Continuing South to Georgia

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From our stop in Saint Clair Pennsylvania, we have about 800 to 900 miles to go before we get to our next reserved campsite on Skidaway Island near Savannah Georgia, and 12 nights to play with in picking our stops and route. We plan to continue down I-81 to avoid Baltimore and DC traffic. We had considered stopping in Martinsburg West Virginia since there are lots of good geocaches in that area, but we have stayed there three times with our last stop in October of 2016. We figured we owed it to ourselves to see someplace different so we picked an Elks Lodge in Front Royal Virginia. Why there? It was about 200 miles away so it made for an acceptable distance. Plus, it is the northern entrance to Shenandoah National Park. 

The drive to Front Royal was an easy one and it was a pretty nice day weather wise. There is only one 30 amp electric outlet and another rig was parked there and using it. But that’s okay, we can easily boondock here for a couple nights. The next morning, we head over to Shenandoah NP. It was a mostly sunny day but was rather chilly and very windy. Skyline Drive runs the full 105 mile length of the park. There are pullouts fairly frequently along the drive with pretty amazing views at each of them. Five miles in from the entrance is the Dickey Ridge Visitor Center. 

View from Dickey Ridge

Dickey Ridge Visitor Center

We stop to get some park info and ideas of what hikes we might want to attempt. Given the weather conditions, we knew we weren’t up for a long hike today. Just across from here was the Fox Hollow Loop. It’s only 1.2 miles long but was enough to get the blood flowing as we hit the uphill section on the way back. 

We continue our drive south and stop just past mile marker 10 at the Compton Gap parking area. We wanted to try the hike to Compton Peak. It's about a 2.4 mile round trip. Most of the hike is along the Appalachian Trail. As we were crossing the road to the trail, a couple of serious AT hikers were crossing with us. We chatted a bit before they headed up the trail. We managed to keep up with them but it helped that they each had heavy looking backpacks with all sort of gear and we were traveling light. About a half mile from parking, a ranger, walking the other direction, stopped the two AT hikers and asked them for their backcountry permits. It was hard to tell from their reaction if they were prepared but we passed by them and continued to Compton Peak. There were a fair number of people at Compton Peak West. There isn't a lot of space there, so it took a while before we got our turn to take in the view. The trail down to Compton Peak East was a bit more challenging and at the end of this side trail, we were not impressed with the view of something called Columnar Jointing. Probably worth skipping.

We continued driving south on Skyline Drive and stopped at pullouts when the view looked interesting and there was room to park. At the 32 mile mark is the Thornton Gap entrance. From here we headed west out of the park and then drive back to the lodge. That evening it got very cold and although we were thinking of staying another day or two, we got up the next morning and decided to continue south. Boondocking in near freezing weather isn't our idea of a good time.

The town of Waynesboro is near the southern end of Shenandoah NP. The Elks Lodge there has two 30 amp spots. We hope that we can score one of them which would make our stay in colder weather a bit more tolerable. One nice thing about Elks Lodges is they don’t have check in or check out times. It’s about 100 miles so by leaving after breakfast we end up getting in around lunchtime even with a fuel stop along the way. As we pull into the parking area, we find no other rigs so we will have power. The views from the RV parking area are quite nice here. Cows were grazing in the field adjacent to the our spot. 

Our Spot at Waynesboro Elks Lodge

View from Behind Our Motorhome

The lodge wasn’t open yet so we ate lunch and headed to a nearby town park to do some hiking and geocaching. Betsy Bell Park is in the town of Staunton, about 10 miles west of camp. We enjoy a couple mile hike and get a handful of caches along the way. When we get back to the lodge, we have a neighbor and the lodge is open. We head in to the bar to settle up for the two nights we plan on staying there. There was a pretty good crowd and we end up talking to many of the members that seemed to be some of the friendliest we have run into. We ask the bartender if they have limits on how long traveling Elks can stay and he says nope. We will need to consider coming back here when we have more time to spend.

Overlook View at Betsy Bell Park

The following morning, we head back to Shenandoah NP - to the Rockfish Gap entrance. This is the 105 mile mark along Skyline Drive. We have a very nice day and plan to do a couple “real” hikes. Our first stop is near mile 94 at Turk Gap. We plan on hiking to Turk Mountain at 2981 foot elevation. It isn’t the most strenuous hike we have done being about 2.5 miles round trip with 850 feet in elevation gained. The view from the rocky peak was quite nice. It wasn’t a busy trail, so we had the top to ourselves while we sat and rested for 15 minutes. 

Trail Markers in Shenandoah - Not Pretty but Functional

View at Turk Mountain

Next, we drive further north to milepost 90 to the Riprap parking area. This gets us to the Appalachian Trail which we hike north for about half a mile before taking a left onto the Riprap Trail. It was a nice hike and there are a couple great stops along the way. Calvary Rocks is an interesting rock formation right along the trail although our real destination was a place called Chimney Rock. It is a tall column rock outcropping that sticks up just off the trail. I climb out on some of the smaller surrounding rocks but don’t see how I could safely get to the top of Chimney Rock. Shortly after we arrived, three college aged women arrive and they surveyed the situation and eventually made their way across the gap and onto the rock. I guess that’s what good about being 20 something instead of 50 something. We turn around and head back the way we came making for a 3.5 mile hike with 900 feet of elevation gained. We know there is a lot more we would enjoy in Shenandoah NP but it will need to wait for a future trip. 

