Our 2,222.2 mile trip

[Wizfisher]

I always reset the tripmeter before any trip. When I pulled into the driveway a couple days ago after our trip, I looked down and it read 222.2. I of course knew that we had already turned it over twice on the trip.

The trip was from Central Florida up to Virginia for 4 nights, then to North Carolina for 1 night (supposed to be 3, will explain later), a hotel somewhere in South Carolina for 1 night, and then near Savannah for 2 nights before heading back to Central Florida.

Tuesday afternoon (6/23) I leave work in hopes of taking a nap before leaving sometime in the middle of the night. I figured that if we left in the middle of the night I would be able to drive most of the night while the DW and DDs slept. I brought our dogs to my brothers house so he could watch them while we were gone. Got ome and got what I could loaded and ready to go before heading in the take my nap.

A few hours later I woke up and was about to come on here to say we were leaving. The power went out and I told my wife to get everyone and everything together, we are leaving now. It was about 8:30pm. I go outside t hook up and load up everything else into the back of the truck for the journey up to Virginia.

While we are loading up, the kids are inside getting ready themselves and going to the bathroom. Well, the 9 yo was about ready when she comes outside and says that the 2 yo had cut her hair. I thought the 2 yo had cut the hair of the 9 yo and I thought oh well, I can't even notice it.
Low and behold we go back inside after she tells us that she cut her own hair. Luckily it wasn't too bad.

Here is the truck bed with the bikes, a bike trailer for the 2 yo, a cooler for drinks, and a bin with our clothes and some (dry/canned) food, some chairs, a stroller, and some miscelaneous (sp?) camping items.

Here is the 2 yo DD and her hair cut a few days later.

 

[Wizfisher]

We left for our trip around 9:15pm, about 4-5 hours earlier than I originally planned to leave but glad we did. It was about 800 miles to VA and 13+ hours to get there.

First stop was Chippokes Plantation in Virginia. What a beautiful park and everyone that works there was friendly. This is our favorite park so far out of the few we have been to but I suspect it will be hard to beat.

The roads in this area of Virginia are not the easiest to navigate. The roads themselves are in good shape, they just do not seem to be well signed. The DW says we got lost, I say we were misguided. lol.

The site we chose was very unlevel but I knew that was a good possibility form reading this site. I had to raise one side of the pup about 4 inches and the front to back was a pretty good slope. Otherwise the site was nice.

We took the free ferry to Williamsburg, Jamestown, etc. and ended up doing some geocaching while on that side of the water as well.
There is nowhere in the county of Surry (where the park is) to do any real grocery shopping. Good thing we brought enough for the 4 days we were to be there.

Chippokes has a nice pool with a couple diving boards and even have a kiddie pool for the little ones. We went to the pool every day to cool down since it was so warm. Not hot like in Florida, but hot enough to make the pool inviting. The kids loved it.

We went and picked our own corn at a place just outside the park and we enjoyed that. Fresh corn was on the menu that night and it was great. We also picked some blueberries while we were there as well.

While at the park we toured the plantation by foot and via the tractor ride they provided. The tourguide (I forget her name) was new to the park and was nervous about giving the tour but she did a great job answering our questions.

Here are a couple pictures of the sign, our site, picking the corn, and the little one gnawing on said corn. lol.

 

[Wizfisher]

After 4 nights in Virginia we made our way to North Carolina, a bit west of Winston-Salem. This was about a 6 hour drive when you count the stop for gas and a bathroom break (one of many between the DW and the 2 DDs).

The drive was nice although there is not much to see. The kids were fairly well behaved and watched a couple of DVDs in that time. I can't stand Elmo, but he sure did save me from going insane.

We pulled into Warrior Creek Campground around 5:00pm and set up camp. Not many other campers in the CG so it was nice. There was a pup two spots over from us that must have had plans to be there for a week or more with the amount of stuff they had set up.

The playground appeared to have had a tree fall on it and was pretty beat up. The kids didn't really want to play on it anyway as there isn't much of one there. Maybe they will redo it?

The next day we did some geocaching in the area and went to the dam to look around and grab a bite to eat. Besides that the kids didn't have anything to do and we couldn't ride the bikes because of the terrain. DW said "We might as well head to Georgia now" to which I said "Let's do it."

We were supposed to spend 3 nights in NC but since we didn't have anything to do, we packed up and left late in the afternoon to make our way towards GA. Our "plan" was to get close to Savannah and spend the night in the truck. I had no concerns that the kids would be able to sleep, but I knew I would have a hard time with the family there.

Stopped at a hotel and got a good nights rest before heading to Savannah.

Here are the kids on the ride to NC from VA. The only little nap she took on this trip was about 20 minutes. A deer we saw in the CG, our site and a bridge we crossed while geocaching.

 

[Wizfisher]

Last stop was Skidaway Island State Park in Georgia. After the night in the hotel we made the last little drive to the CG and got checked in. This was supposed to be a one night stay and just a way to break up the drive from NC to Florida. We now were going to spend 2 nights here and I am glad we did.

The park was very nice. All sites are pull throughs although some of them are very small and I would not expect more than a pup to fit. Our site was deep and allowed us plent of room to set up the chairs wherever we wanted. Lots of bugs here but the Thermacell came through for us.

The pool at all Georgia State Parks are closed for whatever reason (finances?) so the kids were a little upset until I told them we would be going to the beach.

Skidaway has a couple playgrounds and the kids played on them. We biked a couple of the trails there and just enjoyed the ralaxtion of the noise from all the bugs. Also saw a wierd looking bug on the ouside of the pup. Don't know what it is, but it sure is creepy looking.

