Carolina Beach State Park - Carolina Beach, North Carolina (October 2019)

This is the type of campground we normally love. Most sites are large and wooded. 

If you sense a big “but” is about to surface, you are correct.

Carolina Beach State Park Sign

I wish we had scouted this park before we arrived with Rosie, our Airstream trailer. Some sites are great while others are difficult at best. 

Our site required Becky to back Rosie, our Airstream trailer, uphill and between several trees. To make things more interesting, our site took a turn to the right about 20 feet in. Once we parked Rosie, we knew that it was going to be difficult to hook up when it was time to leave.

Rosie in the campground

Another view of Rosie's site

Several trailers in our caravan had to move to another site because they could not squeeze between the trees on their original assignments. 

Our WBCCI Southeast Coast Caravan had a low country boil while at this campground. Several at our table thought these boils were a Louisiana Cajun thing. Others thought it was more of a South Carolina tradition. We ended up asking the caterer who said this was best described as a southern thing. The Louisiana version substitutes crawfish for shrimp. He added that locals call the boil we had “Frogmore Stew.”  Whatever it was called, it was great.

Cooking the Frogmore Stew

Time to eat!

We also visited the North Carolina Aquarium while there. This is a small but very enjoyable aquarium. It was nice not having to fight crowds to see the exhibits.

A shark at the aquarium

An eagle at the aquarium

Becky resting on a sea turtle statue

A turtle that was going to be released back to the wild in a couple of weeks

This park was billed as one of the few places Venus Flytraps are native. We didn’t see any while on a trail known as a habitat for these plants. It turned out that people love to pick these flowers and it was getting hard to find them.

Some pitcher plants in this park

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site was a back-in
• Our site was difficult to back in because the site curved and had trees that wedged around Rosie 
• Our site was paved with dirt and gravel 
• Our site did not have any electrical service 
• Our site did not have a water connection 
• Our site did not have a sewer connection 
• A few sites in this campground had electrical and water connections 
• A few sites in this campground had sewer connections 
• There was a dump station in the park 
• The bathhouse in our camping loop was clean and functional. It was also very dated and appeared that it occasionally was underwater when hurricanes hit the Carolina coastline 
• Without electrical power, we could not check on the reception of local TV stations
• AT&T placed one bar of service for unreliable voice and data over our site 
• There was WiFi available at the park office and the marina 
• The gate to the park was locked every night at 9 p.m. If you went out for the evening, you had to make sure you were back before 9 or you were locked out of the campground 
• We wondered if there had recently been trouble in the campground. The ranger patrols through the campground were frequent and thorough 

Path to the beach

Twin Lakes Camping Resort and Yacht Basin Campground- Chocowinity, North Carolina (October 2019)

Our route to this campground included the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. That started me thinking of the time I traveled over the bridges and tunnels with my family when I was a little boy. My family had a 16 foot travel trailer that we pulled all over America.

The toll booth

I remembered that the toll collector left the booth and asked my father to switch off the propane gas tanks on the trailer. Things are different today in that the toll collector only asked for the $24 fee. I was the one who brought up the propane tanks. That was when she said the LP gas tanks need to be switched off, which I did while waiting in line to pay the toll. 

It was windy going over the 17 miles of bridges. We appreciated the aerodynamic design of Airstream trailers as we didn’t feel the wind pushing us around. 

Mixed in among the bridges are two one mile tunnels. We were able to pull Rosie, our Airstream trailer, through both of them.

Entering the tunnel

On the bridge

We were somewhat surprised when we arrived at the campground. Our expectations were low after reading the online reviews. Our first impression was that the campground appeared to be nice. We didn’t see any yachts as in the campground's name, but we did see some fishing and pontoon boats docked near some campers.

Foot bridge to another section of the campground

We were a little leery of our assigned campsite. It had a few muddy areas and we feared it may have some drainage problems during storms. This would come back to haunt us during our departure. 

We visited an estuary and learned about blue crabs while there. It turned out that harvesting crabs was a major industry in this region.

Tribute to a blue crab

We also visited a fossil museum and had fun looking for shark's teeth.

Becky looking for a shark's tooth

Our next excursion was to the Tryon Palace. This was the residence of the royal governor appointed by the King of England prior to the Revolutionary War.

