White Oak Creek COE Campground - Eufaula, Alabama (October 2020)

Our first camping trip during the COVID-19 pandemic camping was a success and lit the fire for more adventures in Rosie, our Airstream trailer. Once home, we started talking about going out camping again.

The parameters for another trip were similar to our previous outing. We wanted to stay in a park close to home and we wanted a campground with large sites. We were able to get reservations at the White Oak Creek Army Corps of Engineers Campground.

Sign at White Oak Creek COE Campground

This is a campground located south of Eufaula, Alabama, along the shore of Lake George. It is also a campground we stayed in twice before.

There are four camping loops in this park and I imagine all are full during the summer. We were there during the late Fall and only three loops were open. It seemed camping during the pandemic was a popular idea as there were only a few unoccupied sites in the entire park. 

Rosie in White Oak Creek COE Campground

It appeared to us that fishing was very popular among the campers there during the week. The park's complexion seemed to change over the weekend as the jet skiing and water skiing crowd arrived. That crowd pulled out on Sunday afternoon leaving the campground to the quiet fishing boats.

Suzy looking at the lake

We took our inflatable tandem kayak and enjoyed our excursions around the lake. On one of our trips, Becky did a FaceTime video session with our three year-old grandson. He was excited about going on a kayak trip with his grandparents and enjoyed the adventure as we paddled under the bridge at one end of the park.

Kayak ready for the lake

Enjoying the lake

Heading towards Rosie

On one of our kayak trips on the lake, we started noticing dozens and dozens of what appeared to be empty one liter soda bottles wrapped in orange foam bobbing on the water. As we paddled over toward one of these things to investigate, a fishing boat beelined toward us at high speed. The man on the boat started yelling at us about his catfish noodles. Well, that solved the mystery as to what those things were on the water. From that time on, we were carefully watched by the fisherman.

Catfish Noodles on the lake

Selfie on the lake

We also enjoyed riding our bicycles around this park. Once again, Becky took our grandson on a FaceTime bike ride around the park. Needless to say, he was excited to join his grandparents as he shared in a Rosie adventure using digital technology.

Riding bikes at White Oak COE Campground

As silly as it sounds, we noticed a familiar Airstream in the campground. Did you think all Airstream trailers looked alike? Maybe, but we recognized the Wally Byam Airstream Club Big Red Numbers on the trailer. We were on the WBAC Springtime in Kentucky several years ago with those friends and were schedule to be with them on the Gone to Texas this year. Of course, COVID cancelled all WBAC caravans.

Our friends in White Oak Campground

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• There were four loops in the campground. Most of the sites in this campground we’re on the water.
• Our site was paved with concrete and was level. It appeared to us that the sites in the other loops were also paved with concrete
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection
• Our site did not have a sewer connection 
• There were two dump stations in this park. Both were a distance from the camp sites and you ended up having to drive there to dump your sewage tote
• The trash dumpsters were at the dump stations. That meant it was too far to walk there with your trash
• There were multiple bathhouses in the campground. The volunteer at the gate suggested we use the bathroom in our trailer since the number of COVID-19 cases in Alabama were increasing during that time span
• The park did not provide WiFi service 
• AT&T provided decent 4G voice and data service over our campsite 
• We were able to watch only PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. We were glad we brought our DVR with episodes of TV shows and movies we wanted to watch
• The campground was near Eufaula, Alabama. That meant there were restaurants and shopping nearby
• This was a pet friendly park 

We discovered a little too late that it was ant season at the campground. We immediately went into "full ant mode" by making sure our power and water lines didn't touch the ground and spraying ant pesticide around every point of Rosie touching the ground. We also had to spray Rosie's outer skin where we found ant trails. It had been years since we were camping in a location with ant problems and we ended up having to fight the critters both inside and outside our trailer.

As we were using the dump station before leaving the park, someone pulled a sewage tote up to the dump station next to the one we were using. We asked if he noticed the ant problem at his motorhome. He quickly snapped back that they had not seen any ants at their site. Becky and I chuckled as he left the dump station that he may not have seen any yet, but time will tell. It is almost too late once you start seeing them.

The ants are just a part of the camping experience and you have to be diligent in trying to keep them out. They did not lower our opinion of this great campground.

View of the bridge at night

Rosie at night

Selfie outside Rosie

Day use area at White Oak COE Campground

Sunrise at White Oak COE Campground

We didn't see an alligator

The geese were not happy to see us in our kayak

Heading back to Rosie

Gunter Hill COE Campground - Montgomery, Alabama (September 2020)

If you looked at our calendar in January 2020, you would have seen that we planned to go on two WBCCI Caravans that year with Rosie, our Airstream trailer.  (The WBCCI is the Airstream Owners club.) The first was a six week tour through New England and the Atlantic coastal provinces of Canada. The second was five weeks exploring Texas. These were two very popular and hard to get on caravans. We were looking forward to discovering the sights on those caravans. 

