Summer Time at Chattahoochee Bend State Park

Once the Fourth of July weekend had gone, so too any excitement to speak of.  Oppressive heat has set in and people are vacationing elsewhere, at a lake or staying in air conditioned environments.  The two air conditioners in our camper have been running 24/7 and yet the temperature inside rises uncomfortably in the afternoon.

We have a trickle of campers, enough that we are in a routine of daily bath house cleaning early in the morning before it gets too hot to breath.  Mornings is when we do campsite maintenance too.  With the rain we have been getting, the grass and other vegetation is growing vigorously, requiring mowing and trimming at least once a week.  It's taking about five hours just to get our campground mowed and then another four hours on the gas powered trimmer.  All of this being done after five pm, working until it gets dark a couple of times a week.  Still, I would sweat pounds of water and it would take conscious effort to drink enough to not become dehydrated.

What the heck are we doing here?  When we started full-timing the plan was to be in cool places in the summer and warm places in the winter.  Our first two summers worked out great, we were at just over 8,000 feet of elevation and didn't need the air conditioners once.  But here we are in Hotlanta sweltering, what gives?

Oh yeah, the grandbaby!  That's why we are here.

Can't think of a better reason to spend the summer in Atlanta.

Any excuse to post a baby picture.

Another thing I expected by being in the woods alongside a significant river in the summer is critters.  While there have been quite a few of the four-footed kind, there has been a complete dearth of the legless varieties.  I really expected that snakes were going to be common and seen frequently.  But as I am writing this post well after the snakes have holed up for the winter, I can say that I saw only a single, solitary snake the whole summer.

This three foot rat snake was the one and only snake I saw all summer.

 In our list of duties as Camp Hosts, cleaning campsites after campers leave has been common to all of our camp host positions through the years.  Most of the time campers leave their sites in good shape but then there are those few that make up for all the rest, using their fire pit as if it were a landfill, burning trash, wads of aluminum foil, aluminum cans, melon rinds, dozens of cigarette butts and sometimes really gross stuff that you turn your head away from while scooping it with a shovel.  Sometimes campers come in with ambitious plans for campfires, hauling enough wood with them to run a wood stove for a month in a Minnesota winter.  For whatever reason (mostly because it is so friggin' hot!), they don't consume as much wood as they thought they would and find it too much trouble to load it back up and take it home with them.  We collect this wood and stockpile it at the camp host site.  A lot of it is given to other campers that come in too late to buy wood at the visitor center.  But we always have a pretty good stack of wood and it is an attractive habitat for a variety of critters.

Fence lizards have taken up residence in the wood pile.  These guys are a hoot to watch, they get on top of a piece of wood and start doing "push-ups", pumping their front legs and bobbing their heads up a down at each other.  But then they spot a tasty morsel and will dart to their target and gulp it down faster than the eye can follow.

Juvenile fence lizard.  Adults are about 3X larger.

While the lizards are residents of our campsite we also have some routine visitors.  Six crows have developed the habit of a sunrise and sunset visit.  It might have something to do with a handful of raw peanuts that I put out every day at that time.  These same six crows seem to have staked out the entire campground section of the park as their territory.  They cycle through the same places at roughly the same time of day every day.  We have taken to calling them the CG6 (camp ground 6).  Each of them have a personality but the one we call Ringo (during the molt he developed a distinct ring around his neck) seems to be the "advance man" of the bunch.  He is the first to arrive at our campsite and he will perch on the same one or two branches out of the hundreds available.  From his perch he will scout the campsite to see if peanuts have been put out.  If they have then he has a call he uses to tell the rest of the gang that breakfast or dinner is served.  If I have not put the peanuts out yet then he has another, far more raucous, call that he uses to tell me to get with it.

Ringo calling his buddies in for their afternoon peanut ration.

As the summer went on, Cyndee first improvised a bird bath from a clay pot tray to put out below the bird feeders we have, and later she acquired a colored glass bowl that sat atop a short metal rod.  The goldfinches and wrens have been taking full advantage, jumping in and dipping their whole body followed by vigorous shaking.  The crows are too big to use it for a bath but they have been getting their share of drinks out of it.

This male goldfinch was a frequent visitor that stayed late into the fall.

Always present are the hummingbirds.  It is not unusual to have twenty at a time maneuvering for a place at one of the eight feeding stations we have.  I've posted a number of pictures of hummingbirds at the feeders but after a lot of stalking and judicious use of a zoom lens and cropping and enlarging I got a so-so shot of a female ruby throated in its natural environment.

Another regular to our campsite, and fun to watch hunt, is the brown thrasher.  Watching these guys stalking through the forest floor tossing twigs and leaves as they go you can see their ancient ancestor dinosaur coming out.

This brown thrasher scored a peanut that the crows missed.

I mentioned earlier in this post that we had been getting rain.  It really has been a lot of rain, days and days at a time.  While the moisture is welcome we haven't had the normal corresponding cooling that a rain brings.  It's been more like a hot shower than a refreshing rain.  This combination of wet, hot and solid cloud cover must have been a signal to fungus of all kinds.  We have had mushrooms of so many sizes, colors and shapes we couldn't count them all.  The black ones have been the most spectacular.  They are about the size of a grapefruit and hug the ground tightly and are a dull, dark black.  When you hit them with the mower they explode into a huge black cloud of spores.  I only had to hit one to learn to dodge the rest.