Entrance to the Tryon Palace

Main stairs inside the Tryon Palace

The gardens

View of the palace

We ended the afternoon by having an ice cream at a restaurant about four blocks from the palace. That was a great way to end a day of adventures. 

We found the ice cream store

Dessert?

The remnants of Tropical Depression Nestor passed over our site during our last night in this park. There was several inches of standing water all around Rosie when we woke up the next morning. That made our departure more challenging. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site was a pull-thru
• Our site was paved with dirt that turned into mud during the rain storm 
• Our site was not level and we had to use leveling tools to correct a right to left lean
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service
• Our site had a water connection 
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• The restroom and showers near our site were clean 
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s antenna. We also saw digital channels Bounce, Charge, CW, Escape, Get, ME-TV, MY-TV and Stadium 
• AT&T placed two bars of 4G service for voice and data over our site 
• The campground did not provide WiFi service

RVcation RV Park - Selma, North Carolina (October 2019)

It is easy to get confused when trying to find this park. The exit ramp from the Interstate was abnormally long and the service road to the campground paralleled that exit. Between the exit ramp and the service road was the entrance ramp to the Interstate. The close proximity of these three roads made it easy to make a wrong turn that would have sent you miles down the Interstate. 

Thankfully, the GPS made sure we turned on the right road. I couldn’t help but think of the pastor of our church who once said, “Wrong roads don’t lead to right places.”

This campground was along a small lake. The neighboring property appeared to be the regional administrative offices for a major church. The denomination appeared to be diligent about maintaining not only their property but the lake that was shared with the campground.

The lake

It appeared to me that being next to the Interstate was good for business. Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer, had plenty of company in the front section of the campground as it was almost full of “passing thru” campers.

Rosie in the campground

The rest of the campground was filled with seasonal renters. Unlike many campgrounds with an abundance of shabby seasonal units, these appeared to be maintained.

I expected to hear the busy Interstate traffic noise and the sounds from the nearby train tracks, Neither turned out to be a problem.

Most private campgrounds have rules and we understand why. This park had lots and lots and lots of rules. For some reason, the person working the check-in area felt it was important to read and underline pertinent parts of their rules to us.

The rule he was most passionate about was the 8 mph speed limit. We had to sign a "document" acknowledging the 8 mph limit and attesting that we would tell everyone in our group about the speed limit. Suzy, our Yorkie dog, didn't appear to be impressed when we told her about the speed limit.

Speed limit signs were everywhere

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site was a pull-thru 
• Our site was paved with dirt and some gravel
• Our site was level
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service
• Our site had a water connection 
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• There was a dump station in the campground 
• The restroom and showers had about as much privacy as the ones I had during basic training in the Army. Individual stalls had "saloon" type doors without locks. People had to open them to see if the stall was occupied. I think the campground should do much better than the Army 
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS and PBS using Rosie’s antenna. We also saw digital channels Court, Grit and LAFF
• AT&T placed three bars of 4G service for voice and data over our site 
• The campground provided good WiFi service 

Dan Nicholas Park Rowan County Campground - Salisbury, North Carolina (August 2019)

Sometimes you are simply lucky when it comes to picking a campground for the night. We figured how far we wanted to travel our first day heading home from the North Carolina Outer Banks, then used the AllStays, RVParky and Campendium apps on our iPhones to find a campground. 

The campground closest to our target destination for the night had horrible reviews on all three apps. It appeared that the campground was nice, but the owners enjoyed abusing their guests. We decided to avoid that one. 

Our next choice was the Dan Nicholas Park. This was a county campground in Rowan County, North Carolina. It was farther than we wanted to travel that day and it was farther from I-85 than we really wanted to go for a simple one-nighter.

A sign at Dan Nicholas Park

Another problem was that we would be staying there on a Friday evening in August and that is prime camping time for families. Still, it was worth giving the park a call to see if they could squeeze us in for the night. 

We were impressed with how friendly and helpful the park’s staff was when we called. The campground had a two night minimum over weekends, but found us a site reserved by another family the following night. That meant we could be scheduled for one night and not their normal two day minimum over weekends. 

The friendliness of the staff carried over when we arrived. The campground staff members made sure we knew of the other amenities the park offered across the lake and where the bike path was to the other side of the park. 

We quickly parked Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer and rode our bikes over the bridge because the “other side” was closing in about an hour.

