Stone Mountain State Park 10/17/23 to 10/23/23

Day 30 Tuesday 10/17/2023

We decided to do some “leaf peeping” today but first we had to have body fuel so we stopped at Circle L Cafe on the way to Sparta for breakfast. Then we needed a Latte fix so we stopped at The Gathering Place in Sparta.

On the way out of the park this morning 4 deer ran across the road in front of us. This is the first deer we have seen here this month which is kind of unusual. We normally see some in the campground during the week when we have fewer campers. Then about a mile out of the park four more ran across the road in front of us so close I had to slam on the brakes.

After getting our bodies fueled we headed North on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We couldn’t go South from Sparta because it is closed from Hwy 21 near Sparta to near Grandfather Mountain for much needed road repairs.

The drive was really pretty as the Fall colors are really popping now. We took several side roads that lead off the parkway in this area. This is one of the few areas along the parkway that rural side roads are accessible from the parkway.

I read a story a couple of years ago that the government man in charge of the construction of the parkway was really upset when he discovered the road builders were leaving the rural road accesses open to the parkway and threaten to shut down the construction if they did not stop doing that.

We took a lot of photos but the camera just doesn’t capture the colors through the windshield as the eye sees them. We saw lots of beautiful farm scenes with the hills in the background. We decided we had driven far enough so headed back and stopped at Millers Market between Hillsville and Galax VA for a sandwich and a loaf of their sourdough bread. They had just taken the bread out of the oven so it was really fresh and smelled so good. Then we returned to the campground.

We have had some cool morning down to 42 degrees but no snow. There was snow last night in the higher elevations like Roan Mountain and Cades Cove areas. They are much higher elevation, above 5,000 feet where we are only at about 1,900 feet here at the campground. But if we don’t get at least a little snow this month it will be the first year we didn’t get at least some snow since we have been volunteering here. Our first year was 2015. We did not work here in 2020 because they closed the park due to COVID for a couple months just before we were to come up here. We worked March in 2015, then April for a few years, then moved to May in 2021. We like May better. We only worked October this year in addition to May so we would be here in leaf peeping time.

Day 31 Wednesday 10/18/2023

We tried Mountain View Cafe for breakfast this morning in Hays. The food was okay, nothing special, served on styrofoam plates and the building was showing signs of age and was looking a little tired. I guess the best I can describe it is, I would not take a guest there.

Inside the park

Inside the park

Inside the park

We both ordered country ham with our eggs, etc. The waitress brought our plates and a couple of forks. She asked if there anything else we needed. I said yes, a knife. So she brought us one knife. Oh well, Lena and I shared the one knife to cut up our ham on the styrofoam plates.

From there we went to Dirty Joe’s Coffee in downtown Elkin for our Latte fix and a sweet. After relaxing there for awhile we rode a few blocks and walked down a short trail along the Elkin Creek before heading back to the campground.

Later after a small lunch we took a walk around the campground, something we don’t normally do other that when we are working in it. The sun was shining nicely so it felt good to do a relaxing walk in the campground.

In the campground

Our view from our Motorhome

Bid Sandy Creek in the campground

Day 32 Thursday 10/19/2023

Back to our normal routine today but we have a lot more reservations today than a normal Thursday more like a Friday. Only one site unreserved site for tonight.

After breakfast we checked and cleaned several sites including site 37 that has all the walnuts on the driveway and on the site. It took some effort to get them all raked over into the non mowed area away from the site. Too bad black walnuts are so hard to crack and pick out because they would be good in a cake.

Day 33 Friday 10/20/2023

Woke up to a light rain this morning but we only have 12 reservations today due to all the arrivals yesterday and Wednesday. There is a “Preppers” group here that started coming in Wednesday and Thursday. I guess you may have heard of the “Doomsday Preppers”. Well this group from what we can understand is something like that but may not quite that extreme.

It rained a little off and on today. But we didn’t have much to do other than putting out the reservation signs this morning and just checking the campground a couple of times by riding through and picking up the reservation signs at those sites that had arrived.

Most everyone here is leaving Sunday so there will be a mass exit Sunday so we will be busy cleaning the empty sites.

Day 34 Saturday 10/21/2023

Windy, Windy, Windy this morning and until just after noon. We had to pull our hoodies over our caps to keep them on this morning as we were putting out our 8 reservations signs. We saw the wind roll one campers canopy into his Jeep that he didn’t have secured. There were several other canopies flipped over and blown into the bushes near the Big Sandy Creek that run through the middle of loop B. The wind was predicted to be up to 25 MPH and we believe it was at least that much.

By 5 PM it was dead calm and ended up being a really nice afternoon. I worked in the Contact Station for 1.5 hours during the lunch period so Jackie could relieve the lady at the Visitor Center.

We will be busy tomorrow because almost everyone here now will be leaving tomorrow and we have 29 reservations for Sunday night.

Day 35 Sunday 10/22/2023

As expected we were really busy today with all the departures and the new campers coming in. We cleaned as many sites as we could before the new arrivals and we got most of them.

Day 36 Monday 10/23/2023 We finished cleaning the sites we didn’t get to yesterday that didn’t have any campers on them and also cleaned the 4 group sites. The maintenance crew cleaned the fire pits and grills at the group sites so that helped. In the past they helped clean the regular campsite firepits on Monday but that seems to be a thing of the past.

Most campers leave their sites clean other than maybe a small piece of paper of a bread tie but some don’t seem to care how they leave their sites. But I am sure they wouldn’t want to come to a site like they leave it, with trash on the site and trash in the fire pits. I just don’t understand why people think it is okay to toss soft drink cans and aluminum foil in the firepits.

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. 🫣