Heading to South Carolina

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

Well April is almost over and it’s time to start heading north. Back in January I mentioned that we were starting to put together some plans for where we would be spending the spring, summer and fall but we hadn’t made any firm reservations at the time and I’d elaborate more in the future. Since then, we have formed our plans and reserved several campsites up in the New England area and a couple of stops along the way. The map below shows the results of how we plan for our trips. We use a website called Furkot to do the rough planning.

Proposed 2024 Travel Plans

This map is not used at all for actual driving/navigation but to simply give us an idea of the route we will be following. Many of the stops in yellow are ones we plan on staying at. Some of them are actually campsites we have reserved while others are Elks Lodges that might be a good stopping point for a night or two along the way. We only have 3 stops reserved prior to arriving in Vermont in about six weeks from leaving TGO. The first will be to get our motorhome annual service complete in Gaffney SC. The second is a week in Brevard NC and the third is a 2 week stop in Martinsburg WV.

Once we get up to Vermont, we have sites in 5 different campgrounds reserved for just over 3 months total. These are scattered around Vermont and in the Adirondacks of New York. This will get us up to early September. The following map shows this portion of our travels in greater detail. Beyond that point, we have some possible stops at several Elks Lodges in Maine before we would start the journey back south. By that time of year, the crunch for campsites should be greatly diminished and in fact there are some places up north where campgrounds close for the season in early October. We will let the weather conditions dictate how long we stay up north.

Plans for the Northeast 2024

We get our Dutch Star motorhome serviced every spring. So depending on what part of the country we are at in the April to May timeframe, we need to find a Freightliner service center to have the work completed. We have used ones near Salt Lake City, St Louis, Phoenix and Cleveland to name a few. But the place we prefer to have the service done is in Gaffney South Carolina. This is where the Freightliner chassis is built and they have a really top notch service facility there. The biggest problem with this place is getting an appointment, especially in the springtime when so many snow birds are heading from Florida back to their home in the north eastern states. If we had planned far enough in advance, we could have easily scheduled our appointment, but we waited until January to call them. They were scheduling for the June timeframe which would be too late for our plans. But as luck would have it, they just had a cancellation and there was an open slot in late April. We told them we would be there that Monday morning.

It is about a 550 mile drive from TGO to Gaffney. So with our normal travel pace, we would need two intermediate stops along the way with plans on arriving in Gaffney on Sunday night to stay in the camping area there to be ready bright and early on Monday. We picked two Elks Lodges. The first one was in Orange Park Florida just outside of Jacksonville. They have quite a few water/electric sites and a dump station as well. We got in and setup without problems and found a Mexican restaurant nearby for dinner.

The next day would have us going through Georgia with a lunch stop at an abandoned outlet mall in Darien. There is a very large parking lot associated with the formal mall so it was an easy in and out and plenty of level parking. While Chris was making lunch, I wandered thru the old mall to find a nearby geocache. It was kind of spooky since all the the businesses are closed yet the building isn’t in too bad of condition. I didn’t see any signs one way or another as to whether overnight parking is permitted since this place is convenient to I-95.

Just Window Shopping at Outlet Mall

Our second stop was at the Elks Lodge in Walterboro South Carolina. We had stayed here once before on our way south to Florida. We are not timing our stops here very well since in both cases the lodge was not open even though this time it was a Saturday night. But the location provided for a very quiet overnight stop and isn’t too far off of I-95.

We drive from Walterboro to Gaffney on Sunday. During our drive, Chris starts to feel sick - possibly from the leftover Mexican food from the other night we had for dinner last night. I’m used to having a navigator available to help with directions but fortunately I didn’t run into any issues that required her help since she wasn’t going to be able to do much for the time being. We pull into the service center and are surprised by how many other rigs are here. The spots aren’t very big but do have electric as well as a dump station with potable water.

Later in the afternoon another Newmar motorhome backs in next to us. The rig looked vaguely familiar and there was a Habitat for Humanity sticker in their window. When I went out to talk to them, I realized that we knew each other. Linda and Eric had been parked right next to us five years ago in North Fort Myers Florida for the 30th Anniversary Habitat Care-A-Vanner build. What a small world! We chatted for some time to catch up on what everyone has been up to over that time. It was nice to see them again especially in such a random place!

