Boon-Docking in Mobile, Alabama- Visiting Family (April 2021)

Our reservations at Fort Pickens Campground were canceled by the National Park Service because of flooding in the campground and on its access roads. We learned about this as we tried to enter the park. 

While we understand the need to keep campers safe, it left us without a place to park Rosie, our Airstream trailer. This problem was compounded by the fact that Fort Pickens has approximately 200 campsites and every site was reserved during our planned visit there. The campground closure meant all those RVs had to scurry to find somewhere else to stay. Every park we called was full.

Our son, daughter-in-law and grandson were about 60 miles away. A quick call resulted in an enthusiastic response. A few minutes later, our son called to say his neighbors were currently away. He texted them and they said it was OK for us to park Rosie in their driveway for the night. That was a perfect solution. 

It was wonderful to see our family members. Our four year-old grandson loved being inside Rosie. Needless to say, we loved being with them. 

It is always fun when our grandson is inside Rosie

We wanted to test boon-docking in Rosie before adventuring out to some national parks in the future and this gave us an opportunity to do so. Would Rosie’s solar panels keep the batteries charged?  Our results were encouraging. As a bonus, we discovered that the 1,000 watt inverter in Rosie had ample power to run our coffee maker.

Driveway camping in Mobile

We were able to make new reservations for the time we planned for this trip. We hoped our new park would  not be underwater when we arrived there. 

Our son and his family were up early the next morning to get to work and preschool on time. We got up in time to say goodbye and to hug our grandson again. 

Saying "see you later, gator" after a wonderful experience

This turned out be a fantastic answer to our Fort Pickens cancelled reservations problem. 

Fort Pickens Campground - Pensacola, Florida (April 2021)

We always knew there was a chance our reservations at Fort Pickens Campground could be altered by the weather. The road leading into the campground areas is on a thin stretch of land between the Gulf and the Bay. You can easily see both bodies of water as you drive into the park. 

But we expected weather issues during hurricane season, not early Spring. More about the weather later. 

It had been years since we camped at Fort Pickens. It is hard to get reservations there. Very hard. 

After multiple attempts to find an opening, we were able to snag four days in what we consider to be one of our least favorite loops. Well, we rationalized, this will get us back to Fort Pickens. 

On the way there, our chorus of GPS units was routing different from our normal path to Pensacola. When our Ford Navigation system, Garmin GPS, Apple and Google Maps all agree to take us out of the way, you know something is up. We found that the bridge we normally take to cross over the bay to Pensacola Beach was damaged by Hurricane Sally and was closed. 

About a decade earlier, we crossed the toll bridge our GPS systems were taking us to. We learned then that it was very expensive, especially if you were pulling a camper with two axles. We were glad to see as we approached the toll booth that the state suspended the tolls while the other bridge was being repaired. 

We crossed the bridges and soon saw the white sands and surf of the Gulf. Needless to say, we were excited about returning to the coast. That was when we saw “THE” sign at the start of the entrance road to Fort Pickens. The sign that announced the park was closed because of flooding in the campground and the access roads were under water. 

There is a problem at Fort Pickens

We didn’t see the sign until we were past any point we could turn around. Besides, there were several RVs in front of us driving into the park. Maybe the park was closed to day visitors and open to campers, we hoped. The Ranger’s Station was ahead and we could find out about our site there. 

By the time we arrived at the Ranger Station, we watched all of the RVs ahead of us make a U-turn and exit the park. Our turn with the Ranger wasn’t different from the others. 

An exasperated ranger told us that the park closed three days earlier and that Recreation.gov, the website used to book reservations in federal and national campgrounds, was supposed to send us an email advising us that our reservation was cancelled and our fees were refunded. They didn’t and the long line of RVs heading into the park suggested we were not the only ones Recreation.gov forgot to notify. 

There was a parking lot just outside the park’s access road. We noticed it was full of RVs that appeared to be boon-docking there until the park reopened. We pulled off the road at another parking area and started calling state parks and private campgrounds trying to find somewhere to stay for the night. It was apparent that the 200 RVs that should have been in the Fort Pickens Campground were dispersed among every other desirable campground in that area. 

