Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Stone Mountain State Park 10/10/2023 to 10/16/2023

 


Day 23 Tuesday 10/10/2023


It’s the weekend for us so we went to one of our frequented coffee shops. This one is the Talia in North Wilkesboro.



Afterward we drove down Hwy 18 that runs from North Wilkesboro to Sparta. We have driven this road from Sparta for several miles but not all the way to North Wilkesboro. We didn’t plan to drive all the way to Sparta today but that is where we ended up. We decided to go to The Pines restaurant for a late lunch. We ate here in May with some friends and had the seafood. We had that again today and walked out stuffed and we ordered the senior plates.







Lena needed a few items from Food Lion so we stopped there on the way back to the campground to do laundry, etc.


Nice weather today after a chilly night.


Day 24 Wednesday 10/11/2023


We had a good breakfast this morning in Jonesville at Breakfast Time restaurant. They make good pancakes with blueberries, strawberries and nuts. But beware they are almost as big as a plate. I got the “short stack” which is two and Lena had to help me eat them after she ate her scrambled eggs, bacon and grits.



Then we tried another Dirty Joe’s Coffee Shop in Jonesville. While there we discovered they have another location in Elkin besides the one we have been going to. So that makes three locations within about 3-4 miles of each other. Each location is small so I guess their rent is cheap and can afford to have three locations fairly close together to make it convenient to lots of people.


We stopped at Lowe’s for a few items and then took a round about route back to the park. We drove on past the campground and rode through the park to check out the colors. We stopped at Widow’s Creek Falls to get a few photos before returning to the campground. The leaves are slowly changing in their Fall colors.















We have noticed several large fields of tobacco in the area that is yet to be harvested. Seems kind of late and this is flue cured tobacco not burley tobacco that is grown in some areas of the mountains.



Day 25 Thursday 10/12/2023


We are back to our normal routine today. Last week a lot of Casita campers came in and this week there are a lot of Tear Drop style campers. These are even smaller than the Casitas and are rounded on the front and come to a fairly sharp point on the rear. Some are really small, only big enough to crawl in and lay down to sleep. On some of them the rear lifts up and there is a small kitchen area with a small sink, cooktop and storage. Almost any size vehicle can tow one of these. They sure beat sleeping in a tent on the ground especially when it rains.







Day 26 Friday 10/13/2023


We will probably have a full campground tonight except for those that make reservations and not show up which is a waste of a campsite. Sometimes we have to turn campers away because we don’t have any sites not reserved, yet some set here vacant because for what ever reason the people that reserved the sites don’t show up and don’t cancel their reservations which if done early enough they could get a partial refund.


Yesterday we cleaned the group campsites and we noticed the wood railings on one of the sites was in bad need of repair. Well today we were given permission to tear the railings down because it was going to be at least a week before the maintenance crew can repair/replace them. We felt the railings were a safety issue so we did tear down all the bad sections of the railings.


Rain is coming in tonight through mid day tomorrow so we put out the reservations sign for tomorrow this afternoon. That way we will not have to get out in the rain tomorrow morning.


As we were putting out the reservation signs we had a couple that had just come into the campground stop us and was a little concerned because they thought someone was setup on the site they had reserved. We told them no, that site was reserved by the people on it. They said their son reserved it early in the week. I checked our reservations list and told her their son’s name was not on the reservations list. She pulled out her phone to look at their reservations and she discovered they were at the wrong state park. They should have been at South Mountain State Park which is 65 miles from here.


This reminded us of the story that Ranger Jones told us a few years ago. He said a lady came to the Visitors Center to check in for her cabin. He told her we don’t have cabins here at Stone Mountain. She said you do here is my reservation paper. He checked it and told her she was in the wrong state. She had reservations for Stone Mountain Georgia.


Day 27 Saturday 10/14/2023


The rain started about 3AM but it was not a hard blowing rain so maybe the people here in tents didn’t fair too bad. The sun came out about 10:30 so the rest of the day was really nice, until just about nighttime the wind really picked up.


Site 37 has two black walnut trees beside the driveway and the driveway and part of the tent pad is about covered in walnuts. It had been reserved for several days but no one has shown up. We need to rake them off the tent pad before someone uses it again. I guess they are too big for the squirrels to carry off.





Day 28 Sunday 10/15/2023


It is cold and windy this morning so it was kind of chilly putting out the reserve signs this morning about 8:15. But by 11 it was a bit warmer but still windy. We only have about 22 coming in today. We got all the sites ready by 12:30 so we rested for a few hours and watched a DVD movie.



Day 29 Monday 10/16/2023


It was 46 degrees when we went out this morning to start our day. We did early morning duties, came back and had breakfast, rested awhile and went out to clean more fire pits and sites. We cleaned several yesterday but still had several this morning to clean. There has been lots of campfires so we had more fire pits to clean than normal.


Then we had lunch, I watched a DVD Western movie, then worked on our ice maker that had frozen up before going back out to put out the reservation signs for Tuesday since we will be off Tuesday and Wednesday. The temperature got up to 50 degrees but with no sun and some wind it was cold on the golf cart. We can’t seem to get the heater on it to work. I mentioned that to the Superintendent of the park last week. He said he would see what he could do about that. 🫣


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