Well, that was the plan and if 2020 was a normal year, we would have already visited more than 20 campgrounds in nine states and three Canadian provinces. But nothing was normal during 2020. Between the global COVID-19 pandemic and a series of  “stay home” and “safer at home” mandates from our state and local governments, we parked Rosie, our Airstream trailer, for more than six months and stayed home. 

During that time, we continued talking to our Airstream friends via email and reading news reports about coping with the mandatory COVID restrictions. A growing number of trusted experts were saying that camping in campgrounds with large sites was considered safe as long as social distancing and masks were used. 

After discussing the pros and cons, we decided to venture out to a Corps of Engineers campground because most COE parks feature well-spaced, large sites. We also wanted to camp in a COE campground with full hook-ups and the closest park to our location meeting those requirements was Gunter Hill. 

Sign at Gunter Hill COE Campground

Most campers in this park were “reasonable” about respecting social distancing concerns. The campers flaunting the protocols were easy to spot and avoid.  

Rosie in our site at Gunter Hill COE Campground

It is amazing how quickly you forget the steps involved in packing and hooking up your trailer after parking it for six months. We packed things we learned over the years should be left home. We left some things at home we missed in the campground. It didn’t take long to get back in the groove of camping in Rosie and remember how to better prepare for our next trip. 

Next trip? We are anxious about going out again in Rosie. 

Riding bikes in Gunter Hill COE Campground

Looking out at the waterway feeding into the Alabama River

The weather was perfect for camping. The high temperature was in the low 80s only one day. The highs were in the low to mid 70s the rest of the time. Nightly lows were in the mid 50s to the high 40s. 

The campground was busier during the weekend when young families with children started to arrive. It was nice to hear the happy sounds of children playing in the campground. It was also nice that those youngsters observed social distancing norms when around other campers. 

We noticed three brand-new RVs in the campground. It was obvious that those families were making the normal first-time mistakes that all RVers seem to fall into. There were news reports about record RV sales during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our simple observations while at this campground seemed to suggest that there was a bumper crop of new RV owners being introduced to camping. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• There are two loops in the campground. The Antioch loop is more rustic and has only water and electric hook-ups. The Catoma loop has larger sites, water, electric and sewer connections. We camped in the Catoma loop
• Our site was paved with concrete and was level. Sites in the Antioch loop are grass or gravel and mostly unlevel
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• There were two dump stations in this park, one for each loop
• There were two bathhouses in the Catoma loop. The volunteer at the gate suggested we use the bathroom in our trailer since the number of COVID-19 cases in Alabama were increasing during that time span and the park's public restrooms were cleaned once a day Monday through Friday and not cleaned over the weekends
• The park did not provide WiFi service 
• AT&T provided marginal 4G voice and data service over our campsite 
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS, FOX, PBS and NBC using Rosie’s TV antenna. We also received digital channels Antenna, Buzzr, Decades, Escape, Get, Grit, ME, THiS and multiple Spanish-speaking stations
• This was a pet friendly park 

We brought our bikes to this park. We enjoyed our adventure in this quiet and beautiful campground. 

Paved roads in the Catoma Loop

Becky and Suzy in the group pavilion

Selfie at Gunter Hill

Bridge in the Catoma Loop

Walkway next to boat ramp

Big Lagoon State Park - Pensacola, Florida (March 2020)

We knew what the Ranger was going to say before he reached Rosie, our Airstream trailer. The concerned look on his face gave it away. 

We were right. He told us the State of Florida was closing all state parks at noon on Friday and we needed make plans about where we would head next. 

Why was Florida closing all state park campgrounds? The simple answer is the Coronavirus, which is also the complex answer to any question during that time that dealt with human interactions. 

We were amazed and shocked at how fast the Coronavirus entered our conversations, sent everyone running to empty store shelves in a panic and left us afraid to be closer than a ten-foot pole to each other. (I think I finally understand that saying from my elementary school days.)

We were at Big Lagoon for our family version of Spring Break. 

Sign at the entrance to the park

Spring Break traditionally meant our family would be found camping in T. H. Stone Memorial St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. For the second year in a row, that park remained closed to camping due to the damage suffered in 2018 from Hurricane Michael. In addition, the access road to the campground was breached leaving it an island. 

So, this was our second year of spending Spring Break at Big Lagoon State Park. That wasn’t to imply that Big Lagoon was a second tier park. It simply wasn’t the park our family historically went to for Spring Break. 

