North Shore Resort, Greensboro SC 12/06/2012 - 12/19/2012

 We are members of a park in Georgia, Southern Trails.  We joined it last year when Thousand Trails disassociated with ROD, because we really need ROD to continue this crazy lifestyle.  We never thought we would ever be close enough to stay there, so we were excited to call them and make a reservation.  We were told that we would have to pay $10/night because of our membership contract!  So instead, we ended up making reservations at an ROD park (free camping) south of Southern Trails.

 

We have enjoyed most all of the ROD parks, and North Shore Resort was no exception.  The staff were so friendly and fun to get to know.  They called the manager Miss Wanda, the activities lady was Miss Mimi, I was Miss Susan--a great southern tradition.

Most all of the buildings in this park were railroad cars.  This is the security building that controlled the gates.

The check-in and managers' office was across the street from the guard shack.  It was fixed up really cute inside.

Even the restroom/showers/laundry buildings were railroad cars.  They were pretty "bare-bones" inside, with metal walls and all.

There are two sets of  "rental cars," this group and then five more right on the lake.  They would be really fun to stay in and, from peeking in the windows, looked pretty nice inside.

The swimming pool showers and snack bar is even a railroad car.

There are some really nice sites down on the lake.  We had our choice of this site . . .

. . . or this one on the hill.  Well, we had already parked on this site when they said we could have the other one, and we were too lazy to move!  We were right under an oak tree and it sounded like a hail storm when the wind blew a little, with all of the acorns falling on our roof, but we got used to it.

This is pretty much the extent of our Christmas decorating.  We will get a little tree at our next park when we move on Dec 20.

 

 This is Miss Mimi, the activities director.  She had a family emergency and couldn't do a craft class, so I told her that I would do one.  We made little beaded Christmas ornaments.  This is one that she did.  It was a fun way to get to know people.

We were near the town of Greensboro GA.  We went exploring one day and shopped at a huge, two-story antique shop, a "made in Georgia" shop, and toured an old jail.  We went to the Chamber of Commerce and they gave us the key to the old jail that was a block away, and told us to make sure we turned out the lights and locked up when we left!  They call this jail the "Old Greene County Goal."  Gaol is the British spelling of jail.  It is built of granite from a local quarry and the walls are two feet thick.  It is the oldest standing masonry jail in Georgia.

The downstairs cells are like the European catacomb cells.  Prisoners in these cells could be chained to the wall if necessary. They were given a bed of straw to sleep on, a tin bucket for a toilet, and a candle. There was no other light, no heat, and no ventilation.  It is a good thing that Terry didn't have the keys to these chains!

People arrested for non-violent crimes were sometimes put in the upstairs room where they at least had light.

 

From 1735 to 1924, the legal method of execution in Georgia was hanging.  The gallows and trap door of the Goal are on the second story and are just as they were in the 1800s.  The hangman stood on the steps, pulled the lever . . .

. . .and the trap door fell away.  There is information on only one execution in Greene County and he was hung for murder in 1873.  As the story is told, when the hangman pulled the lever to release the trap door, the rope broke.  In those days, if you survived the execution you were usually set free.  Unfortunately, this was not the case and he was hung a second time!

 

 I thought this was a fun sign and told Terry to not fool around with the trap door!

 

The day that the park had their Christmas celebration they allowed us to set up our Scentsy table.  We spent the whole day at the lodge visiting with people.

We were there when Santa came to see all of the kids.  He even posed for a picture with us!

Then, I filled his bag with Scentsy for all of the good "little boys and girls."

Later that night, we had a pot luck dinner and a gift exchange.  It was a lot of fun.  Terry ended up with a little tool set, after first getting a big box of chocolates with gift certificates and then an envelope full of lottery tickets.  They were both hot items and got taken away from him.  I ended up with a great cook book.

 

We went to church at a little branch in Madison GA.  They were some of the most friendly people we have ever met.  They kept insisting that we buy a house and settle down in Madison!  This town is one of the few towns that was not touched physically by the Civil War.  There are some of the most beautiful homes left from that era.  I think I took 100 pictures.   

It would be kind of tempting to settle down in Madison GA if you could live in one of these homes!

We were told that they used this home as a prop as "Tara" in the movie, Gone With the Wind.