But other mushrooms were showy in their look and not so overt in the spreading of their spores.  One caught my attention because it looked more like something you would see while diving a coral reef.

And another I found in the darkest part of the woods.  It was not hard to find because it was gigantic.  The photo has nothing in it to show scale but the hood on the one below was about the size of a dinner plate.

The summer has been wearing on but it won't be long before Labor Day comes around.  It is going to be interesting as our co-host will be departing in mid-September and the park has no replacement in the wings.  We are not exactly looking forward to the prospect of picking up the care for another 30 campsites and two more bath houses.  Especially for a major holiday.

Feeling No Pain

The family reunion was great, the gathering of the McFarlin/Adams clan is always a pleasure.  Seeing all the aunts, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd cousins, my brother and his family and Mom and Tommy, it doesn't get much better.  But after 1,100 miles of driving alone and four nights in a hotel I was anxious to get home to Cyndee.  I spontaneously woke up in the wee hours of my departure day and found myself in the car and getting on down the road just a few minutes after 4:00 AM.

I had just put the first fifty miles behind me, driving on the two lane Texas State Highway 152.  Pampa was long out of sight behind me and the lights of Wheeler not yet visible ahead of me.  It was moonless and pitch black, the lights of my dinky rent car forming a bubble of light hurdling down the deserted road.  Having the road to myself I had that rent car wound up pretty tight and making good time.  Then I saw something move in my peripheral vision.

It came from my left, first just a shadow, then quickly taking shape as a well-racked buck.  As the deer entered the bubble of light from my headlights it switched from a dead run to a stiff-legged skid and I started a hard pull to the right.  The adrenaline must have kicked in because everything started moving in slow motion.  I could see the see the path I was going to take on the shoulder of the road (Texas has shoulders that are better than some state's roads) and the buck was pulling his head up and his eyes were beginning to bulge in anticipation of a collision despite his four-hoof skid.  Then I heard it, thump!  The sound was right beside my left ear and very localized, not the sound of crumpling metal and breaking bones that I was expecting.

Between the deer locking up his breaks and my evasive maneuver we had somehow managed to avoid a catastrophe, but not contact.  There was that thump.  I looked in the mirror and the buck was once again just barely a shadow in the glow of the brake lights of the car.  He was standing in the middle of the road, seemingly stunned, shaking his head.  I think I knew how he felt, my heart was racing, I was shaking and my head was quickly becoming drenched with sweat.  The deer trotted off into the darkness and I slowly got moving towards Wheeler.

Somewhere between Wheeler and Elk City, Oklahoma the sun came up.  At one point I looked out the driver side door window to take in the sprawling scenery of wind-swept cattle ranches and farms.  That's when I saw it, a long streak running from front to back of the window, about two inches wide.  So that's what the thump was!  That buck's snout had hit the window as I went by and he left a snot streak!

Knowing that I was not going to have to deal with the car rental company over collision damage was a relief.  I could continue my return home with no worries.  Or could I?

Having started so early and with light traffic I was making some serious progress towards my destination.  The place I would have normally pulled in for the one-night layover came and went early in the afternoon.  The GPS was calculating an arrival time to the park of before the park's gate closes at 10:00 PM.  I was going to go for it and do the whole 1,100 miles in one day.

The rest of the day was uneventful with the hard-bottomed seats of the rent car making sure I didn't get comfortable enough to get sleepy.  The miles just ticked by.  Wind swept plains turned to Mississippi valley and scrub mesquite and yucca were replaced with lush vegetation and tall pines.  But that was the day, the night was about to get a little more eventful.

It was the home stretch, less than ten miles to go and my hips and rear end could be free of what had become the car seat from hell.  The road had stepped down from interstate to state highway to county road.  The county road leading to the park was the narrow, shoulderless, stripeless kind, common in the deep south.

I was on the last couple of miles of the county road that leads to the state park entrance.  It had gotten even narrower, or at least if felt that way because of the dense clump of trees lining the road.  I was driving slow because this neck of the woods is thick with deer.  Just as I rounded a bend the road disappeared, I could not see pavement, only pine straw and dirt.  I stabbed the brakes and came to a sliding stop.

It was pitch black and with my lights on bright they barely illuminated a car in the road ahead of me.  But everything was all wrong.  It was turned 90 degrees to the road, straddling the center.  I looked harder to see if someone was in the car or standing somewhere around it on the outside but saw no one.  As my eyes adjusted to the dark I started seeing that the car was heavily damaged, steam rising out of what was once the engine compartment and dust settling between me and the car.

If you squint just right you can see the wrecked hulk just ahead and between my rent car and the fire department vehicle.

That’s when I saw him.  Laying midway between me and the mangled car was a man on his side.  His back was to me, I could see his shoulders, back and legs but not his head.  He was lifeless.