Made the last 5.5 hour drive from Savannah back home and got home in the rain. Suprisingly enough we had great weather the entire trip and no rain.

Overall we had a great trip. Out of the 2222 miles about 1800-1900 of it was towing the pup. We have a '97 Silverado ext. cab and are towing a '99 Flagstaff 228D which has the slideout dinette. At about 14 miles per gallon, the trip wasn't overly expensive, but worth every penny.

Here are the last of the pictures I'll post here. What's funny though is when I uploaded the pics to the computer, there was 222 pictures taken. What are the chances? Haha.

Our site, the kids on a slide at the park, the 9yo writing in her journal (she logs every camping trip) and the ugly bug.
Thanks for reading.

 

[Elliemae]

I really did enjoy reading about your trip. Really sounded very nice.
We're heading out on our two week trip in two weeks but it will only be around a 1000 miles round trip. Your trip sounds so good and I really enjoyed reading about it. I always see where everyone puts their awnings out but we're think about not using our's because it seems so hard for us to handle and then too..what do you do if bad weather is coming up..just hope it doesn't blow away? Seems like we'd have to put it down to roll the awning up. Our awning isn't very easy to do..

Good job on your report of your trip..
98 Coachman
[TV96 jeep

 

[fallsrider]

Wow, what a fun looking trip. Glad you had a great time. I'm sorry the NC campground didn't turn out so good for you. I've never been to any of the Kerr Scott ones.

I enjoyed your posts.

 

[thecakerator]

great sounding trip, great looking pictures. A trip that was well documented and made for great reading! Thanks for sharing the stories and the pictures!!

 

[Big_kid]

Sounds like your trip was just 2 cool!(groan) I've read good reviews about Chippokes, I'll have to get out there one of these days. I think it's only 90 minutes or so away.

 

[Wizfisher]

I really did enjoy reading about your trip. Really sounded very nice.
We're heading out on our two week trip in two weeks but it will only be around a 1000 miles round trip. Your trip sounds so good and I really enjoyed reading about it. I always see where everyone puts their awnings out but we're think about not using our's because it seems so hard for us to handle and then too..what do you do if bad weather is coming up..just hope it doesn't blow away? Seems like we'd have to put it down to roll the awning up. Our awning isn't very easy to do..

Good job on your report of your trip..

First off, thanks to you and the others for the compliments on the report.
We had a great time as alway with camping in the pup and I want to share the good time with others.

For the awning, I can rollit back up myself if need be without lowering the pup. I just have to strategically place a chair so I can roll up the awning while I walk onto the chair and still be able to reach the awning case thing. Once I get one side in, I go to the othere end and close that up.
Luckily that does not happen often.

Good luck and have fun on your trip.

 

[kmh1596]

Wow, what a write-up, and great pics! Do you have other pics from your trip, on an online album or anything?

If I'm not mistaken, Carl (Digger) frequents, or has been to Chippokes Plantation before, and also spoke highly of it. Looks like a great place!

Thanks again for posting the pics and write-up, I too just got back from a 2 week trip, however it was only ~600 miles total, and was 2 CGs we have been to before, or continually visit.

 

[drosengrant]

Sounds like you had a great trip I the pictures are great Thanks for sharing it

 

[mkd0907]

Sounds like a wonderful trip. The pictures are great.

 

[Wizfisher]

Wow, what a write-up, and great pics! Do you have other pics from your trip, on an online album or anything?

If I'm not mistaken, Carl (Digger) frequents, or has been to Chippokes Plantation before, and also spoke highly of it. Looks like a great place!

Thanks again for posting the pics and write-up, I too just got back from a 2 week trip, however it was only ~600 miles total, and was 2 CGs we have been to before, or continually visit.

I am about to read your post after this reply. I have seen it but just havn't read it yet.
*edit* it was someone else that had a "two week trip" report.

I only uploaded the pics that I was going to post here to my photobucket acct. We had taken 222 pictures on the trip but a bunch got deleted when we go home. Some were taken by the 2 year old. lol

I believe that Digger was one of a few that spoke highly of Chippokes.
Wish that park was closer to us.

 

[SCmomma]

love that pic with the corn cob......too cute.......SCmomma

 

[Digger]

Yep...Chippokes is a favorite....I've been there twice, and enjoyed it both times!

I'm really glad the the long trip was a good one for you...taking the camper on a loonnngg road trip always has it's associated anxieties. I did an 8200 mile trip over three weeks in June and LOVED it....unfortunately I haven't posted about it yet!

 

[Elliemae]

For the awning, I can rollit back up myself if need be without lowering the pup. I just have to strategically place a chair so I can roll up the awning while I walk onto the chair and still be able to reach the awning case thing. Once I get one side in, I go to the othere end and close that up.
Luckily that does not happen often.

Thanks for the advise on the awning. We'll work on that and maybe we can learn how to manage it. We seem to short to handle it very good but we've only been out with the pup once and the the driveway thing..we're anxious to go on our trip to N Ga and then to SC.

 

[Digger]

The easiest way to handle the awning, in my opinion, is to unzip the awning and unroll it down to the step before you crank up the camper, and when breaking camp, remove any horizontal support poles and leave the awning up as you crank down. When most of the way down, roll up the awning and zip it up into the bag.

I get around on an electric scooter, and while it isn't the easiest thing in the world, I can put up and take down the awning myself using this method.

 

[hvac1877]

well come digger lots of us want to see pics and info on your trip!!!!!!!