CT - Wilderness Lake Campground

Since Theo is playing football this fall we really haven't been able to get out now that the Winnie is back at home, but desperate to get out at least once more I decided to book a campground that is only about 20 miles from home.  This campground is a lovely property and has really nice folks running the place, but we all agreed that it would be more of a gem if the sites were thinned out and not so close to one another...it wasn't really the closeness that was weird, but the irregularity of the sites - tough to know where ours ended and the next one began as we weren't really lined up..to the point where I wasn't sure which fire ring was ours (turned out that ours was the one that was literally 3 feet away from the neighbor's RV but the friendly staff guy moved it for us to a much better spot away from their RV).

We were in site 25.

Another thing to note about this place is that I'd say a good 80% are seasonal sites, the people we talked to were all very nice, but I have to be honest - when I see RVs sitting still I feel bad for them not out having adventures with their people.  Just my humble opinion.

We were in view of the little lake, which was lovely!  There was a tent site in front of ours, but being a chilly weekend there were no tenters braving it, so we could traipse through the site without worries.

Theo caught a little sunny right off the bat: 

And he built me a nice fire (Kevin had a work function, so he joined us later in the evening)

More fishing and chilling and fire building:

And also some gorgeous running weather and terrain (hilly!), but no pics from that :)

Another thing to note about this place - the sites are water and electric only.  The dump station is a tiny little loop that a big rig or even a somewhat large rig would never make it through (more on that in a different post in the future.)  Since so many sites are seasonal they offer a pump service that any rig of size would have to utilize...or go 20 minutes into East Hartford and hit Cabela's dump station (now $5, but would have been worth it!)

Hard Wired Surge Protector

My parents' 2002 Bounder ended up being totaled since the front end work would have required expensive fabrication of parts because of the age.  Their new replacement Bounder is a 50 amp and came with a built in surge protector so we are the happy recipients of a hand-me-down Progressive hard-wired surge protector like this: EMS-LCHW30 which has a lot more features than the $100 plug-in one that we've been using.

Thank goodness Kevin has confined space certification, because he sure had to use it in the tiny space that our power cord is housed at.  OK, HE didn't go in, but his arm sure was in that confined space!

There it is back in there:  

Chalkboard Table and Refrigerator

The Winnie is back home!  However, between scouts and football, we remain grounded on the weekends...so time for some mods and stuff!  (and sitting in it in the driveway trying to imagine we're in Vermont - yeah, it didn't really work)

So first up was something I've been noodling on for a little while: some facelifting with chalkboard paint!

I bought a pint of the Rustoleum brand at Michael's with my 50% coupon, a foam paint roller for cabinetry and a hunk of furniture grade birch plywood from Lowe's and off I went.

The fridge panels were harder to remove than anticipated because they were stuck in there with some double-sided tape-goo, but our carpenter's square helped me get it loose since i needed something stiff and strong and thin to slip behind it and break the seal.  Apparently, according to the Norcold website, they usually just slide in and out.  So I don't know if it was because ours was a rental or if the panels were rattling and annoying the previous owner.  Anyway, after some wrestling I got them free.  The backs looked good, so I just used the same panels for painting.  That way the original wood grain is still available on the other side if we, or anyone else in the future, want to use it again.

Lots of sanding and more sanding on both the fridge pieces and my new tabletop, a wipedown with tack cloth, then I was ready to paint.  I lost count of coats but it is at least 6 or 7.  I just went out and threw on another coat every couple of hours over the course of a couple of days.

Meanwhile I took the original table out (this new one is about half the weight!) and removed all of the hardware.  Another quick trip to Lowe's for new screws for the tabletop portion since the old one is 1" and the new one is 3/4" and I was good to go.  We very rarely use the dinette as a bed, but we decided to still use all of the hardware to allow it to swing down.  It will be 1/4" off rather than level in the center portion now, but I'm thinking it won't be too noticeable with the cushions not being terribly level anyway.

So here's the end results:

Here are some before pics: 

The Winnie Has a Summer Job

So, why no blog posts since April?  That's because the Winnie has a summer job this year - campground hosting at West Thompson Corps of Engineers campground in CT.

So, as bad luck would have it, my parents were on their way up from Florida to host again this summer and were about an hour away from Thompson when they were in a fender bender on the highway.  Luckily traffic was moving slowly and nobody was hurt, but their Fleetwood Bounder got crunched and will be in the shop for at least a few months.

Since we had a pretty light spring and early summer camping season scheduled it was kind of a no-brainer to cancel the handful of reservations offer the Winnie to salvage their summer and allow them to fulfill their summer commitment.

So the Winnie is full-timing it as a host, with the bonus of having a certified RV tech living in her (my dad).  He's doing a few mods and upgrades for us in his down time! :)  Plus,we're finally getting to some much-needed garage and basement cleaning at home that has been too convenient to put off by heading out of town!

TN - Up the Creek RV Camp: Pigeon Forge and Great Smoky Mountains

Up the Creek is a great little campground in Pigeon Forge!  Off of the main drag, so it was nice and quiet and plenty of elbow room between the sites.  Very clean and well kept as well.  No bathhouse, so you have to be a full-up self contained RV and not tenting, and no pool or game room or anything, but nice and laid back.  We were in site #1:

It was rainy and overcast for most of our stay, but we still enjoyed the area very much.  It was so beautiful!

No luck seeing anything from Clingman's Dome, but it was cool nonetheless: 

We enjoyed driving Newfound Gap Road and stopping a few places to get out and explore: 

(I love when Google enhances the photos and makes them look cool!)

We saw a whole gaggle of Minis drive by us, like well over 20 of them in succession - very cool!

We also did a hike to the Chimney Tops, quite an ascent!  

 

The only critters we saw were centipedes, which were pretty cool.  

We also heard a Ruffed Grouse doing a wing thumping mating call, that was a mystery until we got home and Kevin happened to mention it to a birder friend!

Since it was rainy and wet and presumably pretty dangerous, Theo and I stopped short of the final peak (much to his chagrin...he didn't speak to me the whole 2 mile hike back to the car).  Kevin went a little further, but not much.  He snapped some great pics, though!

The peak at a distance: 

The view from nearly the top: 

We also did some touristy things like go karts, laser tag, glow in the dark mini golf, and the Hatfield & McCoy Dinner show, and a magic show - fun stuff and it made Theo happy since he doesn't love hiking as much as Kevin and I do...we all got a chance to choose our activities, plenty to choose from in this area!

NC - North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh

We stayed here last year for our visit to Raleigh and it worked out so well that we returned.  Nice and convenient for visiting Kevin's sister and brother in law and for running the Rock 'n Roll half marathon.

The fairground campground was definitely more full this year and the officer who came to check us in mentioned something about offering annual sites now, so it seems that this spot might be harder and harder to get into.  We got one of two open spots when we arrived on Friday evening, where last year we were one of maybe 10-15 in the whole place.

We definitely used the grassy field for running off steam:

We had great weather the whole time in Raleigh.  Great racing weather!

Theo got to try Cheerwine:

Theo and I got to ride with Aunt Kathryn on her Can Am Spyder:

We went to a cool motorcycle show:

We did a fun tour of the city with an activity called Crazy Dash: 

Had some good 'ol Southern cooking at Big Ed's: 

And we hit the NC Museum of Natural Sciences and the NC Museum of History, both free and very nice museums!