I grabbed my phone and started fumbling with getting out of the door of my car while dialing 911 thinking I was calling in a road fatality.  I was moving quickly, dreading what I thought was going to be a grisly scene.  But just as I got to him his legs started moving.  By that time the 911 operator had answered I was trying to talk to her and keep the guy from moving at the same time.  But the guy was combative and would not stay down.  I smelled booze on his breath as he was saying something about swerving because of a deer.  About that time another guy from one of the nearby houses came up.  He had heard what we later figured out was a collision with a tree.  I let him work with the drunk while I talked to 911.

In the photo above that’s my little rent car in the bottom left corner.  The headlights are shining on the wound of the tree where the car first impacted.  This collision started the car to spin, scattering debris, completely covering the road as it pirouetted around the fire hydrant.  The G-forces of the spin must have been something else.  Both the front and rear bumper fascia were near the tree and various drive train components as well as the driver were all ejected from the vehicle and left laying in a trail leading to the car.  The guy was laying in the road mid-way between me and his car.  It looks as if he was squirted out the driver side window on the first spin.  He was barely visible because he was covered in pine straw and dirt.  I don’t think he was driving slowly, this much damage does not happen at low speeds.

By the time fire fighters and paramedics arrived the drunk was up and walking, well, stumbling around.  He was very concerned that he was late getting his mamma's car back to her.  He was going to get in and drive that thing home to her.  He was refusing to follow the paramedic's instructions to lay down to be examined.  It was pretty comical to see them out there wobbling around with him trying to get his BP and check his eye dilation.  At one point a fire fighter brought out a backboard, stood it up behind him while paramedics mummy-strapped him to it to hold him still.

In the lower-left corner of the frame below you can see a blurry black thing in the road.  That’s the car’s battery.  This is the place that it and the driver of the car were laying in the road after both were ejected on impact.

 Below is a closer look at the battery.  It was split wide open on the end opposite from me and leaking all its contents.  I guess the guy was lucky he came to rest on the uphill side of the battery.

All the white stuff in the upper left-hand corner are bandage packaging that they used to patch him up enough for the ambulance ride to the hospital.  They did not have to administer anything for pain, he was “pre-medicated” and feeling fine.

I finished my first-on-the-scene interview with the local sheriff and state trooper and was on my way to put an end to a very long day.  

Solo Road Trip

Heeding to Cyndee's insistence that I attend my family's reunion in Texas over the 4th of July weekend I began preparation for making a solo 2,200 mile, 6 day road trip.  After talking it over, it made more sense for me to rent an economy car and drive it while leaving Big Gulp with Cyndee.  It was a no-brainer to do 2,000+ miles in a 32 mpg gasoline vehicle rather than a 12 mpg diesel truck.

The reunion was also a good opportunity to fill in some of the gaps in our genealogy research as well as print reports of the information we had for those that were interested in it.  But this meant packing a computer, 20" monitor, all-in-one color printer, copier and high resolution scanner.  And of course all the assorted cables, power cords, extension cords, multi-outlet surge protector, etc., etc.  You get the idea, the sub-compact rent car was loaded to the gills with all that stuff plus my clothes, a big ice chest and two giant pies from Sam's Club.

Historically we have split the drive from Georgia to Texas into two days.  We typically made it to Arkansas for our overnight and then made it to our final destination in the late afternoon of the next day.  But in those days it was a family of four in the car or towing an RV or both.  This time with just me and car that I swear came from the clown tent of a Barnum and Bailey circus, I was making good distance.  Until that is, the overturned truck and hazardous material spill.  I-40 was shut down in both directions for six hours.  I came up on it in its final hours but the wait to get on the detour was two hours.  I knew I should have taken a bathroom break in that last town.

Even with the delay it was still daylight as I approached Oklahoma City.  A quick phone call ahead and I snagged a discount room at a Will Rogers International Airport hotel.  The timing was perfect, rolling into the parking lot just as the last light of the summer sun was fading.

After a pretty good night's rest and an early start, the four and a half hours between OKC and Borger was done by lunch time.

The next several days were spent prepping the barn, visiting with family, seeing old friends and sitting out one heck of a brief but incredibly strong storm.

Genealogy Central in the Barn Lounge
A wi-fi router was set up to communicate between computer and printer/scanner.

One of the group activities was a trip to Palo Duro Canyon to see the play Texas!, a long standing tradition whenever the clan gathers in the panhandle.

Clan McFarlin down in Palo Duro Canyon for a Night of Theater

Cousin Dan Nelson gave a narrative of one of our storied ancestors from the Adams bloodline.  Henry Smith Adams lived through an impoverished childhood and made it through the civil war, but just barely.  He spent four days propped up on a tree waiting for medical help after getting his eye shot out.  He chronicled it all making it possible to trace his decades of moving from farm to farm in the south and mid-west and of course his service in the Union Army.

Barn Turned Genealogy Seminar Center

Three days of a continuous buffet of BBQ, burritos, cobblers, and pies was not good for my calorie, salt and sugar intake but I loved every minute of it.  It is done now and the cleanup has started.  Time to put the barn back in working order.

