I’m actually starting to get a little worried that we’re REALLY going to get used to this type of traveling.
We sat in the RV with the motor running when I texted my cousin in Georgia to let him know we might be passing through the area if he was around and available, and if so, we’d love to see him. If he were busy, we’d go in a different direction. Nothing was decided at that point. Nothing at all. We were either headed straight south through Atlanta or we were going to hit the coast again and figure it out as we went.
As luck would have it, he has a long term spot at a private campground on Lake Hartwell (I had no idea) and he said we could join him there because, coincidentally, that’s where he was headed. How crazy is that? We had a destination now!
A few meandering hours later we arrived at the campground. He informed us that not only was his brother coming to join us but our other cousin as well! This was turning into a small family reunion among the 4 (and a half) of us that had NEVER happened before.
Do any of you know what happens when you get together with Irish cousins that you haven’t seen in 10+ years? Some adult beverage consumption and spinning of yarns may have taken place into the wee hours of the morning, followed by a boat rental on the lake the next day to thoroughly test our fortitude. Good times. No…GREAT times!
Staying Local-ish
During our boat ride, we noticed several other camping areas with lakeside sites, so Keli found a great one and booked an awesome spot while we were still on the boat! This led us to make the decision to stay around the lake for the next few days and explore this wonderful area that is pretty close to home for us.
Payne’s Creek Campground
We’ve never stayed at a COE campground before but we follow several YouTubers who swear by them so we were kind of excited. The Army Corps of Engineers manages 8 campgrounds around the lake. The spot Keli found for us was at Payne’s Creek Campground and she scored site #24, which honestly is going to rank as one of, if not the, best spots we’ve found so far in our travels. Please remember we are new at this but holy crap, look at the screenshot below to get an idea of the location of this site.
You can walk out of your RV and in less than 10 steps your feet are going to be wet. The sky was overcast, so I didn’t get a lot of cool photos but here’s one more where I drank my coffee while watching bass break top water to grab their prey.
Watsadler Campground
Our next move led us to Watsadler Campground a few miles down the road from Payne’s Creek. The drive took us through the town of Hartwell, which is much smaller than you’d imagine but it really caught our attention so we parked on the side of the road and walked around.
The people we spoke with in the stores and brewery are just really nice folks. They really exemplify the friendly vibe you expect in a small southern town. The best part of the experience was not something we expected…and its food. Yes, food. You know we like our food and we don’t really eat a lot of food from restaurants but we’re damn glad we tried this…
OMG, these are the most delicious and most unique fried pickles I’ve ever had. Maybe its because I don’t like fried pickles. Well I’ve just been converted. House made and not a frozen, food service pickle chip poured out of a bag, these babies are real deal spears dipped in batter and soooooooooo good. We enjoyed these at the downtown brewery called Southern Hart Brewing Company and even if you’re not hungry or thirsty, you should stop in there anyway. You won’t be disappointed.
After our drizzly, spontaneous walkabout in town, we headed to and located our spot at Watsadler Campground. Now I didn’t do any research nor did I look at the map before saying this (because I’m lazy) but I’m pretty sure most of the sites at this campground are on the water, or at least very, very close to it. We had #17 at this one and it didn’t disappoint.
Stop #2 at a COE site: definitely worth it. They really found a way to raise the bar with these places by keeping a comfortable distance between sites and every site seems to fit in pretty naturally with the surroundings.
NOTE: All of these sites at the COE operated parks are water and electric only with a dump station near the entrance/exit. I personally like that because we usually don’t connect sewer at all until we’re ready to dump somewhere in the 5-7 day range.
Springfield Campground
If you’ve never heard of Google Maps, it’s a pretty cool app on your phone and computer that offers satellite imagery of places on the earth. I know, I know…I’m being facetious. We scoped out our site at Springfield Campground and located another spot on the water, on a point that looked like the first site at Payne’s Creek with lots of trees and and privacy and we assumed based on this data that it would be very similar.
Data can be wrong.
We arrived at the gate and spoke with the nicest camp host we’ve encountered to date. We now know all about her adventures with her hubby (a retired truck driver) since retirement as well as how folks come to be camp hosts through a variety of methods. I apologize to the folks waiting behind us at the gatehouse…
When we arrived at site #35, we were quickly reminded that google maps is not real-time. In fact, it appeared to not even be recent. Our expectations and reality parted ways. Apparently sometime in the recent past, a LOT of trees had been removed leaving the red clay shoreline and “natural” grasses exposed. The vibe was different here also. I don’t know for sure but I’m pretty sure there was a “camper” using his food trailer as a sleeping area a few sites down from us. Not cool. But he did give us some free boiled peanuts and we didn’t have any side effects.
But since we booked 2 nights there, we decided to enjoy it! The weather wasn’t great during the whole trip but something magical happened…
Keli landed her very first fish! It was a whopper! (Meaning it was about the size of a whopper candy.) We had a very relaxing couple of nights there fishing, cooking, eating, talking and really simply enjoying being away after the stresses of the last few months.
For those of you who are considering RVing as an alternative means of travel, try to remember a few things: you don’t have to fill your days with activities, which is very hard to do in our current situation. You are driving around in your home. Relax. Your stuff is with you wherever you go. Sometimes sitting under an awning by a lake while it rains is exactly what you need to do. Sometimes casting a line into the water and catching nothing is a fine way to let time pass. And sometimes accepting free boiled peanuts from a stranger in a campground turns out ok too.
Check out Keli’s video of our trip below!