Early Monday morning, I head over to the service office to check in. There are seven or so others waiting. Apparently most of them are here as “walk ins” hoping to get service in the next couple of days. Since we have an appointment we get signed in and told the technician would be out shortly to go over our list of items and get to work. Chris is starting to feel somewhat better but isn’t really in good enough shape to go out for any sightseeing and definitely not looking for food. They do have a fairly nice waiting area and it is a nice sunny morning so Chris decides to stay put here and I head out to see some things.

A few miles away is the Freightliner Custom Chassis production facility. They offer free tours each morning. We had done a tour many years ago but don’t really remember much about the place so I figure I can go back for another tour to kill some time while the rig is being serviced. There is a beautiful visitor area and I check in for the 9:45 tour. I am handed a bright safety vest and googles and asked to wait in the reception area.

Freightliner Custom Chassis

Inside Tour Reception Hall

Jack Looking Safe

It turns out I was the only person to show up for the tour. But they must not have a minimum number of visitors to provide a tour because tour guide came out to get me. Actually two tour guides were there! I’m guessing when there is a larger tour group, they want to have one guide up front and another bringing up the rear to keep everyone together. Two guides seems like overkill for just one person, but I guess they have their reasons. Unfortunately no pictures are permitted inside the factory so I can only talk about what was going one. This is a very busy place with several production lines going at once producing all sort of chassis for school buses, motorhomes and delivery vehicles. I got a good explanation of what was taking place at each station as a chassis would move along the line slowly on a conveyor belt. The tour lasted an hour and was rather enjoyable.

Since I still had time to kill, I drove around the area and found a few geocaches even going just a bit north to find some in two North Carolina counties that I hadn’t visited before. When I get back to the service center for lunch, I notice our rig was sitting back in the spot we had parked it last night. I needed to wait a little bit longer for the paperwork to catch up so I could pay and get on our way, but it didn’t take too long have the bill ready so we could get on the road again.

Falls on Second Broad River in Cliffside NC

Whenever we have our rig in for service, there is always a bit of the unknown we need to deal with. Sometimes the service technician will find some other issue that should be taken care of. If this happens, they usually say we don’t have the part but can get it overnight and take care of it the next day. So we typically don’t like to just plan on getting out of service in one day and have other campground reservations lined up just in case we need to spend an extra day or two waiting for parts. But now we have the case of being done with service early in the afternoon and not having anywhere lined up for tonight. Actually we have 4 nights to account for since our reservation in Brevard North Carolina isn’t until Friday night.

We look around at some options. One was an Elks Lodge in Rock Hill South Carolina just outside of Charlotte North Carolina. But Chris saw a state park very close by near Spartanburg SC. Croft State Park sounded like a nice place and from the online reservation system, it looked like they would have a spot for 4 nights we needed - Monday through Thursday nights, so no weekend night required. The only problem was their online system does not permit reservations for the same day which is what we needed to do. We tried calling the park but nobody picked up and even called the main South Carolina state park reservation number, but we were unable to do anything over the phone. So we just drove to the park with the hopes of getting a spot.

Croft State park is a pretty big place with a 3 mile drive after talking with the guy at the entrance station to get to the camping area. We pulled in and Chris had no trouble getting the spot we wanted.  By the next morning, Chris was starting to feel normal again so we head out to explore some of the trails near the campground. That way if she ends up feeling sick again, we haven’t gone very far from home. The park is around 7000 acres in size and has over 40 miles of trails. All the trails are open to hiking but some of them are also open to biking and/or horseback riding. So there are numerous options for recreation.

The park sits on the grounds of an old army training base that had 250,000 soldiers come thru between 1941 to 1947. So it was slightly unsettling to see the following signs at the trailheads especially since we are geocachers as well and by definition, that typically takes us off designated trails at least by a little bit!

The 3R's of Explosive Safety!

We head over to the Fairforest Creek Trail. This one is also a horse trail but we don’t see any in the nearly 4 miles we hike. There is a bridge that gets over the creek to many miles of mountain biking trails. These would be fairly convenient to try out from the campground but we won’t end up making it out for a bike ride while we are here. The tulip poplar trees were in bloom. Generally the blooms are way up in the trees and not easily seen, but there were some blooms that must have been knocked down by a storm so we got to see them up close. The mountain laurel were also in bloom and were all around in the forest along the trail. It was a very nice hike but we head back to make sure Chris doesn’t over exert herself.