Whew Weee, It's Hot! And New Duties

One of the big deals about us living full time in our RV was that we would be able to follow agreeable weather throughout the year.  Our first two summers worked as planned, we were at high elevation and didn't use our air conditioners once.

Nestled in the high elevation and tall, cool
ponderosa pines for the summers of 2013 and 2014

The two winters were not quite as warm as we had planned for.

Frozen In
Big Bend the weekend before Thanksgiving 2013

Big Bend National Park in the Chihuahua Desert and Fort Frederica National Monument on coastal southern Georgia both experienced, according to the locals we talked to; "The coldest winter in 30 years."

Moss draped oaks on St. Simons Island

It looks all green and warm but appearances can be deceiving.
We had below freezing nighttime temps more nights than not.
Enjoying outdoor activities usually was not an option. 

But overall it has been great because we did not swelter through another southern summer or wither in the high desert heat of West Texas.

But here we are, panting like dogs in another Atlanta summer.  We did not get to stick to our plans of retreating to cooler elevations this year but it was a conscious decision.  When we learned we were going to be grandparents all bets were off, we were going to be as close to the new grandbaby as possible for as long as possible.  Chattahoochee Bend State Park in Newnan, GA fit the bill.  It's hot but it's close.

The summer heat is affecting people around here too.  This park has pretty much been a ghost town, nobody is coming out to camp, float the river or even for a Sunday drive.  It's just miserable hot.  The heat is not just affecting visitors but park employees too.  The maintenance crew has started reporting to work at 6:00 AM so that they can be finished for the day and under their air conditioners at home by 2:00 PM.  And one of the part-time employees that staffs the entrance station on weekends and holidays decided that her days would be better spent doing something else.  Guess who got asked to fill in until the park could hire another person?

Cyndee is now collecting entrance fees for about six hours a day on Saturdays and Sundays.

Without the air conditioner this
would be a giant easy-bake oven.

We've been told that the request to fill in will just be until they can hire a replacement, maybe three weeks.  They should have someone in place before the 4th of July.  They already had somebody in mind for the job they just needed to go through the interview process and background checks.  We figured that John could handle all the camp host and janitorial duties alone on the weekends for three weeks.  After all, this place has been pretty slow and our loop, the RV loop, is pretty easy on the public bathroom use since they all have their own bathroom with them.  Famous last words, we made a rookie mistake by not factoring in that this is a government operation.

The interview of the person that everyone thought would be a shoe-in didn't go well.  Plan B was to post the job and quickly get a look at other candidates.  The Park's idea was to hire someone in July for weekends and holidays with the job coming to an end after the Labor Day Weekend.  People didn't exactly line up for 90 minutes of commuting to the park and back home for just six hours two times a week and then unemployment in less than 90 days.

Plan C:  Ask Cyndee, she'll do it.  And she did agree with the understanding that it would be over by the end of September and that we would be able to meet some commitments already made.

One thing did come up that was not planned for ahead of time.  John's family was having a reunion in Texas on the 4th of July.  We knew about it well ahead of time but our understanding was that the park required us to be on duty during weekends and holidays.  But after getting through Memorial Day weekend, Mother's Day and Father's Day and all the other weekends with such low attendance we began to entertain the thought of going to Texas for the reunion.  But with Cyndee now committed to the entrance station, we became me.  Cyndee was adamant that I should go and she would stay and do everything in the campground and entrance station.  I protested severely but she turned to me and said; "I'm a Texas woman, I don't need a man around to keep the ranch running."  There was nothing but one answer for that; "Yes, Ma'm, I'll pack my bags."

Big City Perks

Our original motivation for taking a volunteer position at Chattahoochee Bend State Park was its proximity to Atlanta, and our new grandbaby.  But with Father's Day approaching it is also offering a lot of options for what a dad may ask for.

And what dad wouldn't want baseball and bar-b-que?  The Braves were playing the Red Sox mid-week.  With a poor showing in recent weeks the Braves were not exactly selling out Turner Field so there was a large selection of seats to choose from.  Cyndee picked a couple of seats behind first base and about two dozen rows up from the dugout.  We went all-out and got advanced parking too.  I paid for one spot but I'm pretty sure that Big Gulp is not going to fit completely inside one of those tiny, tight spots in the on-property parking lot.

Great seats.  Even better when the sun goes down and takes the edge off the heat.

It had been a long time since we had attended a game as a family.  Our now 27 year-old was probably in kindergarten when we attended a game in the now long-gone Fulton County Stadium.  It had to be before 1995 because we were there before they started construction of the new stadium which was first used for the track and field events of the 1996 Olympics and then converted into the new home of the Braves after the Olympics left town. Cyndee and I think just the two of us may have been to a game in the new stadium, we both have a vague memory of roasting in some outfield seats during an afternoon game in the late 90's.  That's when the Braves were winning all the time and seats could be hard to come by, they stayed sold out all season.

No sell-outs this year.  Times are tough for the Braves and the fans have thinned.  While this has given us an opportunity to pick from a large selection of seating choices at the last minute, it did not result in bargain pricing.  They are still charging as if the Braves are winning and the stadium is full.

A beautiful but hot and sticky night at the ballpark.  Wouldn't be baseball in Atlanta any other way.