We had a great two weeks in North Shores Resort and had hopes that my cousin and his wife, Glen and Lisa, would be able to come spend a day or two with us.  They live in Macon GA, which is about 60 miles from our park.  But, their schedules didn't allow that to happen.  So, when we left for our next park in Florida, we drove right through Macon.  They met us and took us to lunch.  We all had

"weggies" at a little Italian restaurant.  The food was great and it was fun visiting with them.  Hopefully, they will make it to our Imlay Family reunion in Emmett next summer.

Carolina Landing RV Park, Fair Play SC 11/9/2012 - 11/29/2012

It is amazing to us that we are in still another beautiful state in the East.  Terry keeps expecting the landscape to change as soon as we cross the boarder into another state.  He says, "Well, South Carolina looks just like North Carolina!"  It doesn't happen quite that fast, but there are subtle changes as we come down further south.  For one thing, we are seeing more pine trees, and because of the season, most of the leaves are gone from the trees and you can see through them to whatever is on the other side.  It kind of opens up the view a little.

 

Our TT Carolina Landing Park was a bit of a disappointment.  We stayed there for three whole weeks and there were no activities of any kind and they had closed both the family lodge and the adult lodge.  I think the manager there has a bit of his own agenda going on and there were some pretty upset RVer's there.   He did allow me to organize a Craft/Yard Sale and incorporate a Scentsy Open House with it, although the room we used had no heat in it and we had to go outside to get warm.

We ended up with a pretty nice spot--a little unlevel, but it had a small cement pad and a good view of a lot of the park.  But, a lot of the sites available for traveling RVer's were on a hillside--no level parking even though they were all paved--and you stepped out of your rig onto a little hillside.  There was no room to sit out camp chairs or a level spot for your picnic table.  Better than half of the park is taken up by annual site leases and they are all of the nice level sites on top of the hill.

Our site was in the 30-amp section, which was a little more level, (we are the coach in the middle) and between two annual sites so our neighbors on one side were never there and the other side came a couple of times while we were there.  There were restrooms right behind us, but they had been closed for the season (another irritation for everyone.), along with both the family and the adult lodges.  We were told that these were all closed down because the only people spending much time in the park this time of year were "snowbirds!"  I guess we are spoiled by all of the other parks in our system that have such nice facilities for our use!

It was a bit of a hike to get to the lake, but it gave us good exercise going up and down steep roads.  It was really pretty, even with low water and all of the leaves on the ground.  There are some really nice rental cabins by the lake.

The water in the lake was so low that the dock was way out and almost completely out of the water.

 

All around the lake there were beautiful homes, all with the boat slips and docks.  That would be my dream retirement home (at least in warm weather),  a home on a lake with a boat and private dock!

One of the boat slips and dock were built without planning for low water levels!

The park did have a pot-luck dinner planned for December 8--right between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but nothing for Thanksgiving Day.  (And then no one signed up for the pot-luck dinner so they cancelled it!)  But, we heard that several of the annual site holders were getting together for Thanksgiving dinner.  They had gotten special permission to use the family lodge.  We visited with them and got invited!  It was great.  There were three other families and us.  It was nice to be with family that day--even though it was someone elses' family!

I had actually bought a turkey because they were a really good buy, and I cooked it the next day because we didn't have any leftovers!

I think our "Day After Thanksgiving" dinner tasted at least as good as the day before, and we had leftovers for about a week!

Terry has not cut his beard for several months.  I told him that by Christmas he will be able to be a Santa's Helper!

We did quite a bit of walking and bike riding.  This is in front of the one building the Manager left open--his office is in it.  His office is on the right (door in on the side you can't see.)  On the left there is a small computer room.  It has a few small tables and a couch in it.  It had a TV, but the TV disappeared a few days after we got there.  The middle room used to be a little store that was closed several months ago.  You could see through the windows and there was just some storage items in it.  All of a sudden, the door and the windows were painted so you couldn't see through them.   We were  told it was being used as a "staff lounge" where the manager and friends could go watch football games and etc., on a nice TV!  Do I sound bit irritated!  YUP!   (Enough of that!)

On one of our bike routes we can go one way and go down a small hill and then ride up this big hill.  Well, Terry likes to go the other way and go down the big hill.  He starts at the top and peddles as fast as he can down the hill (while I use my brakes the whole way) . . .

. . . and then sees if he can coast all the way up the small hill.  He usually makes it all the way.  I hold my breath hoping he doesn't crash on his way down!

