a different state.  


We’ve been here a bunch of times before. The namesake of the park is a huge big section of the mountain with exposed granite, they call it a bald mountain. I wanted to be up on that west-facing bald mountain to watch the sunset at 6pm.  We saw info online that said everyone has to be off the trails by the time the park closes at 6.  We figured we’d watch the sunset and then hike the mile back down so we’d be out by 6:15.  When we started the hike, there were a bunch of signs saying you had to be off the trails by 5:30, and even a ranger was at the trailhead telling us the same thing when we started at 4:45. I guess they don’t want people falling down the slope after dark.  We hiked some of the way up to a still-very-cool view point, but not the peak, and turned back around because I’m a rule follower.  


Back at the campsite the sun did go down even though we couldn’t see it, and it got pretty cold in short order.  Joe started a fire and I put on all my warm clothes, but it really wasn’t enough for me to be out there very long. I was in the van and Joe came in and said “I haven’t seen this many stars since the last time I said I haven’t seen this many stars!”, and he was right.   


Day 1 / Feb 18

Saturday

Tolls

12.75

Odometer trip start

293762

Fuel

97.92

Odometer day start

293762

Gas station coffee

1.69

Odometer end

294163

Campsite

33.00

Daily miles

401

Daily total

145.36

Total miles

401

Trip total

145.36

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Totals

  We spent around $110/day, which is pretty close to what we were expecting based on past travels.  We did start with groceries and fuel, but will end with some food and maybe some fuel, not a full tank though.   Fuel $517.62 Grocery $432.68 Campsite $390.00 Restaurant $80.00 Stuff $71.98 Tolls $25.50 Firewood $20.00 Park fee $13.00 Laundry $8.00 Van wash $2.50 Trip total $1,561.28
Post a Comment
Read more

One more beach day

Today was just about as perfect of a day as it gets for me. If I had to Groundhog Day one day, this wouldn’t be a bad one.   We stopped at a car wash for a quick rinse of all the grime that had been building up on our ride.  Still a little rusty, but a lot less dusty.  We got to Caspersen Beach just before 10.  The very first thing we saw was a HUGE dead fish.  I’m not good with guessing weight of dead fish, but this thing was probably 200#.  Someone told us he thought it was a goliath grouper. Not only does the red tide make humans hack and cough, but it also kills sea life sadly.  We have this big canopy that we’ve been hauling to the beach every day but have just been using the umbrella, which creates just enough shade for the two of us and our stuff, but the shade moves all day long so we are constantly moving our chairs around to stay out of the sun.  Today we spent 5 minutes and set up this canopy, such an improvement, more ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Last day

We were both up early and ready to get into the park and start a hike.  We decided first that we’d go back to the visitors center, maybe to get better internet or a weather forecast, a map, and also to buy the daily $5 parking fee that just started on the 1st.  We didn’t buy one the day before because we were parked at the campground.  At the exit to the campground we turned left to go back the way we came in, but saw that the gate to enter the park was closed due to weather.  We weren’t sure if they just close it over night or if this was going to be an all day closure.   We saw so many elk out in the fields. More than we could count. They were everywhere and up in the woods too. They have yellow butts, I’ve never noticed that before.  We got to the visitors center before 7:30, and they didn't open until 9. We hung out for a bit and had lunch. I saw some people who had been in the campground with us the night before and asked them if the r...
Post a Comment
Read more