Charlotte NC, Hikes and Disc Golf…

We felt pretty happy our wallet didn’t get hit too hard at the Freightliner shop in Gaffney SC. The free camping made it even a little better and now that we are all fixed up, we are ready to roll once again. Our next stop would be in North Carolina.

It was another uneventful drive (our favorite kind) as we rolled into Charlotte, NC.  We settled into our next campsite at the Camping World Racing Resort in Concord, NC just north of Charlotte. We have never visited Charlotte and are looking forward to our stay to check out the area.

The campground was nothing special but was in the perfect location for us to explore all that Charlotte had to offer. Sites are large with full hook-ups but there is little to no shade and lots of gravel. This park is really here to cater to the Charlotte Speedway which we could see (and HEAR!) easily from our site.

We found lots of nice parks near us offering hiking and disc golf. We enjoyed several of them and were pleasantly surprised how much we like this area. It will be in consideration for a possible final stop on our travels. While the state has a state income tax which we hoped to avoid we’ll just crunch the numbers to see if it makes it onto the list of our top five locations to land for our next chapter on the road of retirement.

One great disc golf course we played was at the Reedy Disc Golf Course in Reedy Creek Park. The course is a moderately hilly and heavily wooded 18 hole course covering about a mile from the first hole to the last. Of course we never walk in a straight line nor do courses add in the distance between tees to the course length so on most courses we will walk just less than 2 miles to as much as three and half miles.

The greater Charlotte area has at least four Nature Centers and Preserves with Reedy Creek being one of them. These parks have some great hikes within them and while hiking along many of the trails it gave the wonderful feel of escape from the hustle and bustle of the city.

We spent a day visiting the large University of North Carolina, Charlotte (UNCC) which also has a really nice botanical garden.  We were also impressed with the city’s excellent roadway system to what I consider to be the result of exceptional city planning. These added to the reasons why we found Charlotte an attractive place to land. After a week in Charlotte we will move on to Raleigh to visit our daughter and her family along with taking care of some medical appointments for Sharon.

RV Service at Gaffney Freightliner and a Few Hikes!

Our next stop was going to be to Charlotte NC but we decided a few weeks back to see if we could get an appointment at the Freightliner Shop in Gaffney SC. We figured it would be a long shot but we called and they said they didn’t have any appointments open but we could come on in and stay at the Freightliner Campground.That way they would try to squeeze us in between appointment.

Therefore instead of spending the July 4th long weekend at Charlotte we moved over to the Freightliner Campground. We thought it was nice they allow customers to stay in their lot while awaiting service.  30/50 amp hookups are at every site and they have a water station along with a dump station on premises.

The suggestion is that customers stay the night before service and the night after service but the receptionist when we called had no problem with us arriving on the Saturday of the long July 4th weekend saying that there would be plenty of open sites as we did see upon arrival!

We parked and set-up for our hopefully short stay awaiting service. Our RV needs its oil changed as well as the lube in the rear axle. We decided to also have the transmission serviced so we will have new transmission fluid once again.Finally we will have them lube the chassis as well.

While waiting for service we took a drive over the Cowpens Battlefield National Monument. “This Revolutionary War site commemorates the place where Daniel Morgan and his army turned the flanks of Banastre Tarleton's British army. This classic military tactic, known as a double envelopment, was one of only a few in history.”

We have visited Cowpens before on a previous service visit but we this trip we wanted to hike the trails.. There are some nice trails in this park and the one we took was a perfect hike of a couple of miles on a mostly shaded trail. We did a little birdwatching as well as imagining what it might have been like back during the war for the young frontiersmen in this part of South Carolina.

Another day we found another hike near Gaffney on the Lake Whelchel Trail. While the hike was too long (6.7 miles) for us, in this heat, to go all the way around the lake we did hike a few miles in and out on the trail. It was a really nice trail with ample shade through dense woodlands with several peeks of the Lake as well.

Finally the day came and we had all requested service completed. Even better there were no major maintenance surprises encountered by the service techs doing the work. We can’t thank the staff enough for working us in without an appointment and we can now move on to North Carolina…

Why are some camp hosts so rude?

Again the time came to move on so we packed up the RV and entered another state  into South Carolina. We were heading to a new, for us, campground named Conerose Campground which is a COE campground located on the huge Lake Hartwell.