Our seats were really good.  It was no trouble getting a bunch of great action shots like this one.

Plans were made for a couple days later for the whole family to get together for bar-b-que at Fox Brothers.  This place promotes itself to specialize in Texas BBQ, which pretty much means that they cook their meat without the use of sauce.  Nothing but slow cooking over a wood-smoke fire.  I really enjoy their brisket but they have a whole menu full of tasty choices.

But the best part of Father's Day lunch was having all the kids together.  All the kids and table full of BBQ, it just doesn't get much better than that.

The grandbaby is making some new sounds much to the delight of her Memaw and Uncle.

And by the way, the Braves beat the Sox.  Great Father's Day.

Blackberries and Red Bugs.

The last post ended with Mother's Day.  Now, about a month later we are at Father's Day.  The weather has dried out considerably.  My zero-turn mower skills have improved drastically but now instead of avoiding a slide down a wet, slippery slope and rolling over I am maneuvering through giant clouds of dust.   When I take my shower after mowing I am reminded of when my brother and I were little kids and Mom would declare she could grow potatoes in the dirt in our ears.

For weeks now I had been doing battle with some of the sharpest-thorned vegetation I had ever encountered.  There were dense patches of long, six to 10 feet, stalks.  The stalks were green where the growth was new and brown and woody for the previous seasons growth.  Most of these brier patches had added three feet to their height between when I started mowing in mid-April and late-May.  To mow the border between the manicured part of the campground and the natural woods required the wearing of lots of leather.  Any skin or cloth left exposed would be snagged and ripped by thousands of tiny, sharper than a razor thorns.  Before I started getting properly covered I came home bloodied up on my hands and arms.  And this stuff was growing like a weed all over the place.  I was worried it was going to take over the campground and smother the landscape.  It got to where I was using the weed eater before mowing so that I could push back the encroachment and avoid being snagged and die a death of a thousand cuts.

Then one day this "weed" put on blooms.  Thousands upon thousands of tiny white blossoms were all over the park.  These blooming plants were almost always at the border between the landscaped ground and natural woods.  They also seemed to be concentrated around the upper rims of drainage culverts.  It was only a few days more that tiny red berries became visible.  I wondered if this was another of those berries that the birds would eat but are poisonous to humans.  As the days went by the berries got bigger and darker and I finally asked the park naturalist if she knew what the vicious bush with the red berries was.  Looking at me with some amusement she said; "Wild Blackberries".  "Well, duh, of course they are.  I knew that." I said as I turned away to hide my red face.  Geez, I had been whacking and using herbicide on untold numbers of these things for weeks, I hope nobody takes issue with it.

The blackberries are doing extremely well, at least the ones I haven't killed.

A short time later everything started ripening up and it was time to start picking blackberries and putting them on our morning cereal, fresh off the bush.  But with my first picking I found a new nemesis.  I knew to look for snakes, actually I was hoping to find one.  I knew that the thorns were to be watched out for but it was what I didn't know to expect that got me....chiggers!  The weather had turned hot and dry and we were in T-shirts, shorts and sandals all day every day.  When I waded into those berry bushes I must have looked like a giant "Fresh Meat" sign.  Within hours of picking our first quart of berries my legs, hips and belt-line were covered in the bright red bore holes of those insidious little red bugs.  The itching was so intense I wanted to skin myself.

It took weeks and lots of Chigger-Eze anti-itch cream before the effects of those little monsters wore off, although I look like I have giant purple freckles all over me that are the scars from the damage they did.  After that first picking experience I have since developed a 'picking protocol'.  I now put on long sleeves, long pants, socks and lace-up boots.  But before putting any of that on, I spray my lower legs, feet, hands and forearms with DEET.  Then the socks go on and they get sprayed.  Then the pants, boots and shirt go on and they get sprayed.  Haven't been bit since.

The berries lasted into early July so we had a pretty good stretch of time that we did not buy strawberries for our cereal.  If we had freezer capacity we could have easily put up enough berries to last the rest of the year.

Just Chugging Along

Chattahoochee Bend State Park (CBSP) is a new park, first opened in June of 2011.  The 2,920 acres the park sits on was purchased from a forest products company.  The main logging road in was paved and all other logging roads were blocked and nature allowed to take them back.  It is a bit odd to be on one of the hiking trails and suddenly step into a wooded area where all the trees are perfectly aligned and spaced like rows of corn, a remnant of the managed forest era.

To build the two campgrounds they clear cut and bladed smooth everything within the campgrounds.  Utilities were laid, roads paved and campsites graveled.  A few trees, most of them maples, were planted and hunks of ornamental grass were plugged in here and there but for the most part the campgrounds are shade-less with a lot of bare clay.  One day, when the maples mature, the campgrounds are going to be spectacular.  But for now, the newness and semi-torturous path to get here have kept this place undiscovered.

