Going From Zero to Full in One Day

Friday morning when I finally got up and going I took our two little Shih Tzus outside for their morning "break." The campground was totally empty. The peacefulness was unbelievable. The sky was that clear blue that you see during this time of the year. The birds were chirping and the Hummingbirds were dive bombing the feeders. You could lift your face up toward the sun and feel its warmth. It wasn't raining!! You could soak in the quiet. In just a few hours that quiet would be broken with the sounds of campers coming to enjoy a wonderful, fall weekend. Campgrounds are nice when they are empty but lets face it, they were meant to be enjoyed by campers. One of the jobs of a campground host is to help the campers get in and settled into a perfect spot for the weekend. It is wonderful to see families playing together and having a good time. By the time it gets dark, the lights have been placed on the awnings and the campfires begin to light up. Ahhh, the wonderful smell of a campfire! Mike and I always love to take a walk around the campground in the evening so we can take it all in.
Saturday morning we only had seven sites left open. Around 12:30 a group of Good Sam members traveling together came into the campground with five motorhomes and a fifth wheel. Wow! Mike got in the "mule" and went around with the lead member of the group and they found suitable sites for all six rigs. Everybody was happy. Right after they arrived a travel trailer entered and took the last available site. We are full! The campground is no longer quiet, at least not like it was Friday morning, but if a campground could smile I am certain this one was grinning from contentment.
It was a great weekend! I hope your weekend was a good one also.

Another Step Closer to Full-timing

Everything seems to come in small steps. Today we sold one of our big screen TVs. Notice I said one of our big screen TVs, we actually own two. Why did we need two you ask? Well, we had to have one of the new HDTVs because the picture is so much better, although I never did see that much difference. It must be a male thing! When you get the HDTV you have to get a different satellite along with a different receiver. One thing leads to another. This reminds me of the story my students always loved so much, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. The story goes that if you give a mouse a cookie he'll want a glass of milk and if he has a glass of milk he'll need something else and so on. This seems to be what we have been doing for years. It seems like we kept buying things to make ourselves happy. Then we found ourselves working harder in order to have those things to make us happy. Does working harder make us happy? I think it just makes us tired. Then why do we do this? Who knows, maybe we feel we should reward ourselves for working hard. Stop the insanity!! This is part of what helped us formulate the decision to simplify our lives- to full-time.

The two young men that came to pick up the TV appeared wearing their military fatigues. They were students at Auburn University. It certainly makes you feel good to meet such polite, well-mannered young men. If they are a sample of our young men in uniform our country is well represented. Thank God for all the men and women in our armed forces!! Because of them we do have the "freedom 2 roll."

F.D.R State Park - A Little History

This is the second time that we have hosted at F.D.R State Park and we have camped here on numerous occasions but we have never really known the history of the park. As with a lot of American history it begins with the Native American. This area was once the home of the Creek Indians. They gave up their land to the State of Georgia under the Treaties of 1825 and 1826. The highway that runs past the entrance to the park, Hwy. 354 ,was the main north-south trail of the Native people who lived in this area. This trail actually began as a buffalo trail. This area later became known as King's Gap after a trader named King who pitched his tent near where the rock bridge spans the highway and the "mountain." He later moved to the location of the Liberty Bell Pool which at that time was an Indian village. The little settlement of King's Gap finally disappeared into history but the spring that once fed water to this little community still furnishes water to the Liberty Bell Pool as well as F.D.R. State Park. The Liberty Bell Pool was designed for the president for whom the Park is named.

Work on the Park began in 1932. It was built by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). In the actual campground there is a 15 acre lake named Lake Delano which was dug by hand by the CCC workers. The Park Information Center was once known as Roosevelt Inn. All the stone used to build the inn as well as the pool were blasted out and loaded on mule drawn wagons and taken to the different sites. One interesting fact that I learned was that the arch stairway in the Park Information Center is an unsupported stairway. FDR himself sat in his wheelchair giving directions for placing each rock. This stairway is in the lobby today. He also planned the route of Highway 190 along the top of the mountain. The stone bridge is named Roosevelt Memorial Bridge in his honor. He also designed the Liberty Bell Pool and today at 500,000 gallon capacity is one of the largest and prettiest pools of this time still in use today.

