Stone Mountain State Park NC - March 25-31, 2015

Day 23 – 3-25-15 Wednesday We ate breakfast and drove to Sparta to get a Latte at Backwoods Coffee and use their WiFi to catch up on some Internet stuff. Ranger Hicks had told us about a Mexican Restaurant in Sparta named Mis Arados so we stopped there for lunch. It was very good. On the way back to the campground we drove up a side road to Camp Cherrio which sits on the mountain above Stone Mountain State Park. The fog was so bad we could only see about 50 feet ahead so we didn't see much. The elevation there is over 1000 feet higher than at the campground so the weather is different. The campground is at about 2000' elevation. We stopped at the Visitor's Center on the way back to the campground to get some T-Shirts for the grandkids. Since we are working at the park we get employee discounts.

Day 24 – 3-26-15 Thursday I rode through the campground, talked to some of the campers and checked the sites that had been vacated in the last couple of days while we were not working. I also checked the bath houses and found the shower head broken off in the men's handicap shower, so I notified the maintenance crew. The maintenance crew told me the contractors that were building a new bridle trail would be doing some rock blasting all day and that all the trails had been closed for the day. I opened the Contact Station at 4:30PM. I only sold 4 bundles of wood and no campers checked in even though there were 3 that had reservations. We are a little surprised at the number of people that make reservations and never show up. There are only 7 sites occupied tonight but lots are reserved for the weekend so it will be busier Friday.

Day 25 – 3-27-15 Friday We woke up to rain again but it cleared around noon. Later in the morning I rode through the campground to check everything. We relaxed today and did some reading until it was time to open the Contact Station. It sleeted a few minutes about 3:45PM. We opened the Contact Station at 4:30PM and checked in several campers, sold firewood and answered questions about the park, etc. Again we had 3 campers with reservations that did not show up. We had several people checkin that were camping in tents and it is predicted to get down to 31 degrees tonight.

Day 26 – 3-28-15 Saturday We got up at 8AM and the temperature was 26 degrees and our water hose and water spigot was frozen. I didn't disconnect it based on the predicted low temps of 31 degrees. We always keep water in our fresh water holding tank so we were okay. It started snowing about 8:45AM and it snowed lightly for about 1 ½ hours. I took some hot water and poured over the water spigot and thawed it out and laid the hose in the sun and it soon thawed out. We worked in the Visitor's Center from 12 to 1PM to relieve Wilma during her lunch period then drove out of the park to have lunch at a local grill called Foothills Grocery. Later I rode around the campground with the golf cart to get a list of occupied sites before opening the Contact Station at 4:30PM. Even though it was rather cool in the mid 40's the campers were enjoying the outside – kids were riding their bicycles and the adults were out playing games or setting by the campfire. We checked in several campers and sold $180 of firewood.

Day 27 – 2-29-15 Sunday The temperature got down to 25 last night but the sun is shining this morning and it is supposed to warm up nicely today to 52 degrees so there should be lots of people in the park hiking. I rode around the campground to check on things and then we went to the Visitor's Center to relieve Wilma but she came in late and was not going to take a lunch break so we stayed awhile and talked before leaving. After lunch we took a 1.2 mile hike up to the Stone Mountain Falls. Most of the campers had departed by 3PM which is checkout time. After our hike I checked and cleaned a few of the vacate sites before opening the Contact Station at 4:30PM. It was a typical Sunday evening – checked in three campers and sold some firewood.

Stone Mountain Falls

Stone Mountain Falls

Day 28 – 3-30-15 Monday This will be our last day to work. After breakfast I raked/cleaned all the remaining vacated sites in Loop B. Lena's shoulder was bothering her from the fall last Tuesday so she was using the heating pad on it while I worked. Then we did all the prep work we could for tomorrow's departure. We relaxed after lunch until we opened the Contact Station at 4:30PM.

We have sold $760 of firewood during our month of hosting and we didn't have any campers that gave us any problems. The staff at the park has been really nice to us and complimented the job we did.  We have enjoyed being the Campground Hosts more than we expected we would so we can tick off one more item on the “Bucket List”. We head home tomorrow morning and the April hosts comes in tomorrow afternoon.

Day 29 – 3-31-15 Tuesday We finished our departure list and departed at 10AM, arriving home about 4PM.