Rosie parked outside of Fort Pickens

Rosie parked on the side of the road

A find on the beach after a quick walk to the shore

It quickly became apparent that full campgrounds tend to ignore their phones on Sunday afternoons and that we needed to widen our search for a place to park Rosie, our Airstream trailer, for the night. 

What did we do?

Stay tuned to see if we were stuck with a lemon for the night or if we were able to turn our situation into lemonade. 

White Oak Creek COE Campground - Eufaula, Alabama (March 2021)

It’s funny how you get out of the habit of loading up your camper after parking for the winter. Unique to this year, the “COVID Safer at Home” time compounded our apprehension. We felt like “newbies” trying to remember the must-haves for o this camping trip. 

As we hitched-up Rosie, our Airstream trailer, for our new adventure, we were confident we had everything we needed packed away inside the trailer. We quickly discovered we left something at home and would have to drive back the next day to get the missing item. More about that later!

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we wanted to camp in parks with large sites and we didn't want to be too far away from home in case we needed to quickly return there. Core of Engineer Parks were perfect because their fees are reasonable, they are usually along a lake or river and their individual sites are normally larger than what you find in a privately owned campground. 

There are about half-a-dozen COE campgrounds near our home, so we started looking for reservations for a one week stay. One-by-one, parks were eliminated because they were booked up. We were able to find a week available at White Oak Creek COE Campground. If that sounds familiar, it was where we camped only five months earlier.

Sign at White Oak Creek COE Campground

Only one camping loop was open when we camped there in October. All of the loops were open this time and the campground was close to being full. It appeared that we were not the only people wanting to get back to camping and the large sites found in most COE parks were appreciated by us.

This campground is along the shore of Lake George in Alabama. Lake George is somewhat confusing to the "locals" as they call it Lake Eufaula. We noticed that the water level in Lake Whatever was significantly higher this time. 

View from our site

Rosie in our site

We also noticed what appeared to be multiple family gatherings in the park. We were curious about a family gathering of about four trailers in our loop. They had a full-sized ping-pong table that was well used by the group. This was the first time I have seen a ping-pong table brought to a campground.

We knew from our previous camping trip to not expect too much TV service from Rosie's antenna. PBS was watchable about 50 percent of the time and a CBS station was watchable only about 20 percent of the time. Just as the last time we camped in this park, we brought a DVR loaded with TV shows and movies we wanted to watch. The problem was that I left the power cord home. 

A visitor to our site

Another visitor

Suzy looking out Rosie's window

My first reaction was to suffer the consequences of leaving the power cord home to remind me to always check for it in the future. That was before our "Informed Delivery" app told us an important document was being delivered to our home and it required quick action. That meant I was going to drive the 90 minutes home to deal with that mail. It also gave me an opportunity to get the power cord and a few other things we might need while camping.

It turned out to be a good thing I was able to pick up a few overlooked items because it rained several days and turned colder while we were in this park.  Back in our tent-camping days, a cold rain was a sure-fire camping ender. Our move to camping in a trailer meant we were able to enjoy the park while staying warm and dry inside.

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• There were four loops in the campground. 
• Most of the sites in this campground were on the water. It appeared that sites not on the water had water views. 
• Some loops have more shade trees than others.
• 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. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we did not check on the condition of the bathhouse near our camper.
• The park did not provide WiFi service 
• AT&T provided decent 4G voice and data service over our campsite 
• We were able to occasionally watch PBS and a CBS affiliate using Rosie’s TV antenna. The PBS station came in mostly mornings and evenings. Reception of the CBS station was random, but mostly unwatchable. 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 did not see any problems with ants this time. We came prepared with ant powder, but noticed the campers around us were not in what we call "RV Ant Mode." Several camping neighbors said they had not noticed any bug problems in the campground.

Full "Ant Mode" with all utilities off the ground

This trip was during what we call pollen season in the South. We were thankful that the rain storms washed the pollen off Rosie and our truck.

Getting ready to launch the kayak

Suzy enjoying the kayak on the lake

Another relaxing trip using the kayak

Rosie in our site

We understood the elves baked cookies in this tree!

Rosie as seen from the lake

There are hills in this campground that add a challenge to your bike rides

An original watercolor painted by Becky of flowers
seen in this park on a rainy day. (This was painted from
photos of the flowers and they were not picked for this painting.)