There are 5 camping sections in the campground itself. Most have 30 amp hookups, a few have 50 amps. There is no sewer hookups. Some sites are pull-thrus, some have a view of the lake. Two sections are designed mostly for primitive tent camping. Two bathhouses are new and two are somewhat old but clean. There are three bathhouses that have washer and dryer options. There are about 40 miles of hiking trails in the Pine Mountain Trail system.

F.D.R. State Park is a special place for Mike and I. If you are ever in this area we highly recommend you give F.D.R. a try. Don't forget to visit Callaway Gardens as well as Warm Springs, Georgia and the Little White House.

If It's Friday It Must Be Raining!!

It seems like every Friday for the past three weekends it has rained. I don't mean just a simple, normal rain but RAIN. Our job as a host at FDR State Park is to make sure all the sites are clean and ready for the influx of campers for the weekend. We work all week on this because during the week we usually have only a handful of people. Those would be the lucky few who do not have to go to W O R K. We feel like proud parents by Thursday, ready for our campers to come in a fill up the campground with fun and laughter. Then it rains hard for about two or three hours and the campground looks wet and messy. You know what I mean, the small rock slides, the puddles and plenty of that Georgia red clay. Last night was no different. Right on time the rains began. Oh well, you can't mess with mother nature.

We had one lady that had just picked up her, new to her, class C and drove down from Atlanta to experience camping for the first time. She drove into the campground and decided she didn't like the direction the pull through was heading, so she tried to turn into the drive out part and go in. Well, did I tell you it was raining? Did I tell you it was dusk? Did I tell you she hadn't driven an RV before? Did I tell you she ended up in the ditch? Well she did!! As we were helping her and trying to get her out of the ditch, more campers started coming into the campground including a 42 ft. Executive. What fun! The wrecker finally arrived, got her out, and all the campers were able to find a perfect spot for the weekend. She learned a valuable lesson in the design layout of campgrounds, how RVs turn differently than a car and why hookups are placed as they are. She did all this learning and thank goodness didn't get hurt, nobody else was hurt and her new to her RV was not hurt.




The rain stopped and the weekend is turning out to be just beautiful. The weather is once again on the perfect side, just right for camping and campfires. We settled back on our patio and enjoyed a nice cozy fire Saturday evening!!

Yard Sales or Garyard Sales

What is the difference in a yard sale and a garage sale? Is it that one is in the yard and one is in the garage? What if you have part of your stuff in the garage and part in the driveway? What kind of sale is it then? Ok, humor aside, we had our first yard sale a few weeks ago. This was an attempt to "purge" those small unnecessary items that you accumulate over 25 years. Finding these items is not hard, just stand in the middle of a room in your house and look around. You don't even have to move very much. They are there starring you in the face. You bought that little tidbit 10 years ago when you lived in another house or even another town. You kept it thinking you might use it again somewhere??? There it sits asking the age old question, "Why?"
Then you go to your closet. Wow! Now there is a dilemma. You have kept clothes in every size just in case you are that size again. You have kept clothes just in case they come back in style again . The problem is we now have houses with closets as large as bedrooms used to be. Do you remember when the average house on the market was only 2 bedrooms, 1 bath? Had maybe 1200 to 1500 square feet? Now the average house has 4 bedrooms, 3 baths and is anywhere from 2100 to 3000 square feet and that is the average. We won't even go into the increase in house prices. When I was growing up my closet was a small thing with a single door. We put our clothes up at the end of a season and got out the next season's clothes. At that time we went through them and if they didn't fit we handed them down and got something new (or new to us). It is so easy with the large, walk-in closets to just push those clothes to the back somewhere and keep them. The "old" days were so much more simple and made so much more sense. Hey, much like full-timing. We don't have room in our motorhome for tons of clothes so we keep only what we need and use. We store the seasonal stuff, like coats, in a tub in the basement. Some folks leave their seasonal clothes at a relative's house. The point is we don't keep it unless we use it.
In our house it seems we have been in the business of just acquiring more and more "stuff." One day we looked around and asked ourselves what we were doing. Do we need all of this? Hence, the yard sale. Full-timing makes you evaluate what is most important in your life. Do you need all of that "stuff" to be happy?
Notice I haven't mentioned the treasured items that really do have meaning and memories. What do we do with those items? Do they go into a yard sale also? Well, that is another post altogether and we will deal with emotion later.
In the meantime, we had the yard sale! It was quite an experience. We worked very hard, started work very early and made a little money. The important thing is that someone else now has a new treasure to add to their collection and to one day wonder, why???
It is true - "one man's trash is another man's treasure."