View at Chimney Rock

In trying to determine our next stop, we thought the Richmond area might be nice. There is an Elks Lodge we could have tried but we decided it might be more fun to check out a state park on the southwest side of town. Pocahontas State Park is a big park with lots of trails for hiking or biking. The campground has a newer loop that has nice big, level sites. About half the sites are reservable online while the other are first come first serve. Coming in on a Wednesday has its advantage. While I stopped at the dump station, Chris drove the loop and picked out a few sites she liked. Then I drove back and we picked one of them. 

The next day we picked out a couple trails to try out. On the south side of the park is the Otter Lick Loop trail. It is a 2.3 mile hike, mostly along a nice wide forest road. At the trailhead, we met a local with a fat tire bike just about to head out. We chatted with him a bit about the bike to see how he liked it. There are times when I think this type of bike would be good although from what we saw of the trail we took, our mountain bikes  would do just fine. 

Large Mushroom Along Trail

After lunch back at the rig, we drove the short distance to the parking area for the Beaver Lake Trail. This was a really nice and easy 3.5 mile loop mostly along the shore of Beaver Lake. As we went along the trail, Chris spotted a cluster of mushrooms growing inside the rotted out center of a fallen tree. It made for an interesting photo. The one end of Beaver Lake was a dam although I suspect it was man made or extremely ingenious beavers!

Beaver Lake

Hidden Mushrooms

"Beaver?" Lake Dam

The following day was to be a very rainy one. Not ideal, but it gives us a chance for a break from the hiking. We head into Richmond to the REI store. I had been having issue with my handheld Garmin 550T GPS receiver. The power button is the weak point of the unit. A week or so ago, the button bit the dust and I had fabricated a replacement from the clip of a cheap plastic pen. It took a bit of work to file the new button and got it to fit and work, but it seemed to do the trick. Given how much I have used this Garmin since I got it over 4 years ago, I figured I could splurge for the newer model. I had ordered it online from REI and had them ship it to the Richmond store. The one I got is the Garmin 750T. It has an identical form factor to my old one meaning my RAM mount for the bike will still work. But this one has both Bluetooth and Wi-fi capability! I’ll need to see how well it works. Once the rain started, there wasn’t much to do so I headed to the library not far from the campground. We seem to check out a great many libraries as we travel the country and have found wi-fi speed to range all over the map. Some have been so slow, we just leave after realizing how painful uploading a blog or doing anything will be. This library has now taken the top spot on our list. It had over 100 Mbps down and over 200 Mbps up!

Button Fix on Garmin Oregon 650T

The following morning, Chris went grocery shopping. Not her favorite thing to do but today was different. We had seen signs for Wegmans in the area and she found one not too far from the campground. For those not familiar with Wegmans, it is a grocery store chain centered out of Rochester NY where we lived for 30 plus years. But it’s not just any grocery store. They seem to be special. I remember years back, we would even take visiting family members there just to show them the store. After coming back with loads of groceries, Chris’ comment was it felt like she was back home in Rochester being in the store. Ah the simple things we gave up by living in our motorhome full time.

That afternoon we went for short walk on another trail in Pocahontas SP. Given how much rain we had the day before, the trails were in remarkably good and dry condition. Originally we were a bit concerned given one of the trails we intended to hike was called the Muddy Buddy Trail! There were some creative geocache hides along the way. Pocahontas SP is on our list of places we should come back to for a longer stay. Four nights wasn’t adequate to check it all out or any of the other things to see in the Richmond area. 

Fungus Tree

Geocache Hiding Spot

Mushroom with Odd Drapery?

We now have four days left and 500 miles to get to our spot in Georgia. We decide to just do a quick overnight in Rocky Mount North Carolina. There is an Elks Lodge that has two 30 amp spots. Being Sunday, this lodge wasn’t open but this just meant we wouldn’t need to contend with parked cars. From what we had read, it wasn’t clear whether the outlets would be turned on when the lodge isn’t open. Before I bothered to navigate into the spot next to the pavilion, I got out my multimeter and found we were good to go. We didn’t know what the rate to stay was and when Chris walked around the lodge to see if there was any place to even drop an envelope with a check in it, so found nothing. Twenty minutes after arriving a car pulled up and a he headed to the rear entrance. I stepped out to say hi and ask him what he knew about us camping here. He was a member of this lodge, but unfamiliar with the camping setup. We asked if he would place a check at the bar so the bartender could deal with it the following day. Problem solved.

After he left, I realized this might be the ideal place to wash the rig. There were no signs saying we couldn’t, and nobody here to complain. So we spent an hour making the motorhome look shiny again. It had been some time since it had a bath. We head into town before dark just to check out the area. The old mill district is undergoing what looks to be a revitalization effort. There are all sorts of shops and restaurants with others under construction. Admittedly we really didn’t get to experience much of Rocky Mount, but it was better than nothing.