Big Lagoon is a park that we always want to bring our bicycles and kayak to. We brought both and used neither. Between my hurt ankle and the fear of the Coronavirus that gripped everyone, we mostly stayed inside Rosie and avoided other people when we took Suzy, our Yorkie, out for brief walks. We were thankful that there was a good distance and shrubbery between individual camp sites in this park.

Section of the boardwalk

Everyone else in the park was doing the same as we didn’t see children riding their bikes nor were people outside their trailers enjoying the park. It appeared to us that the campers on either side of Rosie were grandparents who were probably keeping their grandchildren while the public school systems were shutting down in most states. I guess the shutdown of Florida’s state parks instantly made things more difficult for those grandparents.

The swamp area where alligators are typically found

Suzy on the boardwalk

The alligator warning sign

Becky’s sister and her husband were camping in the Navy’s FamCamp while we were in Big Lagoon. We were able to visit them on Battleship Row and they visited us in Rosie. We would have seen them more but they had to head south to help with their grandchildren, who were suddenly in a homeschool situation.

Navy FamCamp area

Battleship Row in Pensacola Navy FamCamp

Becky and her sister in their RV

We hope our Spring Break trip next year will be completely uneventful and relaxing. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• There are three camping loops in this park. 
• Our site had a concrete pad. 
• Our site had 30 and 20 amp electrical service. 
• Our site had a water connection. 
• Our site did not have a sewer connection. 
• There was one dump station located at the entrance to the campground. 
• There were three restrooms/showers in the camping areas. We noticed that the volunteers were spending more than an hour scrubbing and cleaning the restrooms every day.  
• AT&T placed a strong 4G signal over our campsite for voice and data. 
• Similar to many state parks, Big Lagoon does not provide WiFi. 
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and PBS TV stations using Rosie's antenna. We also received digital signals from GET, GRIT, ME-TV MY-TV, Stadium and Comet. The signal strength would fluctuate during the day. We were glad we brought our over-the-air DVR from home loaded with episodes of shows we wanted to watch. 

Evening photo of Rosie in Big Lagoon

Becky and Suzy in Big Lagoon

Foley RV/Airstream of Mississippi - Gulfport, Mississippi (March 2020)

For the second time in two weeks, we had to drag Rosie, our Airstream trailer, in for warranty service. While parking in our storage warehouse after our trip to the Airstream factory in Ohio, the power jack decided to give up. That would have been a game-stopper on our original Rosie because there wasn’t a manual override that allowed you to crank the jack up or down. If that jack broke, you were stuck.

New Rosie has a place where you can connect a crank and using what we described in my Army days as the “arm-strong” method, crank the tongue of Rosie up or down. While this is tedious, it allowed us to disconnect Rosie from our truck and head home.

Using the hand-crank to unhitch Rosie from our truck

Time was an issue because we had a beach trip scheduled to start less than a week after returning home from Ohio. A quick call to Foley RV/Airstream of Mississippi successfully ended with the service manager saying they were very busy, but we should head to Gulfport and they would take care of us. That was a relief and we greatly appreciated their willingness to help us. 

We also appreciated that they would save us a spot in the camping area behind the service center. That meant we were at a great location to head to out next stop the following morning. 

We asked questions about things we didn’t understand about Rosie. For example, we were not successful in getting our two air conditioners to work at the same time. They made sure we understood how to use the thermostat. 

The Foley RV people also allowed us to use their Airstream cleaning supplies to wash Rosie. That was needed because one of us was accused of having used a dirty rag to wash Rosie the last time. 

It isn’t fair to describe this as a normal campground. It isn’t. This is a complementary parking site for Foley RV customers and we greatly appreciated it. We had 50 amp electrical service, water and sewer connections. And best of all, the service crew was able to replace our power jack, replace a missing rivet and answer our current questions.  

A

This must be classified as a successful stop and we appreciated how friendly, courteous and professional they were. 

Texas T Campground - Cornersville, Tennessee (March 2020)

This was our second visit to the Texas T campground and both were for the same reason. We left the Airstream factory in Jackson Center, Ohio in the morning and wanted to stop for the evening before we were exhausted. Texas T was located in the right spot for us.

Sign at entrance to park

The office area was the first thing we noticed that was different from our first visit. We also thought the children’s playground area had changed. Improvements were made to both.

Playground as seen from our site

Our assigned site was a pull-thru. It appeared they used our profile in their computer from a couple years ago to put us in a 30 amp only site. Our new Rosie prefers 50 amps but can operate on 30 as long as we are careful about what electrical devices we use. (Rosie is what we call our Airstream trailer.)

Rosie in the campground

It appeared that about half of the sites were occupied when we arrived. We are not sure what the big draw was in that area because we were simply there for the night. 

