2024 - 2025 Trip To The Southeast

Getting Ready, Day 0

2011 Trip across the US
2012 Trip across the US
2014 Trip across the US
2015 Trip to Alaska
2015-16 Southwest Trip
2016 New England Trip
2016 - 17 Southwest Trip
2017 - 18 Trip to Pick Up a New Escape 21 Trailer & More
2018 - 19 Trip to Winnipeg & the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta
2019 - 20 Trip to the Southwest
2021 - 22 Trip to the Southwest
2022 - 23 Trip to the Southwest (A short trip)
2023-24 Trip to the Southwest

Other Trips

Index:
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October 6, 2024:

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I've decided to skip a trip to the southwest and stay here in the east. I still want to avoid freezing cold days, so I'm heading to the southeast. The current plan (and reservations) are for a 178 day trip bouncing around northern Florida, Georgia, South Carolina & Alabama state parks.

While today is 2 weeks before I plan to leave for the winter, it appears I may have picked the wrong year for staying in the east.

Hurricane Helene has done quite a bit of damage all over the area I planned to stay. The usual start to my winter snowbirding is a trip to the Hungry Mother State Park in Virginia for a fiberglass rally. The Guidos usually make it the last trip of the season. We are not sure it will happen - Hungry Mother suffered enough storm damage to close, and will wait until October 14th to decide whether to open. My schedule (and reservations) has me leaving Oswego on the 20th, so not a lot of time to make changes. If the rally is canceled, the Guidos will head to Michigan to see great grandkids, but I plan to do my winter trip anyway. I don't have anything scheduled for the eastern part of North Carolina or southwestern Tennessee, the most heavily damaged areas.

I planned the trip with RV Life's Trip Wizard, and a couple of days after the hurricane checked and the next 5 parks after Hungry Mother were all closed. I rechecked this weekend and it is down to 2 closed parks before Christmas, and one after, the first of which, Lake Wateree, has already canceled my reservation & credited my credit card with the full amount of reservation.

I assume that if they opened the park they want visitors - I don't want to be any kind of a burden on the folks that had so much devastation.

I found another state park within my normal driving distance (under 250 miles) that was open & made new reservations for the first stop after Hungry Mother. If Hungry Mother stays closed, I'll need to find something between Creekside Campground in Virginia & Chester State Park in South Carolina.

So, as of today, only one of the early parks is still closed; Aiken State Park in South Carolina. I have a reservation for 3 days, November 3-5 so I hope it opens before then.

October 13, 2024:

Not too much to update - Hungry Mother State Park is now open so the rally is on, and Aiken State Park is also open. At this point only the General Coffee State Park in Georgia is still closed. I have reservations for December 16 - 22 and hope it will be open by then.

Too early for packing, but I did fire up the refrigerator and will start moving stuff into the trailer during the week. It has cooled off this week - 47°F at noon today. I am running the mini split AC in the living room on heat set for 70°F, keeping the bedroom at the other end of the house at a comfortable sleeping temperature of 65°F. Dinner tonight will be Kyle's favorite - spaghetti and meatballs, all from scratch. We will also have chocolate cake to celebrate his birthday; still a week away, but I'll be leaving the day before his actual birthday.

October 19, 2024:

The truck & trailer are three quarters packed. Tomorrow morning I'll add the last minute things that I'm still using, then head to Binghamton & the Guidos. Today the projects include cutting down the asparagus fonds, and the butterfly bush. Both are a bit early, but I won't be here after the first frost.

Yesterday I changed the taillights on the trailer. Some of the driver's side taillight failed. I purchased an adapter that lets me use the screw holes from the original lamps with the new, different sized replacements. The original fixtures are no longer available. The only difficult part was the short wires left coming out of the trailer. Tough to strip, but it is done.

I also did one last mowing of the leaves. Most are still on the trees but I managed to grind up what was on the ground.

While Hungry Mother State Park is open, they still don't have phone or internet service. Some rally attendees needed to cancel their reservations because they are from the areas that got hit hardest by the hurricanes, and still can't get to their trailers or are too busy taking care of the damage to their homes. Canceling has been a problem because the reservations were made through the campground itself (as a favor to the rally by setrting aside a group of sites). They can't be canceled by the Reserve America site, and because the phones are out at the park, can't be canceled at the office. Hopefully things will settle down next week.

Truck mileage for the start of the trip is 81,097.6.

More later -

This page is maintained by: vermilye@oswego.edu
Last Update: December 20, 2024