Being undiscovered has made for some pretty slow camp hosting.  During the week the RV campground may have only two or three of the 26 campsites occupied.  The tent campground is completely empty for days at a time.  Each weekend we'll pick up a few campers but there are always a good selection of campsites available for those who like last minute plans.  But while our visitor assistance camp host duties have been light, our maintenance chores have not.  Bath houses still need to be cleaned, 40 acres of grass mowed and trimmed and all streets and campsites cleaned with a gas engine blower.  When we sold our house I was never happier to also sell all the lawn care equipment and not think about lawn care ever again.  But now here I am caring for more lawn and outdoor space than I have in my life.  Go figure.

But, recalling why we took this volunteer position to begin with (to be as close to the new grandbaby as possible) we are getting that accomplished too.  That little girl has totally taken our hearts and we are treasuring every minute we get to spend with her.

We have made many trips to Atlanta for some quality grandparenting time.  Most of the time it only takes an hour door to door.  But if we don't time it right and get tangled up in one of the rush hours we can easily be double that.

To get to Atlanta from CBSP we have to go through the town that the park is associated with, Newnan.  While the park's mailing address may have Newnan in it, it is a solid 40 minute drive from the park to the nearest grocery store or restaurant in town.  Almost to a person, arriving campers declare; "Wow! This place is hard to get to." or, "If I had known it was this far we would not have come".  Still, during the week when we do not go to Atlanta we go into Newnan and explore.

Newnan is a classic old (founded in 1828), southern town with a traditional city square.  The center of the square is the location for the county seat and city hall.  It is a grand old building.  The city has done a great job of revitalization and the whole place has been buzzing with activity every time we have gone in.  A good number of the businesses on the square are restaurants, the first one we decided to try was the Alamo.  It is a repurposed movie house, where the screen was is now a stage for live music, a large bar is along one wall and booths and tables along the other.  It's mostly a bar that serves food but on the week night were there it was just a few of us there for dining.

The Alamo is a bar/restaurant built in a converted 1920's movie house.

The fare at the Alamo is traditional bar food, burgers, hoagies, pizza but they also have some specialty items.  We tried the garlic knots for an appetizer and boy were we glad we did.  Cyndee got a gourmet burger and I tried their calzone.  Pretty sure we'll be going back.

Mother's Day has also come and gone here at CBSP.  Since we are going to be in one place for the whole summer and the state is not super strict on having only "natural" vegetation in the park, Cyndee has treated herself to some tomato plants.  They are in plastic basket containers and set on top of some logs.  We have never had much luck with tomatoes in containers but we are going to give it another go.

Mother's Day Tomato Plants

Another really nice addition to Mother's Day was a visit from all our kids.  The daughter and son-in-law bundled up the baby and all her accouterments and our son set his active bachelor life aside for a few hours and they all came out to the park.

We had a great cookout and our daughter had her first Mother's Day.  Cyndee had all her kids together at once.  She was one happy camper.

Camp Host Volunteer Orientation. Well, Sort Of.

We arrived at our new volunteer position a couple of weeks early.  The repairs to our camper that we went to the factory in Kansas for were not as severe as anticipated and completed much quicker than allowed for.  We had planned for the worse and hoped for the best, we definitely got the best.  But getting to Chattahoochee Bend early was an adjustment for us and the park.

With a couple days to ourselves we used the time to scrape off 2,000 miles of bugs and road grime.

In an earlier post it was mentioned that the park staff were all new.  Of the seven-person staff (this includes park management, administrative and maintenance), the longest service time was six months, and that was the administrative assistant.  Everybody else had been here only 2 weeks to two months.  The park manager was one of the two-week term people and the assistant manager's position was vacant.  She (the park manager) was on duty as the sole ranger in the park, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day until they could fill the assistant manager position.

We have been volunteering for two years now, two summers on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, a winter in Big Bend National Park in Texas and a winter at Fort Frederica National Monument on St. Simons Island, Georgia.  Even though it was always the same agency, we learned quickly that each park had its own culture and ways of doing things.  We had to be very alert to the nuances of how each manager ran "their" park so as not to inadvertently offend someones sensitivities.  At CBSP we were getting to watch the culture being established.  This newly hired park manager was coming from a private park system (multiple Girl Scout Parks in Tennessee), this was her first venture in state government employment so she was learning the limits of her control and putting her fingerprint on the operation at the same time.

This set of conditions kind of left us hanging the first few days.  Since this is our first state park we are not sure if we are seeing the normal orientation process or not, we expect not.  The volunteer's handbook has some ambiguous language that pretty much lets each park decide what is required of a camp host.  In our park's case we were told that we were to assist campers during the day and check in late arrivals between the office's closing time of 5pm and the park gate closing of 10pm.  For our type of volunteer job (living on-site camp host) we have to contribute a combined 32 hours per week.  When we asked what our off-duty days are, we were looked at like we had two heads.  I don't think that anyone had even considered that we would not be available all day every day.  After a bit of stammering around the answer finally came that we need to be on duty every weekend (Fri, Sat, Sun) and holidays.

We were also told; "By the way, you have to clean your campground loop's bath house and mow, trim and leaf blow the 40 acres it sits on."  I guess we will be contributing more than 32 hours a week.