Bridge Over Creek

View of Creek

Tulip Poplar Flower

On the Trail

Mountain Laurel in Bloom

The next day we head out from the park to explore more in the area. On the southwest side of Spartanburg is Hatcher Garden and Woodland Preserve. It isn’t a big place - about 10 acres - but there are numerous paths and lots of plants and flowers to check out.

Entrance at Hatcher Gardens

Large Flower Artwork

Serene Waterfall

We enjoyed walking around and even had an Adventure Lab and several geocaches to do while we were here. We also stopped at a geocache that had over 500 favorite points so we knew it had to be something special. It was in the parking lot of a seafood restaurant but we were here before it was open so we were able to enjoy solving this one without a lot of people watching us. We knew we would need a AA battery so we had come prepared and with a little trial and error we figured it out.

Cardinal

Turtles on a Log

Azalea

Spiderwort

Battery Operated Geocache

From here we head back towards Gaffney to visit Cowpens National Battlefield. This is the site of a brief but fierce battle during the Revolutionary War in January of 1781. I’m not a huge history or war buff, but I still found the area interesting to walk around. The video in the visitor center got into way more details than I felt I needed but I suppose if you are into the history of the Revolutionary War, this is a must see location.

Cowpens Visitor Center

There are a couple of trails in the park as well as a 4 mile loop drive that gets visitors to the various battle sites and monuments. There were actually a couple geocaches to solve while we explored the grounds. In order to determine the location of the final containers, we had to visit many of the monuments and sites to collect information. One of them was off the premises but the other was surprisingly inside the visitor center.

Scruggs House

Bang, Bang!

A Path at Cowpens

The other cache took us to a small park in the town of Cowpens and since it was on the way back to camp, we worked it into our return trip. Later that evening after dinner, we walked over to the other campground area that is near Lake Craig. It was a beautiful evening and the lake was quite calm.

Caboose at Cowpens Rail Station

Kayaks for Rent at Lake Craig

Fishing Dock on Calm Lake

On our last full day in the state park, we wanted to try a couple more of the trails to a few other geocaches hidden there. Technically we could have hiked to these from our campsite, but it would have been a long walk. Instead we drove over to a minor entrance to the park off of Whitestone Road. Our goal was to hike to Whitestone Spring. It’s not quite 3/4 mile from the parking to the spring and generally downhill. It was a pretty hike that brought us to a small creek with a pipe sticking out of the ground with a constant flow of spring water. Back in the early 1900’s, this water was claimed to be a remedy for just about any ailment you had. What was very surprising was that even though we are in a very remote portion of the park and town itself, this used to be the location of a 3 story hotel back in 1901 to 1906 before it burned down. People would come from all over to stay at the hotel and get all sort of spa treatments.

Watch for Live Munitions Here Too!

Heading to Whitestone Spring

Foundation Remains from Old Hotel

The Fountain of Youth

We continue past the spring and onto Rocky Ridge Trail, we were in search of an even more remote feature in the park. On an unmarked trail just off an established park trail, we find the monument for a couple that lived here in 1763 and were involved in the Revolutionary War. The only reason we even knew to come here was a geocache hidden nearby. It is kind of amazing some of the places we make it to simply because we like to geocache and explore.

Old Memorial for John and Jane Thomas

The hike back to the car was a bit tiring and ended up being just over 4 miles but since we were parked in the shade, we used the opportunity to have lunch before moving on. Our next goal would take us a bit out of the way towards Jonesville in order to find a cache in another county. We just assumed this one was going to be some simple “park and grab” cache at a nondescript pullout along the road. The cache was a pretty easy find but the pullout was far from nondescript. There was a huge American flag painted on the side of the road in honor of September 11. It was way more special than we expected.

911 Flag

Now we could drive back to Croft State Park for one last hike. This one was to do hike around Lake Johnson. There was only one geocache to find here and if we had been tired we could have gone for the cache and head out but we were feeling good so we continued the loop around the lake. It was quite pretty and we had the place almost completely to ourselves. This hike was almost 2.5 miles but reasonably easy.

