Lake Hartwell day dos

Today was, by far, the nicest weather we have had this trip. I was able to sit in the sun and replenish my low vitamin D level. There are no bike trails here so I sorta tried to make my own. That didn't work out too well. When I returned from what was a 1 and 1/2 hour ordeal I had to spend some time returning my bike to ridability. It's go big or go home baby. After lunch things were so good we got the yaks wet. The pics below kind of show  how our new roof rack works. There are hydraulic cylinders that provide 40 pounds of lift assistance. You only have to lift the boats a few feet to get them loaded. You tie them down while they are hanging on the side of the car. Sweet. We move tomorrow.

Lake Hartwell SP

The drive from the Lake Hartwell KOA to the Lake Hartwell SP was 28 miles. Today set a record for the fewest miles driven between campsites. The campground is pretty much vacant. Our site backs up to the lake. We have no neighbors. We like this site for several reasons. Since the trees have no leaves we have a partial view of the sky anywhere we park. That means we have, at least, the potential to get our satellite TV to get a signal. I had to move the portable antennae several times but I found a small hole in the overhead branches that allowed us to get a signal. Woopee! Small victories while camping are huge. These pics are of me cleaning the picture window in the bedroom and why it is called a picture window.

Anderson/Lake Hartwell KOA

We waited for things to thaw somewhat before we risked getting out of Paris Mountain SP. Since we needed propane a KOA with propane seemed like a logical choice. Our tank is now full so barring another arctic atomic bomb we should be set for the rest of this trip. It took 10 gallons to fill us up. We were in sub-freezing night temperatures for 12 days and only used 10 gallons. I'll stash that bit of information away somewhere. We will be back in another State Park tomorrow night. No pics today. I'll post a snow pic I took yesterday.

Ice Station Greenville

The forecasted snow arrived sometime last night. We got about 3-4 inches. We couldn't leave today and probably won't leave tomorrow. That's OK except for our only concern. We don't have a whole lot of propane. We have been using the furnace constantly for 11 days. We should be fine but we'll need to fill up soon. I did a solo hike in the snow this morning and Jenny and I went out after lunch. We are expecting teens tonight. We'll see how things look tomorrow.

Paris Mountain day 3

I had to ride some of the trails even though it was frigging cold this morning. I was unsure of my ability to ride these trails because when we arrived here there were many young, healthy young men wearing fluorescent biking outfits, riding full suspension 29 inch bikes hanging out in the parking lot.  It was a little intimidating. Turns out I shouldn't have been. I have ridden 'The Whole Enchilada' in Moab. I have yet to see a bike trail anywhere in the east that would be considered 'difficult' in the west. I ride slow but I keep cranking those pedals. After lunch Jenny and I did a hike. The park trail map rates the trails in difficulty. 1 being easy and 10 being hard. There weren't any 10s so we did the only 9. We are planning on moving tomorrow but there is snowy weather in the forcast. We can extend if needed.

Paris Mountain day 2

We weren't really sure what we were going to do today. It was another cold morning and we were reluctant to get out from the 4 inches of quilts we were comfortably ensconced under. We did want to get more stamps in our SC parks book and we needed some supplies and we were accumulating dirty clothes. Our plan came together: We drove to Jones Gap SP (it has only backcountry camping) Then we visited Ceasars Head SP (a wickedly curvy drive) We then descended to Pats house and were allowed to do our laundry (thanks Pat). Jenny made a trip to Ingles to resupply. All goals met. I didn't take a single pic the entire day. I'll take a selfie so I'll have something to post

Paris Mountain SP, Greenville SC

I made a potentially monumental screw up. I extended that bad leveling jack at our last stop out of stupid lazy curosity. It wouldn't come up this morning.  Today is Sunday. I knew I wasn't going to be getting any help so I did what I do best. I fiddled with it. I wacked it with a rubber mallet and played with the controller. It finally squealed up. Problem solved. We really dodged an atomic bomb with that one. It was 24 degrees last night. I put RV antifreeze in the holding tanks so that I would be able to dump this morning. I could dump the shower and toilet but the sinks were frozen. We are here for probably 3 nights. On the way here we stopped by a shoe store. The other pics are my solution to the jack problem and a
dam we walked around on an afternoon hike.