GOOD-BYE OKEFENOKEE SWAMP.
Day 63 – We’re heading into new territory today. Gonna try some different (to us) highways, campgrounds & wildlife refuges before eventually ending up at a favorite place that we wanted to revisit – Mingo National Wildlife Refuge. It was 62 degrees out at 7:30 this morning, humid & partly cloudy. We departed Stephen C. Foster State Park at 10:35 a.m. (after dumping tanks) & it was already 72 degrees, cloudy, & quite humid.
235 miles, (5:05), 35478-35713
On the way out we saw the turkeys one last time. And lots of vehicles coming in. The weekend had arrived. As we drove west, then north, and then west again, the temperature went up to 83 degrees & it got murky out with some very dark, threatening clouds on the horizon. Some of the towns we went through had nice, old plantation homes. Many of the towns were quite old. There were lots of flowering bushes & trees. We stopped at a Walmart parking lot for lunch & let the girls out. Pixie had a bite to eat and then went right back to the bedroom, settling into travel mode again. We could tell she was thinking, “I know we are NOT staying in this parking lot tonight, so I’m just getting ready to leave again!”
Click on any picture below to see a slideshow.
As we approached the Georgia/Alabama border, we noticed trees down. There was a batch of thunderstorms with a F-2 tornado that passed through this area on March 3rd, not even 2 weeks ago. As we crossed over the Walter F. George Lake into Alabama, we looked for a “Welcome to Alabama” sign to photograph like we always do, but we didn’t see a sign. Anyway, entering into AL, we turned north and drove through the city of Eufaula. It was a old, quaint city with big Magnolia trees. Towards the end of the city suddenly we came across destroyed buildings and many trees down on both sides of the highway. This was where the tornado passed through, destroying the Fire Department building (yet the firemen inside were unharmed) and destroying the airport buildings.
We arrived at Lakepoint Resort State Park, which was north of Eufaula and adjacent to the Eufaula National Wilderness Refuge, at 3:40 p.m. (except we had just crossed into the Central Standard Time Zone when we left GA and drove into AL – so we then gained an hour & had to change our clocks to 2:40 p.m.) We did not have reservations, but this Park was huge with four separate campground loops & nearly 200 campsites. We figured that even though it was the weekend, they probably wouldn’t be crowded. WRONG. There weren’t many open sites left because this was a special weekend with two large group activities going on: a bow-hunters gathering & a fishing tournament. We got site #48 in Clark Loop. Most of the campers on this Loop appear to be fishermen. We heard the tournament begins at 4 a.m. tomorrow morning. We don’t think there’ll be too much partying going on tonight. It worked out just fine. But we’ve never seen so many big pick-up trucks in one place in our lives. Ho ho.
The temperature had dropped in the afternoon as we approached Alabama – some kind of front coming through. At 7 p.m. it was 60 degrees, breezy, and not as cloudy. We could see the Lake from our campsite, which was nice since all the lakefront campsites were already taken. We had an early dinner & relaxed after the long drive. The girls are happy we’re not staying at Walmart!