Rosie in Dan Nicholas Park's campground

The other side included a nice park for families. It included paddle boats on the lake, a carousel, a train, petting zoo, miniature golf, tennis courts, an expanded playground for the children, a water splash area and then a gem mine. It was a surprisingly nice and fun park across the lake.

The bridge to the amusement area of the park

Riding our bikes

Carousel and train rides were a dollar each. We couldn’t resist and bought our tickets. We ended up having a private ride on the carousel. It was great!  We laughed and talked about how we wished our grandchildren could have shared that experience with us.

On the carousel

We avoided the lion

Enjoying our ride on the carousel

There was another family that joined us on the train ride. They selected the area close to the engine and we took the caboose. We enjoyed the train ride through the amusement area of the park.

On the train ride

We decided to sit in the caboose

The animal experience and the gem mine were closed when we reached them so they will have to be on our agenda for another day. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Out site was a back-in
• Our site was paved with packed dirt and we needed to use our leveling tools to correct a side-to-side lean
• Our site had a distant view of the lake through the trees
• 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 was a dump station in the park 
• According to the TVTowers iPhone app, we should have been able to watch about a dozen TV channels. We plan to fix our antenna problem before we head out again 
• AT&T didn’t place a usable signal over our site
• The park provided surprisingly good WiFi service 
• The park had several bathhouses. The one nearest Rosie was clean and well maintained 

It was great to return to the woods in Rosie after spending a week along the Atlantic coast. We loved how the sites in this park were wooded with a nice amount of space between rigs. This park had the feel of campgrounds developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 

What a great find! We really enjoyed our visit to Dan Nicholas Campground. 

Mom and her babies on the lake

On the train ride

Cape Hatteras KOA - Rodanthe, North Carolina (July 2019)

We decided to head for North Carolina’s Outer Banks after the 2019 Wally Byam Caravan Club’s International Rally in Virginia. We traveled on a Saturday and some of our friends at the Rally told us about some good back roads we could use to avoid the backlog of traffic heading to the Outer Banks for the weekend. That turned out to be an enjoyable route to kickoff our first visit to the Outer Banks.

Welcome to the Outer Banks

We found the traffic as we pulled in to the Cape Hatteras KOA. The staff was trying to make room for all the RVs that were parked at the camp store to check in. After paying more money for a campsite than we had ever paid before, we were escorted to our site across the street from the dunes separating the campground from the Atlantic Ocean.

Our site in the campground

If you have read several postings from this blog, you know I have struggled with KOA campgrounds. Some are great while others fail to measure up to anything more that a parking lot. This is more of a square peg fitting in a round hole. 

For example, the campground is at a great location along the beach. Why distract from the camping experience by cramming as many sites as possible into the space? Our neighbor’s truck was close enough that we could touch it standing in Rosie’s door. (Rosie is our 25 foot Airstream trailer.)

The Atlantic Coast off the Outer Banks

The closeness of the sites and the narrow roads meant we had to plan our exit from the park at the end of our visit. We could only imagine how the rigs bigger than Rosie pulled out of their sites. 

This campground may hold some record for having the most families with small children. With more than 500 sites, the park is huge and July is prime time for family vacations. 

The campground had many features that would attract families. These included the beach, swimming pool, the playground, the huge jumping pad and the pirate ship. 

Speaking of the pirate ship, the park has one on wheels that was pulled behind a golf cart on weekend evenings and weekday afternoons. A pack of kids on bicycles followed the pirate ship as it meandered through the campground during the evening runs. 

It was fun to watch the evening pirate parade the first time or two as it rolled past Rosie. The enjoyment waned a couple of hours later as it continued to pass playing its loud “pirate” music and followed by fewer and fewer children. Mercifully, it stopped around 10 p.m. 

The afternoon visits had the pirate ship full of kids with super soaker squirt guns drenching anyone foolish enough to cross paths with it while the pirates were aboard. The afternoon pirate attacks ended when the buckets used to reload the water pistols ran dry. 

Only a couple roads in the park were asphalt. The remaining roads were very narrow gravel paths. That meant the paved road attracted walkers, kids on bikes and scooters. You have to be very cautious when driving in this park. 

There is no shortage of things to do when visiting the Outer Banks. The obvious draw to the area was the beach.

