Early Days, Part 2

October 13, 2024:

Not too much to update - Hungry Mother State Park is now open so the rally is on, and Aiken State Park is also open. At this point only the General Coffee State Park in Georgia is still closed. I have reservations for December 16 - 22 and hope it will be open by then.

Too early for packing, but I did fire up the refrigerator and will start moving stuff into the trailer during the week. It has cooled off this week - 47°F at noon today. I am running the mini split AC in the living room on heat set for 70°F, keeping the bedroom at the other end of the house at a comfortable sleeping temperature of 65°F. Dinner tonight will be Kyle's favorite - spaghetti and meatballs, all from scratch. We will also have chocolate cake to celebrate his birthday; still a week away, but I'll be leaving the day before his actual birthday.

More later - 

Early Days - Trip to the Southeast

October 6, 2024:

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I've decided to skip a trip to the southwest and stay here in the east. I still want to avoid freezing cold days, so I'm heading to the southeast. The current plan (and reservations) are for a 178 day trip bouncing around northern Florida, Georgia, South Carolina & Alabama state parks.

While today is 2 weeks before I plan to leave for the winter, it appears I may have picked the wrong year for staying in the east.  

Hurricane Helene has done quite a bit of damage all over the area I planned to stay.  The usual start to my winter snowbirding is a trip to the Hungry Mother State Park in Virginia for a fiberglass rally.  The Guidos usually make it the last trip of the season.  We are not sure it will happen - Hungry Mother suffered enough storm damage to close, and will wait until October 14th to decide whether to open.  My schedule (and reservations) has me leaving Oswego on the 20th, so not a lot of time to make changes.  If the rally is canceled, the Guidos will head to Michigan to see great grandkids, but I plan to do my winter trip anyway.  I don't have anything scheduled for the eastern part of North Carolina or southwestern Tennessee, the most heavily damaged areas.

I planned the trip with RV Life's Trip Wizard, and a couple of days after the hurricane checked and the next 5 parks after Hungry Mother were all closed.  I rechecked this weekend and it is down to 2 closed parks before Christmas, and one after, the first of which, Lake Wateree, has already canceled my reservation & credited my credit card with the full amount of reservation.   

I assume that if they opened the park they want visitors - I don't want to be any kind of a burden on the folks that had so much devastation. 

I found another state park within my normal driving distance (under 250 miles) that was open & made new reservations for the first stop after Hungry Mother. If Hungry Mother stays closed, I'll need to find something between Creekside Campground in Virginia & Chester State Park in South Carolina.  

 So, as of today, only one of the early parks is still closed; Aiken State Park in South Carolina.  I have a reservation for 3 days, November 3-5 so I hope it opens before then. 

More later - 

A Short Trip To Letchworth State Park, Day 4 (Last Day)

 Check out was 11:00 so we were not in a hurry.  After fighting the bees that seemed to be in love with the front storage box cover, I finished hooking up and headed out.  I bypassed the dump station since 5 RVs were waiting, and I only peed in the toilet a couple of times (I know, way too much information!)  I'll dump into a pail and add it to my septic tank through a vent.

An easy drive other than getting stuck behind a large stick built trailer that was stuck behind a small SUV that insisted on driving 50MPH on NY 104, a mostly 2 lane road with lots of curves but a 55MPH limit where almost everyone does 60MPH.  They finally turned off 9 miles from home.

I shut down the refrigerator & unpacked the trailer since it will be 3 weeks before I head out for the Hungry Mother Rally & on to my winter snowbirding.

Dinner will be a shrimp dinner at Rudy's.  Since it is Sunday, even on their Fall schedule, they should be open.

Until mid October...

A Short Trip To Letchworth State Park, Day 3

 Much warmer last night, only down to 60°F and the electric heater didn't run. Richard (Telescopist on the Escape forum) never showed up.  He is either in a different part of the campground or our schedules are mixed up.

A quiet morning.  I walked around the 500 loop for my morning walk  Didn't see Richard's Escape 21, but there was a Casita parked in the loop.  

After breakfast & coffee I spent the rest of the morning sitting at the Guido trailer reading.  Eventually, I decided to head to the park visitor center for a new hat.  My previous Letchworth had mildewed, and nothing I did could get rid of the spots.  As long as I was getting a new hat, I also bought a new "T" shirt.

After that I stopped at Inspiration Point, one of the stops that lets you see the Middle & part of the Upper Falls.  It is a great location to watch the hot air balloons that often fly over the park, but none this afternoon.

Middle Falls

Middle & Upper Falls & the Railroad Bridge

After that it was back to my chair and more reading.  I finished listening to Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes, but because the internet is so slow here was unable to download a new book.  Looks like I'll be listening to either the radio or Sirius XM radio on the drive home tomorrow.

Around 5:00 it started light rain.  Strong thunderstorms were predicted, but so far only distant thunder.  We are planning chicken tacos for dinner, an outside meal, so I hope the rain either holds off or stops before 6:00 or so.

Well, the rain held off so it was chicken tacos for dinner.

A Short Trip To Letchworth State Park, Day 2

 A cool night at 54°F by 6:00AM.  Even ran the electric heater a bit.  Went for my morning walk wearing shorts & a sweatshirt.

Spent the morning sitting around reading.  Current book it Terry Goodkind's Temple of the Winds, #4 in his 11 part "Truth" series.  Each book runs a little under 1000 pages so it will take a long time to get through all of them.  I'm also listening to Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes.  I think I may have read it when it first came out, but that was in 2014, long enough ago to have forgotten enough to make it listenable.

Around 2:30 I started the baby back ribs.  The Napoleon TravelQ 285 grill has 2 burners so you can do indirect heating for ribs, roasts, etc.  A big advantage over the Weber Q grill.  It is heavier, and a bit larger, but the advantage of 2 separate burners makes it well worth it.  The ribs came out a bit dry, but it could be the supplier - I prefer the ribs I get from a real butcher at Bosco's in Oswego, but they were out so I had to get them from Price Chopper.

Anyhow, dinner was baby back ribs, corn on the cob and a fruit salad made by Anne.

Until tomorrow -