Augusta

Last modified by Richard Johnson on 2021/04/27 20:13

252 miles

We got up, had the usual great breakfast, and out around 11am, per usual.

It was another day of driving through forests.

We finally entered Georgia

As we entered Atlanta (the freeway goes straight through the middle of the city), we needed gas, so we stopped at what seemed like a good place. It turned out to be in the middle of the downtown area in what looked like a somewhat run down area. As we drove into the station, an older guy motioned to us, helping to get us off the street and avoid hitting pumps, etc. He seemed as though he was just being helpful, but there was a catch! As I started to fill the tank, he came up and took over holding the pump. Then he said he would like "a couple of dollars". I figured, ok, I'll give you "a couple of dollars" (that's 2!). When I gave it to him, he said he actually was just looking for around $5, so he could get some dinner. I came up with another $2 and he seemed ok with that. In exchange, he cleaned my back window. (Of the car, which we obviously weren't using, since we had a trailer!) As we left, he wanted to help us back out onto the street. We decide to go forward and around the block instead. I think he should stick to washing windows for his money. All around, an interesting experience and turned out ok.

As we approached Augusta, we realized that we actually that while we knew the name of the lake, we actually didn't know the name of the campground and didn't have an address. Some web pages seemed to say it was hard for some GPS's to find it. Fortunately, we knew exactly where it was on the map, so placed a marker on the GPS and said, "route to there". We turned off the highway and followed both the GPS and the directions from the website. After a little while, it appeared they were in complete agreement and as we got closer, there was a sign pointing the way. As we approached the gatehouse, we noticed no one was there! Stopping and looking around revealed that no one was scheduled to be there on Tuesday or Wednesday, every week! Since all gates were open, we just proceeded to the place we had already reserved online, found it available, and settled in.

So, the campground is a "Corps of Engineers" site. These are really great, by the way. They're usually very cheap and seem to usually have water and electricity, but usually no sewage. This place is called Petersburg Campground. There are also a few other Corps of Engineers campgrounds at other locations around the same lake ("J Strom Thurmond Lake"). (The South Carolina state line is just about 2-3 miles down the road along with the dam and we will probably be able to stop to get pictures of the dam on our way out.)