Sunset as seen over the Sound

We both grew up in Florida living near the Atlantic and remarked that these beaches were very nostalgic to us. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site was gravel and a pull thru 
• Our site was slightly off level
• Our site was across the road from the dunes along the beach
• Our site had 30 amp electrical service. You could pay an additional fee for 50 amp service. Our site’s voltage tended to hover in the 108-112 range 
• Our site had a water connection 
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• The park had a popular swimming pool 
• The park had a very well used playground 
• The park had a jumping pad that was a favorite with the 12 and younger crowd 
• The campground had three restrooms we could find. These were probably inadequate for the park’s size and they were normally sandy due to the beach traffic  
• The park had a couple of showers for its guests. As expected, they needed to be cleaned
• The campground advised us when we checked in that the WiFi was terrible. That description may have been too optimistic 
• AT&T placed two bars of 4G service over our site 
• The TV Towers app on my iPhone could not find a TV station closer than 100 miles to our site. The park provided a basic level of cable TV service, but our TV antenna coax cable was only 25 feet and we needed double that to reach the box. Once again, our over-the-air DVR stepped up and provided our entrainment 

In addition to being on the beach, we were able to visit three lighthouses, a life-saving station (forerunner of the US Coast Guard) and rode the ferry over to Ocracoke island. We didn’t suffer from a shortage of things to do while on the Outer Banks.

On the ferry

Our truck was the last vehicle on the ferry

The GPS wasn't confused about being on the ferry

Suzy enjoyed the ferry ride

I started this posting by calling the Cape Hatteras campground a square peg in a round hole. You start to think this is a good campground only to be shocked back into the reality of this being a maxed out parking lot that you couldn’t squeeze another camper in for any reason. After talking to the families around us, our view wasn’t unique. It is a great place to take young children to. If you are traveling without children, you may find the park is not geared towards you. 

There must be better choices of campgrounds on the Outer Banks. I think we will hold out for a space in one of the National Park Service campgrounds next time. 

Bodie Lighthouse

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Ocracoke Lighthouse

Boone KOA - Boone, North Carolina (June 2019)

Our visit to Boone KOA didn’t get off on the proper foot. Our assigned site looked similar to the crest of a hill. Since Rosie’s door is at the rear, the domed shape of the site meant that there wasn't a safe way to enter or exit Rosie. (Rosie is our 25 foot Airstream trailer.)

Sign at campground's entrance

It didn't take long for them to move us to another site. The new site worked much better for Rosie.

Rosie in the campground

This campground wasn't on a main road around Boone. You really had to trust your GPS as it urged you to to head down some small mountain roads. We found the campground exactly where our GPS said it would be.

This was a campground that proudly wore the label family-friendly. The happy sounds told us that the playground was a popular gathering place for families with children. 

We were impressed with the campground staff. A boy about five years-old ran into the restroom while it was being cleaned. I overheard the woman who appeared to head-up the cleaning crew say that he looked like he really needed to use the restroom. She told the cleaning crew to step outside for a moment. That left a positive impression on me.

There were other examples of the friendly and helpful staff that we observed during visit. 

We drove from Boone to Damascus to ride bicycles on the Virginia Creeper Trail. We rode downhill on what was once an old logging railroad path. We were able to talk to several Appalachian Trail hikers and ate lunch at a trail side restaurant that was featured in a well known magazine for its chocolate cake. It was good, but I’m still partial to my mother’s cake.

The bike shop in Damascus

Getting the bikes on the trailer for the ride to the start of the Virginia Creeper Trail

Rail to Trail sign

The restaurant along the Virginia Creeper Trail

Speaking of eating, we also ate dinner at the Dan'l Boone Inn and had breakfast at Shatley Springs. Both served family style meals and were very enjoyable.

Dan'l Boone Inn

Sign at Shatley Springs

Breakfast at Shatley Springs

Becky samples the spring water at Shatley Springs

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site was gravel and required leveling tools to correct a right to left lean
• The gravel road to our site was steep enough to cause us some concern both when we arrived and left
• Our site was a pull-thru
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection 
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• The campground's sewer opening was uphill from our site. This is always annoying 
• AT&T placed only one bar of 4G voice and data service over our site 
• The park had WiFi, but it was mostly unusable 
• The park had clean restrooms and showers 
• Getting reliable TV service in the mountains is tricky. We mostly watched videos from our DVR

A fellow camper said that there was a cemetery just up the road from the campground that had an outhouse in the middle of it. We didn’t have an opportunity to check that out. We will add that to our “to do” list for next time.