A Ducks Eye View

Yesterday we took the Sea Eagle out for the very first time. It was so much fun! Just as much fun as drifting slowly in our new boat was the ability to view FDR State Park from a different point of view, that of the ducks. It was a simply beautiful day, perfect weather and the view was to die for. Mike and I have always felt something very special for FDR. I suppose most full-timers have a special spot that they feel drawn to. For us FDR will always have that spot in our hearts.

We Have a Launch!!

Today is Sunday at FDR State Park. This is the day, as Firedude has said, the great Hoover comes to the campground and sucks out the campers. We had a good group this weekend. The campground was about 2/3 full and everyone seemed to enjoy the great weather we had. Fall is finally in the air. We actually turned on our heat pump this morning to take the chill off the motorhome and it felt good. Quite a change from the dry, 100 degree weather we have been having most of the month of August. Saturday evening we had a campfire but the wood was really wet and so there wasn't much warmth but it was still nice.

Today we launched the Sea Eagle!! We actually have had the Sea Eagle for a week and haven't had a chance to get her in the water. We bought the Fisherman's Dream- SE8. We can do most anything we would want to do with this boat. It is light and easy to inflate. I am adding pics of Mike inflating the boat and then pics of us enjoying our first ride. It was a really wonderful day with just enough breeze to make it perfect. We were out for about 45 minutes. We just wanted to get used to the process of inflating and deflating, transporting and enjoying. The enjoying was easy. This is the first time we have viewed FDR from the ducks point of view. I must say it was just as pretty from the water as from the shore. Take a look!

You Might As Well Know Now

Well I guess some things you just can't hide forever! Mike and I are new to this whole full-time lifestyle. We have so much to learn but each day is a new adventure and there are so many great people that are so willing to help.

Yesterday we got our new sunshades installed by Gordon Brown from RV Sunshade Co. Gordon was so nice and did an outstanding job. We just love our new sunshades. He actually came to our site to install them. He travels in his 45 foot Prevost with his sweet little dog and his mother. What service!! I took pics of the install but as luck would have it our newness came shining through. The camera was on "movie" mode and I am not sure the pics can be posted here. I will take pics of the final job and post those on the blog so you can see the wonderful job that he did. We highly recommend them and his company. It has made our living area cozy, it blocks 98% of UV rays. The coach stays cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. We love them! You can contact Gordon at http://www.rvsunshadeco.com/.

The campground is about 2/3 full this weekend. You can actually feel fall in the air. It is just a beautiful day. We will be hosting here at FDR State Park until October 15th. Then we aren't sure what is in store. It depends on the sale of our house. Wish us luck!

Our Ship Has Come In - or NOT

Yesterday we finally received our much anticipated Sea Eagle. We ordered the fisherman's style boat and were looking forward to having it for last weekend but it did not come in. Instead we received the boat on Monday. As luck would have it, Monday night we needed to get the house ready for a showing and then Tuesday night we again had to show the house. I suppose there is always this coming weekend. Now we shouldn't complain since the object of the for sale sign in the yard is to actually sell the house.

With the house in mind, we have had it on the market almost 2 weeks and it has been shown about 5 times. Still no offers but then we didn't expect anything this early.

Saturday Night Special

This saturday night was absolutely crazy. We had these Auburn fans at the FDR State Park campground that must have thought they were tailgating instead of camping. They were loud, rowdy, and out of control. Drinking like fish and relieving themselves in the road. I hate the fact that some people do not know how to respect camping, campers, and the whole RV lifestyle. Thankfully though they have left and the campground is once again peaceful.