Looking Over Lake Johnson

Bridge Along Loop Trail

Another Lake Johnson View

On the day we were to leave, the weather was still nice and we only would have a 70 mile drive to Brevard so we decide to do a short hike in the morning before having to leave for the noon checkout time. There is a 1.5 mile nature trail just down from the campground so we give that a try. It was pretty but we did manage to unintentionally get off the main trail and find a minor trail that took us right along the creek. We saw lots of mountain laurels in bloom too.

Heading Down Nature Trail at Croft SP

Creek View

Mountain Laurel

Just across from the nature trail is the horse stables. We had seen some of the horse competition rings for events like barrel riding, so we knew this was a big equestrian place. But we didn’t realize how big until we made it up to the stables. We aren’t talking simple tie off spots for horses or even a barn with a few stalls. This building has 51 horse stalls! There were only a few horses in the stalls and a few others that were getting saddled up for a ride. I guess that might explain why there were a couple of horse trailer/campers in the campground. They were starting to arrive for the upcoming weekend.

Huge Horse Stable at Croft

Horse Peeks Out

Prepping for Trail Ride

We really enjoyed this stop in South Carolina. There was so much more we could have done here like trying out some of the mountain bike trails since they looked to be in decent shape and not terribly difficult. Since this is near where we like to have our motorhome serviced, we might need to work this stop into some future visit.

It was one year ago that we were in northern Indiana at SES having a fairly comprehensive solar and lithium battery system installed in our motorhome. You can read all about the details at this link. So after living with the system for the past year, how has it been working for us? Well, in a nutshell GREAT! In that time, we have stayed at places that don't have electric service for only 19 nights - roughly 5% of the time. We no longer need to run our generator to make dinner or charge the batteries when we don't have shore power. Whenever we are living without an electric hookup, we are able to go about our life in a pretty normal manner with the exception of only being able to run one heavy draw appliance at a time. It doesn't take too much effort to sequence our meal prep if both the stove top and microwave are required to make dinner. If we are at a place that only has 15 amp service, we can behave like we have 30 amp electric because our inverter is able to go into "assist" mode and supplement the shore power with power from the batteries. Then when our demand drops, the inverter changes to using shore power to charge the batteries back up. We are definitely enjoying the flexibility the system provides for us.

Here are some of the details for those that like to geek out:

The system we had installed collects all sorts of data (about once a minute) and uploads it to a server that I can access to pull out just about any information I desire. In brief, our system has six 100 amp hour 12 volt lithium batteries and eight 200 watt solar panels feeding those batteries. An inverter can either take shore power when we are hooked up to electric and charge those batteries, or when we are not hooked up to electricity, the inverter will take the 12 volt DC power and create 120 VAC power to run many of our electrical devices in the motorhome. The things that get power from the inverter includes our refrigerator, convection/microwave oven, our electric stove top, the central vacuum and all of our standard AC outlets around the rig that powers our TVs, chargers for laptop, printer, phones and tablets as well as kitchen appliances like the coffee pot, electric tea kettle, instant pot, air fryer etc. It does NOT power our air conditioners, washing machine or dryer or electric elements for our hydronic water heater/furnace.

During the past 8 years, we have been on metered electric enough times to know that we generally average between 16 to 22 kWhr of electric per day for everything. We don't use our air conditioners very often but do use the electric to power our hydronic water heater for domestic hot water nearly all the time. That means we use a total of somewhere between 5,900 to 8,000 kWhr per year - let's call it 7 megawatt hours per year.

Pulling the data from our inverter over the past year, I can see that it has supplied 2,141 kWhr for the year or just under 6 kWhr per day for the loads it feeds. So that means that the loads powered from the inverter are only about 30% of our total electric usage. The remaining 70% are predominately the electric to the water heater and the running of the clothes dryer. Our fully charged lithium battery bank stores 7,200 kWhr. In theory, we can handle all the inverter loads for a full day without depleting the battery.

I can also pull out what part of the inverter load came from shore power and what came from our solar panels. It turns out that 65% of the power came from shore power and 35% came from our solar panels. That means that we used solar to take care of about 11% of our total yearly needs.

Can we do everything off of solar? Definitely not, but we can boondock for two days without the help of solar just from our full battery bank if we run into a cloudy stretch of weather. And if we have good sunlight during the long days of summer, we can run all the loads on the inverter exclusively from solar and have our batteries back up to 100% charge by sunset.