We left Zephyrhills on Thursday, March 31, driving 4 hours to Valdosta, GA. With most snowbirds leaving Florida on April 1, the traffic can be very heavy, so we chose to leave the day before, and Valdosta was about halfway to Augusta. We stayed in there 2 nights and drove to Petersburg Campground in Appling, GA., about 25 miles west of Augusta.
The GPS in our RV did a curious thing. After getting off I-75 at Macon, it never took us on another freeway, all the way to Appling. The saying goes that you have to get off the freeways to really see the U.S.A, but using the Eisenhower Interstate System is the easiest way to travel in an RV. Especially when towing a vehicle like we do. After setting up in a campground, we usually see the sights on the back roads in our car. But not this time. We traveled 2 lane roads in the motorhome, where the big windshield gave us a perfect view of rural Georgia, which was surprisingly hilly. At one point, a sign said "Welcome to Hancock County - The Hidden Gem of Georgia". We didn't think it looked any different from the other counties we had gone through since Macon. We drove through Sparta, where we were encouraged by numerous yard signs to re-elect Terrell Primus as sheriff.
One town looked very inviting and I wish we could have stopped and walked around. Milledgeville, GA is home to Georgia College and we drove right through the campus, where a large, family festival was going on. (bouncy houses and large inflatable slides were our first clue). Matt (who made the trip with us) said it was a good thing that there wasn't a parade coming as we would have had to be in it. We were on a 2 lane street, and with angle parking on both sides, there was no possibility for us to get out of the way!
Petersburg Campground is an Army Corps of Engineer campground on J. Strom Thurmond Lake, which borders Georgia and South Carolina. Wooded state and national park campgrounds are not always big rig friendly, but we couldn't have been more pleased with our site. In fact, if it had sewer hook-ups, we would have stayed longer than 5 nights. We had a view of the lake, and with the campsites spaced quite far apart, it was extremely peaceful. We enjoy our RV park in Florida, but the units are close together and, while sitting inside,we often can hear our neighbor's conversation when they are outside. The only sounds we heard here were the chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves as squirrels scampered across the ground.
Josh drove 13 hours from his home in Illinois to join us and he arrived at the campground about 10:30 Saturday night. On Sunday morning the four of us crossed the dam that created the Strom Thurmond Lake, entered South Carolina and drove a couple of hours to Clemson University. We had a noon tee time at the Walker Course on the college campus. We enjoyed our round as we never saw the group behind us and rarely saw the foursome in front of us. Several holes were on the edge of a lake, which gave us some pretty views. After golf we drove around the Clemson campus and had some refreshments at a local pub before heading back to the campground.
On Monday, Mike and the boys wiped down the outside of the motorhome. Not a full wash, just going over the whole thing with wet cloths. We then made a practice run into Augusta to see how long it would take (25 minutes on a 2 lane road), found the post office and a Great Clips for Mike and Josh. We were all excited for Tuesday morning!
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