Another Day Closer

Today we had to leave Calhoun State Park on Lake Russell in South Carolina, but we will return again. We have decided that we can spend at least a month touring down the South Carolina side of this Savanna river area of lakes and reservoirs, then swing around to tour up the Georgia side. There are probably thousands of campsites along the lakes, Corp of Engineers, State, County and more local, not even considering private parks. There is much to see and do as we have discovered in the last few days. I promised some more pics of the park from last nights stay and I can't say enough about it.

This is a typical back-in site

Here's one that's terraced

There are also many pull throughs but our preference would still be a back-in.

Here's a shot from the fishing pier. You can see our camper

through the trees, in the right of the picture.

Down the road it was time to leave South Carolina and crossover to the Georgia side. The route we chose took us accross the J. Strom Thurmond Dam and lake. This is the largest Corp of Engineers man made lake east of the Mississippi and there are over 1100 campsites on this lake alone.

Here's the Dam

Along our travels today we came upon an unknown, to us, treasure. When we saw the sign I knew I just had to stop as this was a childhood memory. Question, Why would there be a Laurel & Hardy Museum in Harlem, GA? We started to speculate. Could one of the famed comedy duo from the first half of the 20th century hail from GA? Naaa..... It aint possible.

Well Oliver Norvell Hardy was born January 18th 1892 in Harlem, Georgia, spent most of his juvenile life in Milledgville, GA, attended Georgia Military Academy, Atlanta Conservatory of Music and the University of Georgia. He started his film career at the age of 21 in Jacksonville, FL then moved to Hollywood, CA in 1918. We were both amazed at this discovery and it just goes to show that you can't find these gems travelin' down the I95 and such.

Here's the front of the Museum

A Perfect Day for A Drive

Tonite we're stayin' at a Passport America park in Odum, GA and doin' the full hookup thing. We'll see what treasure tommorrow brings.

Maybe I'll change the name of the blog to "Travelin' the Back Roads".


See ya down the road as we're Dancin' on the Wind

Travel Day Towards Home

Got most of what work we had planned, done at the Smoky Mountain homestead and it's time to head towards home. Some of the jobs we had planned to do got postponed to a later trip so's we can accomplish them in less time and more efficiently. We are going to repaint the shed and the block foundation next trip so we will bring my sprayer from home, which will make much better work o' the job. Okay, got an early start around 9:30AM on the road. We had decided to take a new route towards FL, cause we want to see some new country, travelin' the same path starts makin' a fella seem like your backtrail's out in front of ya. So it was up US 64 to Highlands, then down 28 into the Peach State and then on to South Carolina. They's got some mighty purrty waterfalls along that route.

Here's Linda at 'Bridal Veil Falls' 120 feet high

Stopped for lunch at Stump House Tunnel & Issaqueena Falls in SC. The falls were a nice cascading waterfall where you walk about a hundred yards to an overlook, easy walkin'. The tunnel was awesome", built in the mid 19th century for the Blue Ridge Railroad which was hoping to connect Charleston, SC to Cincinatti, OH. The mountain proved to be to much for those drilling and blasting the tunnel. Seems the granite in the mountain was so hard the 1600 miners could only make 200' of progress a month, working 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week. The mountain defeated the railroaders and the Blue Ridge Railroad was never to be.

The tunnel entrance

Inside the tunnel

We contiunued south on 28 and stopped for the night at a most beautiful SC state park, Calhoun Falls. This park is located on Lake Russell, has 86 sites in two loops and a separate tenting area. Most sites are waterfront, all are paved pads with sand patio areas , some terraced. There is good separation of sites and plenty of privacy. All in all this campground has seen some excellent planning prior to construction and extensively uses plastic lumber and timbers in the site amenities.

Here's what our site looks like #64

One of the "Top 10 Campsites"

Well it's time for a campfire so I'll sign off for now. I'll include some more pictures of Calhoun Falls next post.

Hope to see ya down the road as we're "Dancin' on the Wind"