My sister, Lorrie, orders a lot of things from catalogs.  She needed a little something else to get the amount ordered to the point that she wouldn't have to pay shipping (anyway, that is the story she told me!)  so she got us a surprise.  When I took out this canning jar, it says "Butterfly Collection" on it.  I thought, why does she want me to collect butterflies--they will just die in that jar!  Well when I figured it out, this is the coolest thing.  When you tap the top of the jar, this butterfly (on a tiny wire you can hardly see) flutters and flies around.  I love it!

 

 With not a whole lot to do, Terry has been playing with his scroll saw.  The round holes in the windmill and castle are places to put in little clocks (which we don't have yet).  He is getting pretty good, although he doesn't think so.  I really like the little crayon/pencil holders he is starting to make.  He will have some fun things to give our kids and grandkids when we see them again.

I was busy a few days getting our Christmas cards ready.  Since we aren't around to see many of our friends and family at this time of year, I try to send out cards.  It is kind of nice to be sitting out on a picnic table in short pants and short sleeves, in the sunshine, getting Christmas cards ready!

It is a bout a 4-mile ride to the post office so we put the Christmas cards on our bikes and took them to be mailed!

Of course, when you live, traveling in your RV, there are all of these housekeeping chores that come with you!  We have this handy little cart that we use to carry all of our things to the laundry room!  Terry is really good at working it.  He doesn't like me posting pictures like this, but I have total control over the BLOG and most of the time, the camera!  We will be headed to Georgia in a few days so we better get this laundry done!

Forest Lake RV Park, Advance NC 10/28/2012 - 11/9/2012

We were able to change some of our reservations, and after a 6-day stay of a 3-week reservation at Chesapeake Bay, we headed to North Carolina.  Hopefully, our TT park there would be inland enough to not get much of the Hurricane Sandy.  We got to the area on Saturday and they were still filled up in the park for the Halloween weekend, so we stayed in Lexington Walmart one night and then went on into the park the next day.   Terry was in this area many years ago when he and three other bus drivers went to Thomasville and drove some new school buses home to Emmett. 

 

 We drove our car to Forest Lake on Saturday evening, for something to do and to check it out.  My goodness!!  We could hardly get through the roads in the park for all of the ghosts and goblins walking the streets and trick-or-treating.  But, the next day when we drove the Journey out there, there were already quite a few empty sites. 

Just coming into the park there is an old tree stump that a "tree artist" carved and painted with this old man picture. . .

. . . and this Indian carving. They were quite unique.

We got a really nice spot.  The first time we drove around and spotted it, it was covered with leaves and a man was blowing them all away with a leaf blower.  It looked like he was searching for something.  I don't know if he found anything, but it was sure nice to have a nice leafless site!

 



The park kind of closed everything down after the end of October--the pools and hot tub were locked and the family lodge was closed.  But they still had a nice adult lodge that was open, although there were no planned activities. 

 The park is on a really pretty little lake.  We walked and rode our bikes around it a lot.  There were a few people fishing in it and we actually saw some fish jumping.  The rental cabins were all on the lake and had decks that looked out at it.  They would be fun ones to stay in.

 

There were no planned activities, but we met up with two couples who played games (mostly dominoes) most nights at the Lodge.  They invited us to play and we had a really good time.  Their names were Lance & Andrea and Dave & Pat.  We went to Lance & Andrea's site one night and had a campfire.  We had a good time talking about politics and religion--all friendly!  Another night Dave made some jambalaya (rice and crayfish) and we went there for dinner.  YUM!  Hopefully we will meet up with them in Florida, as we all have reservations in the same parks there.

 

We went walking in the woods a lot.  The trees didn't have too many leaves left on them, but there were several inches on the ground.  We got lost one day and ended up clear on the other side of the park, and coming out we had to climb over a gate across a road that said "Do Not Enter--No Trespassing" on the other side of the gate!  Another time we ran into a Pioneer Cemetery.

Someone must visit it because there were plastic flowers on all of the graves.

 The gravestones were a little hard to find because they were nearly covered with leaves.  The gravestones we could read were all dated in the early 1800's.

 

 We had a really relaxing three weeks at Forest Lake.  Hurricane Sandy just touched us with a little wind and rain, but was not bad.  Hopefully, we will not run into any more serious storms as we continue our "Journey," with our next stop in South Carolina.