Hardridge Creek COE Campground - Alabama (March 2018)

The first signs of Spring always start us thinking about taking Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer, out on our inaugural trip for the new camping season. This has traditionally been to visit the Florida State Park near Port St. Joe, the campground we have visited every Spring Break for nearly 20 years.

We thought we would do things differently this year. We would divide the trip into staying for a few days at a park a couple hours down the road then continuing on to Port St. Joe.

Hardridge Creek COE Campground was a little ways off our normal route to Florida, but Google Maps said Hardridge was about two hours from our house then it was another four hours to continue on to Port St. Joe. That sounded perfect and it would give us a chance to de-winterize Rosie before arriving in Florida.

Rosie at Hardridge Creek COE Campground

First, Hardridge is a very nice COE campground. It is along Lake George on the Alabama side of the lake, the same lake the local people call Lake Eufaula.

Hardridge has some of the best lakefront campsites I’ve ever seen in a COE campground. The loop called Pirate's Cove juts out into the water and is always full. Like most of the loops in this park, Pirates Cove has electric and water connections. We elected to stay in the loop that also added full hookups instead of the one offering amazing lake views.

View at Hardridge

Looking at Lake Eufaula

View from one of the camp sites

Our campsite had a view of the lake, which was about 50 feet behind Rosie. Of course, there weren’t leaves on the trees yet. We thought that it would be hard to see the lake once the trees filled out with leaves.

View behind Rosie

It seems that fishing is the primary activity in this park. Our campsite had the normal fire ring, picnic table and it also had a small table for cleaning fish. 

Temperatures were hovering around freezing at night while we were camping in Hardridge. Our heat pump wasn’t able to keep up with our desired temperature as it approached freezing outside and we had to switch over to an electric heater. Since the lows were right at freezing, we elected to not fire up Rosie’s furnace.

Looking at one of the camping loops in Hardridge

We were supposed to stay at Hardridge for three nights. Becky realized on our first morning that we needed to attend to something at home. We quickly jumped in the truck and headed there in time to correct our problem. Instead of turning around and going back to Rosie, we spent the night at home. 

It felt strange to be home because we were in the camping mode. The refrigerator was empty and many of our comfort items were two hours down the road in Rosie. We headed back to Hardridge the next morning thankful we were able to take care of things before going to Florida. 

While on our way back to the campground, we passed by a horse-drawn covered wagon train heading into town complete with police escort. It seemed that the rodeo was arriving in a very nostalgic way.

The rodeo heading into town

Here are some specifics about Hardridge Creek COE Campground:

• There are multiple camping loops in this park. Some have amazing lake views. 
• Our site had 50, 30 and 20 amp electrical service. 
• Our site had a water connection with 35 pounds of pressure. 
• Our site had a sewer connection. 
• There was one dump station located in the middle of the park. 
• The trash dumpsters were close to the park's entrance. It was too far to walk to, so you had to drive there with your trash. 
• Our site had a concrete pad and was level. 
• We found two bathhouses in the park. One was near our site, which had full hookups. It seems that some sites in this campground are a long ways from a bathhouse. 
• The bathhouse in our loop was clean and well maintained. 
• The park did not provide a WiFi signal. 
• AT&T placed a good 4G signal over our campsite. This was a surprise since there was no signal at the entrance to the park. 
• It was clear to us that the AT&T signal was coming from the other side of the lake. The middle of the lake is the border between Alabama and Georgia. It is also the time zone line as Georgia is in the Eastern time zone and Alabama is in the Central time zone. Our iPhones kept displaying Eastern times and that caused us to believe our cellphone connection was coming from the Georgia side of the lake. 
• We were able to watch the following TV networks using Rosie's antenna: ABC, CBS and NBC. We were able to receive the following digital channels: Bounce, Cozi, CW, Escape, Grit, LAFF, ME-TV and MY. 

There was an old fashioned restaurant/soda fountain in a drug store about five miles from the park. I wanted to visit it, but we couldn’t this time. Maybe we will be able to do so the next time we visit Hardridge Creek COE Campground.

We passed this on the way to Hardridge!