Near the small town of Townville, SC this is another fabulous COE campground. We did run into a challenge getting there though. I knew from looking at the drive using Google Satellite View that the last few miles would be on crappy roads. What we didn’t know was that we would have to make two u-turns to get to the park. Yikes! However, it was our own fault using our GPS and not noticing beforehand there were two Conerose roads.

We finally arrived at the gate house and were informed that someone was still in the site. No biggie. I politely asked where we could park to wait and the gate attendant curtly states we have to leave the park outside the gate. She proceeds to tell us to make a u-turn behind the gate house, which is totally impossible for our sized rig to do.

I explain this to her so then I was told that I should drive through the host loop to get turned around which I was able to do. Outside the gate house I pull over on the narrow road so I could get out to assess what lies ahead to do yet another u-turn so I would be pointed back toward the park. That’s when Miss Surly sternly hollers that I can’t park there as I am not yet outside the gate!

To which I say, sorry, but I am going to look at my u-turn options ahead before moving any further. She then tells me I can do a loop through the neighborhood.and marches back to her gate house. As I peruse my options once again her advice would have been dreadful for our sized RV so I found a spot where we could back into and turn around once unhitched.

We waited an hour and a half before the person finally departed our site. As we were checking in little Miss Surly had suddenly become little MIss Bubbly only after Sharon emotionally confronted her about her lack of useful information in front of a co-worker. I am guessing she was afraid of being reported. Unfortunately she is not the first surly camp host we have encountered and I am sure not the last. Some people relish the power embodied by being a camp host while others are truly welcoming.

Once settled we loved our large and heavily wooded site. We chose this area as it was close to Clemson SC and we wanted to visit the University. A short drive away we found the University and both felt it was a bit underwhelming especially after visiting the magnificent University of Alabama (maybe we had overhyped our expectations). We did stroll around a bit but the highlight was the SC Botanical Gardens on the campus.

We hiked a beautiful lush trail along a creek and encountered lots of birds and beautifully landscaped planting. Near the end of the trail was a small cabin that reminded us of one of our stays in a cabin in Gatlinburg TN near a babbling creek. We highly recommend this short hike as there is much to see. Many of today’s photos are from this garden. It was very enjoyable and washed away all the unpleasantness from the day before.

Talladega Alabama and Fort Yargo State Park in Georgia…

With a weekend approaching we had to leave Deerlick Park and move on down the road. Since we are booking sites only a few weeks in advance prime locations like Deerlick Park are nearly impossible to score on a weekend.

As a result our next planned stop was north of the Talladega Speedway. We found a nice Passport America park off the beaten path and spent the weekend at Talladega Pit Stop RV Park & Campground in Lincoln, AL.

There is not a lot to do or see in or around this park so we we used our time doing a little more future planning. We also drove over to the nearby town of Oxford to pick up some groceries. We shop for groceries frequently to take advantage of loss leaders and to ensure we always have fresh fruits and veggies.

The University of Georgia was not as impressive a campus as was the University of Alabama. However, unlike U of A, Georgia’s campus is more land locked by the city of Athens. Unfortunately for us it was raining a lot in the area so we only had time for a short stroll through campus and downtown Athens.

Afterward we had to stop by Terrapin Brewing for happy hour. What luck! They were running a 20-year anniversary special so we were able to try six beers for 10 bucks! This allowed us to try some exotic beers we would otherwise bypass and was a great way to end the day in Athens.

Back at Fort Yargo SP Sharon set up her outside gym in our spacious site for a long workout. While she was working out I unloaded my mountain bike and thought it would be fun to ride the 6 mile trail around the park. I hadn’t ridden any serious single track trails for a while so I figured 6 miles would be a good and fun ride.

Once the weekend ended we moved over to Fort Yargo State Park in the state of Georgia. This park is also off the beaten path but close enough to Athens GA for a day trip to explore the college town and University.

Well, unfortunately I wandered off trail multiple times and encountered such trail segments as Monster Mile and Heart Attack Hill. I bit off a bit more than I had expected but when I was finally done I felt great and really enjoyed the strenuous ride. I probably rode closer to 9 miles and was hopeful I would be sore the next day, luckily I wasn’t.

As we slowly make our way over to North Carolina to visit our daughter we have been carefully eyeing places posing the question, could we live here? So far we haven’t answered yes unanimously...