Here are some specifics about this campground;

• There were several camping loops in this park 
• Our site was a pull-thru
• Our site was gravel
• Our site was level
• Our site had 30 amp electrical service 
• Some sites in this campground had 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection 
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• Our site had a cable-tv connection with about ten analog stations
• We could not see any over-the-air TV stations using Rosie’s antenna 
• There was a dump station in the park 
• The park provided a WiFi signal for the campers. We were unable to to use it
• AT&T placed a strong 4G signal over our site for voice and data
• There were clean restrooms and showers in the park
• The campground had a laundry room 
• There was a propane refill station in the park
• This was a pet friendly park

As with our first visit, we were impressed with how clean and well kept this campground was. It was evident that the owners really tried to make sure their campground was nice for everyone. We enjoyed our stay there and appreciated their efforts to present a great little park to the RV community.

The "Ham Shack" (One owner is an Amateur Radio Operator)

The stream behind the campground

Another view of the stream

Airstream Terraport - Jackson Center, Ohio (March 2020)

Early March wasn’t our first choice for a trip to Jackson Center, Ohio. We wanted to bring Rosie, our new Airstream trailer, back to the factory for some service. 

A logical question to ask was why did we take a trailer we had for less than two months back to the factory for some service? Our “shakedown” camping trips identified a few minor bugs in Rosie, our Airstream trailer, and we wanted to fix them before camping season was in full swing.

Another question was why didn’t we take our trailer back to the dealer for this service? Yes, it is true that Airstream dealers have factory trained service departments and are competent in all things Airstream. A couple of things on our list potentially involved what we would call “Airstream specific” parts and we figured we wouldn’t have to wait for delivery from the factory to our dealer if we were at the factory. Another factor in this decision was that we were quickly approaching the time for our first beach trip of the year and the timing worked better for us to take Rosie to Ohio.

Entrance to the service area

It is usually a challenge to book timely service appointments at the factory in Jackson Center, but we were surprised when we talked to the service center representative. He said someone cancelled his or her appointment and they could fit us in. 

We started watching the weather along our route to Ohio as our scheduled appointment time approached. Freezing temperatures and snow were in the forecast leading up to our appointment. Some friends from our local Wally Byam Airstream Club had an appointment about three weeks before our's and they told us about driving through snow to get to Jackson Center. We were relieved when the forecast for our travel time changed from snow to rain. We would have to deal with freezing temperatures during our stay in Ohio, but not snow and ice. 

We saw a few patches of snow on the side of the road as we drove to Jackson Center. We arrived early afternoon the day before our appointment. That was significant in that it allowed us to talk to our service rep to firm up what we needed.

Snow in the parking lot

We parked Rosie in its second of the three loops in Airstream’s Terraport. The first loop was full with about a dozen trailers that were dropped off for service over the winter. There were dozens more “drop off” trailers behind the service building. It was easy to see why it is difficult to get a service appointment there even during the winter. The dozens of service bays at Jackson Center were full.

Rosie in the Terraport

We had the afternoon to ourselves and decided to make a quick trip to Columbus, Ohio. We needed a few supplies and one of Becky’s favorite stores was there. We enjoyed our visit there and watched a rainstorm in the distance as we drove back to Jackson Center that evening.

Clouds on the road to Columbus

Rain in the distance

Wind blowing the rain

There were only two occupied Airstream trailers in the Terraport on our service appointment day and the tractor picked up Rosie first. That meant our service crew was able to start early fixing our issues.

Tractor pulling Rosie to the service bays

We are always impressed with how professional and efficient the service teams are at Jackson Center. The items on our list that we thought would take a full day were quickly completed.

Rosie in the service bay

Checking on Rosie

Waiting in the lobby

The service bays

Two additional Airstream trailers joined us for the second night in the Terraport. Like clockwork, the tractor started pulling the trailers needing service into the work-bays at 7 a.m.  We waited until the temperatures warmed up above freezing before starting our trip home so we wouldn’t need to winterize Rosie. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site was a back-in
• Our site was paved with asphalt 
• Our site had 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection. We disconnected the water from Rosie at night because the temperatures dipped into the mid 20s and reconnected during the day when temperatures were above freezing 
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• There was a dump station at this park. 
• AT&T placed a weak voice and data signal over our site.
• We were unable to see from our site the WiFi service provided in the service lobby. We were able to use the WiFi several times in the past, but not on this visit 
• We were able to receive TV signals from ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, ION, NBC and PBS. We saw digital signals from Antenna, Charge, Comet, Escape, LAFF, ME-TV, MY-TV and Stadium 
• This is a pet friendly park.

We were impressed with the new Airstream factory, which we passed while on our way to the factory service area. Factory tours haven’t started yet in the new factory building, but we look forward to seeing it on our next trip. 

Selfie in the Terraport