Day 1, April 16, We Take Off!

April 16, 2022

Today was the first day of travel on our trip. We had thought we’d leave town about 10am, but circumstances did not favor an early departure: which was not distressing, since one of our guiding principles for this trip is to take our time, relax, go with the flow. We eventually left town at 2:30pm, heading north on I-75.

Our first stop was at the Tellus Science Museum outside of Cartersville. It is a great museum and we have enjoyed it twice before, both times taking combinations of grandchildren, nieces, and nephews when they were much younger. We have not taken the three youngest grands – Ryan, Andrea, and Yvonne – and so we commented that we probably needed to return later this summer and bring the three of them. We arrived at the museum in time to catch the last show held in the planetarium, the 4pm showing on “Supervolcanoes”.

After the show, we left Tellus and headed toward our first campground site, Fort Mountain State Park, located outside of Chatsworth, GA. Along the way to the camp site, we passed towns in Georgia that we had either not heard of or had not visited or both. Towns such as Emerson, White, Rydal, Fairmount, Ranger, and Oakman. All of these locations were found on state route 411. We stopped at the IGA grocery store in Fairmount, to pick up some supplies including buttermilk, toilet tissue, and eggs.

Shortly after entering into Chatsworth, we followed signs for Fort Mountain state park. Following these signs, we began a trek up a steep mountain, 2-lane road. It was twisty and windy, as these types of roads frequently are, and they rarely have guardrail and or lighting. Therefore, we were grateful that, although overcast, we were finding our way to the park in the daytime hours. (Traveling the twists and turns, often no more than 25-30 mph, reminded us of a few years ago, when we took Marcus and David Paul to Yosemite National Park in California. The road we had to drive then was very much like this one, only we were driving very late at night, there were no lights – not even lights from houses, as there were none to be seen – and the drop-off was very, very steep. That route was so unnerving that I took Patrise’s suggestion to drive straddling the centerline, so as not to be right at the edge of the mountain.)

We arrived at Fort Mountain, and after stopping by the ranger station to pick up our permit, we found our way to the campsite location for our reservation: Lakeside Campsite, #30 spot. Upon arriving to the general area, we were immediately warned by a very kind lady that we may not be able to get to our specific location, because a long RV was blocking the road. Its driver had misjudged what he needed to do to back into his location and the RV had gone off the side of the road. As it turned out, our location was the last one BEFORE the road blockage, such that we were able to arrive, to back in – everyone backs into their site – and begin setting up for the evening.

Being the first time, setting up was a bit tricky. Fortunately, we had some help. I had plugged in the electrical to the camp grid, but did not realize I had to flip the breaker switch to on. With a quick call to our RV owner (Ken Smith), he was able to talk me through it. (“Is the microwave light on? If not, you do not have electricity. Flip the switch on the breaker.” Voila! Let there be light…and air conditioning!). I had the water hose hooked up to the camp water, but thought I had to hand pump the water to get it started. Again, a camp angel came to the rescue. A young adolescent of about 10 or 11, whose left hand and arm were in a cast and a sling, came over and asked me if I knew how to the get the water flowing. “Nope, it’s a first time for us.” “Ok, well this is how you do it,” as he flipped the handle all the way up and amazingly water just came a gushing out.

After this, we settled in. Patrise had the foresight to have our first night’s meal prepared in advance. Specifically, she asked our dear friend, Valinda Johnson Brown, to prepare a meal for us. (By the way, Valinda does this for a living: prepare complete meals for folks. You can order in advance from a limited menu, and she will have it ready for you to pick up, the next day: salad, appetizer, entrée, and dessert. And she is an excellent chef! An easy way to impress your wife or date, guys. Hint, hint.) We ate eggplant parmigiana, salad with dressing, a roll, and a carrot cake so moist and delicious. We sloshed it down with sparkling water (Patrise) and tonic water (Doug).

After washing dishes, we read awhile, then turned in to bed about 10:30pm. A great first night of RVing.