Old Water Tower

Water was High

Our next stop was going to be an Elks Lodge in Sumter South Carolina. They had a few RV spots with 30 and 50 amp connections. It would get us close to the area where the South Carolina state star is. What’s that? You ask. Each state has a series of 51 geocaches that are arranged in the shape of a star. The containers are not at the locations posted but are at different coordinates that need to be solved. We have done the stars in the states of Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and Florida. We don’t tend to go out of our way to find the star in each state, but if it happens to be close by we might. When I solved for the final coordinates, the caches seemed to be along a trail through a forest in South Carolina southwest of Sumter. 

South Carolina Star

The drive to Sumter was a bit over the 200 mile maximum we try to stay within, but it would allow us to stay put for 3 days straight. As we turn onto the road where the lodge is, we see construction signs. Fortunately the bridge being worked on was just a hundred feet or so beyond the lodge. The bigger problem was the lot where the RV spots are located are on the other side of the road beyond a locked gate. The lodge wasn’t open on Mondays and we didn’t, luck out by finding somebody there to ask. The construction guys were not able to help us either. It looks like the lot where the RV spaces are situated was going to be some sort of haunted house for Halloween. 

We hadn’t really had a plan B so we get back in the rig and see what our options were. Poinsett State Park is about 20 miles away and from the description, our rig could fit. Some reviews for the campgrounds complained about the road conditions, but when Chris called to check for availability, she asked about the roads. The ranger asked if I was a nervous driver or experienced. He said we would be fine and we head off in order to get there before they close. The last mile or two of road into the campground was narrow but with no traffic coming the opposite direction I didn’t have trouble. Chris got us a site and we unhitched the Jeep. The drive into the campground was steep, narrow and changed to gravel partway through. I just took it real slow trying not to clip any trees in the process. For the three nights we planned on staying here, it would do just fine. In fact, the trail with the 51 state star caches was only a couple miles away from camp.

The next morning we pack a lunch and drive to the southern parking area for the Palmetto Trail where the caches are located. Just as we hop out of the car to gather our things for our hike, a dog walks up to check us out. He is wearing a couple collars with antennas and even had some sort of lights on one of the collars. The number 93 was somehow marked onto his side. He seemed friendly enough but wouldn’t come close enough to let us investigate more thoroughly. Obviously 93 was some sort of hunting dog and we figured he was just leading the pack and we would run into others as well as the hunters associated with him as we started our geocaching hike. 

From our parking spot we had caches in all four directions but the majority of them were north on the Palmetto trail so we started that way with the plan to go until just before lunch, then head back to the car, eat and attempt the ones along the road and the few south on the trail. The trail itself was for the most part okay although there were several areas with deep, loose sand which made for slow hiking. We were finding most of the caches but not all of them so the overall pace wasn’t too fast. After getting a bit turned around on the main trail and some side trails, we eventually got about half of the star caches done and turned back for lunch. 

We got back to the car several hours later and as we came out onto the dirt road to head to the parking lot guess who was there to greet us? Yup 93 with his tail wagging quickly as if he had been patiently waiting for our return and was happy to see us. Obviously we were mistaken about him being on a hunt. It seemed more likely he was lost. He still didn’t want to approach too closely even when we poured water into a container for him. I knew a sure fire way to get him close enough to read his collars. We had ham sandwiches for lunch. It only took a small amount of ham and he was right at my hand. Chris read off two different phone numbers and I wrote them down. 

A quick call to the first one (good thing we had cell service) got a response. The owner was on his way and was glad to hear 93 was okay. He figured he would be there in half an hour or so. We finished lunch and 93 licked out our yogurt containers just like our dog Shelby would have and had a drink of water. Then he laid down in the shade by our Jeep. After 45 minutes, the owner still wasn’t there so Chris headed out to get a couple caches while I dog sat. When she returned, she watched 93 and I headed down the road to find the few caches in that direction. I was just a thousand feet or so from the car when I saw a pickup truck bouncing down the dirt road towards me. The owner had made it. I finished up the cache and walked back to chat with him. 

"93" Resting

Turned out he was out with his hunting dogs yesterday over by a swamp area a couple miles away. When he finished up, 93 had gone missing and even with a GPS tracking collar, he was unable to locate him in the dark of night. So he gave up around 11 PM and headed home to be able to get to work at 6 AM today. His plan was to come back after work and look for 93 when we called him with the news. According to the tracking collar data, 93 had wandered around for over 30 miles in the 24 hours he had been out. I suppose that’s why he was so laid back - he was tuckered out. He got into his crate in the bed of the truck and we said our goodbyes. 

The next day, we drive to the northern parking area for the Palmetto Trail and headed south. From the looks of thing, a fire had come through here within the last year or so. It made a mess of things and definitely made it really tough to identify the actual trail. We just used geocaches as our indication of where the trail must have been. We eventually get to an area where the trail was much better and easier to follow. We ended up finding 46 of the 51 state star caches. The following morning we head out of the campground and again don’t run into any traffic going the opposite direction. Next stop: Savannah Georgia.