The other campground host, for campground #2, a tent only campground, is a seasoned veteran of CBSP.  This is his third summer and he has been here for about a month this season, he knows the park by its previous management and he spent some time with us giving us an orientation from his point of view.  By his account he was working about 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.  His only time out of the park was a bi-weekly trip to the grocery store, leaving at sun-up so he could be back before 10am, his usual bathroom cleaning time.  We're not liking how this work schedule seems to be shaping up.  We'll give it some time and see how it really works out.

That being said, mid-week morning the maintenance supervisor shows up with a zero-turn mower and says; "You need to mow.  We'll come get the mower back in the morning."  No how do you do, good morning or anything else.  Just a command to mow.  I told him; "Okay, but somebody is going to have to train me how to operate this piece of machinery."  His training consisted of standing in front of me and moving his arms back and forth to demonstrate how to make the mower "go" and turn.  No explanation of how the start locks worked, no discussion on the safety controls, no discussion of the operating limits, just here you go, you'll figure it out.  I stopped him before he left again, asking about safety equipment - hearing protection, hard toe boots, safety glasses, gloves?  Again I get the look as if I have two heads.  He reluctantly coughed up a pair of gloves, thank goodness I had all the other stuff myself.

Getting my bearings on operating a commercial-grade zero-turn mower.

With all the rain the grass is wet and the ground is wet.  Georgia red clay can be slick on the surface with a firm base beneath.  A combination that can be as treacherous as black ice.  Mowing a flat surface is easy enough but it gets pretty hairy as soon as a slope is encountered.  A thousand pounds of man and machine can quickly slide into a turnover or get stuck.  My first adventure in mowing with a commercial grade zero-turn mower was an all day endeavor with only two extractions by tow rope.

Something else mentioned in an earlier post was that we would be allowed to have bird feeders.  We have been carrying around two giant seed feeders and two hummingbird feeders for the last two years and were only able to put them out last winter while at St Simons Island where the only thing they attracted were undersized deer.  But we're getting action here in the mid-west Georgia woods.  Goldfinches, blue birds, chipping sparrows, morning dove, brown thrashers, woodpeckers and our favorite, hummingbirds.

Ruby throated females constantly accost each other.
We have 8 feeding stations and 20 birds.  It makes for lots of drama at the bird feeder.

Cyndee got the above photo while sitting under the awning, looking out over our "yard".  We both enjoyed a pleasant, and what has been a rare, rain-free evening.  For the first time in a long time we are going to get to see the sun set.  The layout of this park and our position in the loop should set us up for a good look at it.  And it did.

View out our kitchen window.

What a great way to end the day and a blog post.

Exploring Chattahoochee Bend State Park

Here in the first days of April we have been getting oriented to our new home for the next several months.  Chattahoochee Bend State Park (CBSP) is a name that is descriptive of the park's location.  Situated alongside the Chattahoochee River, the park encompasses a large horseshoe-shaped "bend" in the river to the southwest of Atlanta, near where the river becomes the border between Georgia and Alabama.

Within the bend and five and a half miles down the river is the park, a total of 2,900 acres.  At the apex of the bend is a haul-out for people paddling the river.  There are platform campsites for an overnight stay in these piney woods that were once part of a managed forest operated by Georgia Pacific or one of its kind.  If you are of a mind to, these back country campsites are available as a hike-in too.  For backpackers it is an easy, flat 5.5 mile walk (one way).

The bend in Chattahoochee Bend State Park

While the "bend" is relatively remote, accessible only by paddling the river or hiking the 5+ miles in, the rest of the park can mostly be gotten to by the comfort of your vehicle.  There are two trail head parking lots, a visitor center, a day use area with picnic tables and grills, a boat ramp, and three campgrounds.

Picnic alongside the Chattahoochee River in CBSP's day use area.

Fourteen miles of trails.  Bring Fido, dogs are welcome, on a leash.

Observation tower at about 1 mile on the 5.5 mile river trail.

Central to the park is the canoeing/kayaking.

But like the month preceding our arrival at CBSP, we have had more rain than sun.  Getting out and exploring the park has been hit and miss.  Sometimes we have just decided we'll have to be wet and do it anyway.  And that is exactly what our son and his girlfriend did one weekend.  It had been raining for days on end, the river was swollen to the point it was touching the bottom limbs of trees lining its banks.  Even the locals seemed to be hunting someplace dry to hang out for awhile.

This turtle had had enough of the drowned woods.

Better traction on pavement.

The park has a full compliment of rental equipment for your float trip.  We got a two-person kayak, paddles and life vests and headed for a boat ramp that was about 10 miles away by road.  Putting in at River Park boat ramp typically gives paddlers about 5 hours of river time to get to the boat ramp in CBSP.

A chilly and wet day in April for a paddle trip down the "Hooch".  We'll leave it to the twenty-somethings, us old folks are going back to our cabin on wheels in the woods and wait for the call to pick them up.

The river was so swollen and cold that Mom had a little trouble with putting her youngest afloat on it.  It was going to be a long 5 hours for her waiting for that call to come get them.  We cruised on back to the campground, dried off and made a pot of tea.

