2019 SouthWest: the last stretch...Savannah to home

Continuing our quest to travel only secondary highways on the way home, we made our way northwards to Lee State Park, near Bishopville SC. We are on our way to Durham NC, to have a quick visit with Dale’s girlfriend Debbie. This park will get us about half the way there.

Lee Lake SP is home to a number of aquifers that were drilled by the corps of engineers who built the park in the 30’s. These springs still bubble continuously, some reaching 3-4 feet in the air.

a nice site nestled in pines

fallen pines become an arrangement

Jordan Lake SP, near Durham NC, is a massive reservoir with surrounding recreation area. It was developed as part of a flood control plan, prompted by a terrible storm that flooded most of the area back in 1945. We received an email from the Park Ranger a few days before arriving, informing us that our original site selection was now under water, and that we would need to choose a site in a different loop, on higher ground. Not surprising, on our drives we have noticed that many of the rivers are very swollen and fast moving.

We chose a new site, then took a walk around the park. All the waterfront sites are now underwater, in all the campground loops. Clearly the reservoir is doing its job, and hopefully preventing damaging floods downstream. This is a huge park, with hundreds of nice sites.

Our first night there, in the middle of the night, we got 5 alerts on our phones, jolting us out of our sleep, to warn us of possible flash flooding and tornados. Thank goodness it turned out to be much less than expected in our area, just a 30 minute heavy downpour with lightening.

good to have essential supplies on hand

This was a visiting/rest stop for us, and we had our friend Debbie out to our site for a casual meal and visit. The next day we went to nearby Apex, and the three of us had dinner at a nice restaurant, on their old Main Street.

Heading north again, we travelled Hwys 501/29/60 to get us to James River SP in Virginia, just north east of Lynchburg. This park is a tad remote from our main route, but the drive in along the river was quite nice. We drove past many large farms with expansive mowed lush green pastures, surrounded by endlessly long brown/black stained wood fences, these fences seem to be the standard fences used throughout Virginia. Also with being springtime, lining all the roads were many flowering trees, blooming with pink, purple and white flowers. Quite a pretty sight to see...

a beautiful ranch

James River SP is another nice park, set deep in a pine forest. Dale lamented that one of the downsides of our single night stays (in a row) at state parks is that you really do not get a chance to know and experience what the park has to offer. Also since the parks and the campsites have many similar features, in one’s mind they can be hard to keep track of, and thus they become a blur.

We did have one tiny little event at this park that will always stand out in our minds,....a flat tire. After setting up we were sitting in the shade of the Alto, and I glanced down at the tire, and the sidewall looked plump. I looked closer and it had definitely lost air, and it did not take long to find the culprit. A head of a screw was deeply embedded between the treads. I changed the tire before the sun set, and pondered our next move.

The next morning we decided to see if we could get the tire patched, sooner rather than later. As we are now every day just chewing up the miles to get home, driving too far without a useable spare was not a comfortable thought. After leaving the park we drove into the closest town of Amherst looking for a garage. Not seeing one, we stopped at an intersection and asked a gentleman if he knew of one. He directed us to a garage that was actually back in the direction of the park, yet we had not seen it.

Turns out it was set back into the woods, and not overly visible. ‘Gregory’s Auto Repair’ on Route 60 in Amherst, was a classic looking old school garage. There were a few mechanics standing around chatting, and you could tell that these guys had tons of experience and would know what they were doing.

I explained our situation, and asked if they would be able to put a plug in the tire. “No problem”, and one of the guys grabbed the tire and went to work. We chatted to the other guys,  and one being the owner, they asked about our trip, had a few laughs, and a short time later, the tire re-appeared. The guy handed me a three inch screw that he had pulled out of the tread, and I asked him what did I owe him?  He reached out to shake my hand and said “Our handshake is payment”
Wow! We thanked him and the other guys, and told them that we now felt much more comfortable heading out on the road. We thanked them again, then were on our way. What a hell of a nice thing for them to do!

the culprit

We then worked our way up Hwy 29 towards our next stop, Caledonia SP in Pennsylvania. We found out about the 29 from a Facebook post between Jack and Annie. Jack had recommended this route as a nice way to avoid the I81...and after driving it all the way to Culpepper, and beyond as the 15/29...it was indeed a fine recommendation!

Our route took us through Gettysburg, and from what we saw, we immediately knew that we have to get back there sometime soon for a better exploration. This town is steeped in Civil War history, monuments, and historic battles, and in the near future , we need to dedicate some time to take it all in.

classic fences

Caledonia SP, just outside of Gettysburg, is in an area that was originally a small community with ironwork businesses called ‘Caledonia Ironworks’ and ‘Caledonia Furnace’.  Much later in the 1960’s the campground was built, and the sites are very nice, and they have also done a lot of recent improvements. We will certainly be back to this park, as it will be a perfect base from which to explore the history of the area.

original park fire truck...looks like a workhorse

From Caledonia, we took Hwy 11, which follows the Susquehanna River to Wilkes-Barre PA and our next stop, Francis Slocum SP. We have stayed here before, and it made a nice midway point to our final overnight stop. This was the first time in our secondary highway adventure that the route was literally just connecting one town to another, and there were a lot of towns. It was hard to tell when one town ended and the next began. Our average speed today was at best, 60 klm/40 mph, but it was a really interesting drive, albeit a tad slower than we have been going thus far.

It rained steady overnight, but once again, Mother Nature looked kindly on our journey, and by morning, the rain had stopped. We continued on Hwy 11 to Otisco Lake Campground, just south of Syracuse. We stopped here a couple of nights to recharge before driving to home. We had some difficulty finding a campground in upper New York State that was open this early in the season, as most open May 1st.  Fortunately we discovered Otisco Lake Campground, a real going concern private campground, run by a nice young couple.  It has many seasonal sites, some short term spots, and a full marina and a camp store.

Barley being Barley

Our last drive was on a nice sunny and warm day, up to Ogdensburg, across the border, and then back home. It sure was nice to come home and have no snow on the ground, and as always is the case, it is nice to be home.

Our last post will be a wrap-up, looking back at some of the observations that we have made, and some stats of our journey.