I guess that we got warm and comfortable because the next thing we knew there was the sound of a phone ringing and it was dark because our eyes were closed.  It was the phone call we had been waiting on but had we really been asleep in our recliners for several hours?  The nap-induced fog in our brains cleared quickly and we realized that it had been just two hours since dropping them off.  Had something gone wrong?  Were they hung up somewhere on the river?  The answer to both was, no.  They were calling from the boat ramp in the park.  We asked if they had put a motor on that kayak but they said that the river was so swift that they never even had to put a paddle in the water until they needed to pull into the ramp.  The water was simply moving that fast.

As the day wore on the rain eased up and the temperature moderated a little.  Might as well hike out to the observation tower and see what it is like.  To get there we take the river trail.  This trail meanders in and out of the woods parallel to the river, crossing several small creeks using really well-built foot bridges.  On our third bridge we stopped in the middle to look up the creek at a what we thought was a jumble of tree limbs and forest litter clogging the creek.  But on closer inspection it became clear that we were looking at a beaver dam.

From this distance it is hard to see, but that is a sizable beaver dam up there.

When things dry out a little better it will be worth the walk to come back here and wade through the brush to see if we can lay an eye on the lodge and estimate how many acres this beaver has flooded.

After slogging our way through the mud to the tower we were disappointed to find it taped off and closed due to a bad section of railing on the first level.  At least it was continuing to clear for our walk back to camp.

The return to camp saw a nearly clear sky and a sun getting low in the west.  With everything soaking wet the added heat almost had everything appearing to be steaming.  Normally that kind of humidity is miserable but today it brought a real treat.

This rainbow was actually down in the woods.
I was standing in the door of the camper and my head was higher than the top of the rainbow.

Nice way to end the day, and a blog post.

A Push South and Our Home for the Summer

I know I am sounding like a broken record but, it is a wet morning at our Arkansas campsite.  Once again we expect to dodge rain on our drive today.  But today it looks unlikely that we will stay dry, the rain coverage is pretty heavy between Tennessee and northern Alabama.

Normally when we are coming east on I-40 and make the transition south to I-20 on Highway 78 between Memphis and Birmingham, the timing works out for an overnight stay at a favorite campground in Tupelo, Mississippi.  But yesterday's destination of Village Creek State Park in Arkansas put us a little farther along than normal, we'll be skipping Tupelo this trip.  Besides, we are really getting anxious to get back to the Atlanta area and see the grandbaby.  Anniston, Alabama, just east of Birmingham, will be our goal for today.

Anniston has a Camping World Store that also operates a campground about a block away.  This place is convenient, just off I-20 and right on our route.  We'll spend a little more time driving than we prefer, taking about 6 or 7 hours but this will put us within less than 2 hours of our Atlanta area destination.

We are going to arrive in Georgia almost two weeks ahead of the scheduled start date for our next camp host position at Chattahoochee Bend State Park.  Once we got to Anniston and got parked and set up we started looking at our options of somewhere to stay until our engagement started.  But after a lengthy session on-line we did not find anything that was desirable.  We thought we should give our new park a call and see if they had any campsites available for the time leading up to the start of our assignment.  We expected that the hosts we are replacing would still be occupying the host site and that we would take a spot in the campground and just plan on hitching up and going to the dump station a few times since the campsites have no sewer connection.

To our surprise, when we got in touch with our new park they told us that the hosts we were replacing had left early and that we could just come and begin work immediately.  We weren't sure we were ready to start work yet, we are kind of enjoying this dinking around and really wanted to spend time with the grandbaby before getting tied down again.  But the offer of a full hook up site at no cost was too great.  We took the offer to begin early and told them we would be in the next day.

The drive from Anniston to Chatt Bend SP is less than two hours.  It is a meander through the woods of Alabama and Georgia on their narrow, winding back roads.  For a change, it is a beautiful, bright day and we pull into the visitor center parking lot before noon.

We had met a couple people in the office on a visit to scout the place out just before leaving for Kansas.  But now introductions were in earnest and as each person was introduced we learned that of the seven people on staff only two of them had been on the job more than a few weeks.  We were coming in with more park operations experience than the majority of the paid staff!  This should be interesting.

From the visitor center to the two campgrounds is about three miles of twisting, hilly road.  The turns so sharp and the hills small but so steep as to be blind at the crest of every one.  Glad I don't have to pull the trailer in and out of here every day.  We are assigned campground number 1, the RV campground, and I make the turn in.  The camp host site is the very first one past the entrance, just at the opening to the campground loop.  The loop has 26 sites, including the camp host site, we pull into number 101 and set up housekeeping.

Of all the campsites we have had as volunteers, this has got to be the best one by a wide margin.  First, it's huge!  Then the electric power is clean, water is soft and sewer flows great.  Our door does not face the road, we actually get to look out over a "yard" with nothing but woods beyond that.  Our site comes complete with a cartport and lockable tool and supply shed.  We also have a perfectly clean shot at the southwesterly sky, our dish locks on to its three satellites with little effort.

This being a state park means that they are not quite as fanatical about not interacting with nature.  They have planted lawn grasses around the campsites and have no problem with us putting our seed bird feeders or hummingbird feeders out.  We're thrilled.

We'll meet the host for campground 2 later.  For now we are going to soak in this dry weather and great setup.