Good News, Visitors, State Parks, and more

Wednesday 12/19/2012

Bass Lake RV Campground

Dillon, SC

We’re still at Bass Lake RV Campground.  We’ll be leaving here tomorrow, Thursday, and heading south to Ridgeway, SC.  We’ve been both busy and somewhat lazy this past month.  Here’s a non-chronological recap.

The best news we received was when we drove back up to Raleigh, NC, for Terri’s follow-up appointment with her retina specialist on Friday, November 30.  She’s (we’ve) been cleared for takeoff!!!  Both of her eyes are well according to the doctor.  That’s great news to end November!  After her appointment, we stopped at one of our favorites, Steak and Shake, for a tasty lunch.

We also received some other great news on our way up to Raleigh that day.  We were about half way there when Terri got a phone call from our good friends Paul and Marti.  Marti said they were in Virginia and headed our way to spend the night at Bass Lake.  They were only able to stay one night, though, as they were on their way to visit family.  When we got back from Raleigh, we found that they were parked right next to us.  The four of us went to Zaxby’s Chicken for dinner and some great conversation.

It was a short visit, but we sure had a great time.  The next morning I got some pictures of them leaving.

Bye Paul and Marti.

As Terri reported in the last post, we had a nice quiet Thanksgiving.  I gathered up all the fixin’s and prepared a nice turkey dinner for us.

We both thoroughly enjoyed our feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, peas, yams, dressing, gravy, and cranberry sauce.

Of course, Terri made a scrumptious pumpkin pie!

All the leftovers were gone by Saturday night!

On Saturday, 11/17, we drove up to Cheraw State Park.  For those that don’t know, this is where the first annual Carolina Clan Gathering took place.  We had never been there before, and we wanted to check out the campground and lake.  We also took a very enjoyable hike around to the other side of the lake.

We decided that we wanted to stay a few days at the campground after we left Bass Lake, but unfortunately our plans changed and we won’t be able to get back up there this year.  It surely is on our list, though, for another time.

Two weeks later, on Saturday, 12/1, we drove down to Bishopville, SC, to the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden.  Judy visited here recently and blogged about her visit.  After reading that we’re in Dillon, she commented on our blog pointing out that the garden was close by.  I highly recommend you read her excellent blog entry about her own visit to the garden.  Upon our arrival, we were greeted by the man himself, Pearl Fryar.  We talked for a short while, and he explained that the whole area was a cornfield and he had to wait to have his house built until after the corn was harvested.  All the shrubs and trees have been planted since 1980.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit.  Thanks Judy!

We’ve made three trips to Little Pee Dee State Park.  It’s a small park located about 14 miles southeast of Dillon. 

Our first trip there was on Thursday, 11/8.  Our main objective was to check out the campground and lake.  We determined that the campground sites were probably too small for our rig.  There are possibly three sites that might be big enough for us, however getting the rig to those sites could be quite a challenge.  The road through the campground is very narrow with many trees very close to the road.  We also checked out the lake and decided we would come back for a paddle sometime soon.

On our second visit on Friday, 11/23, we walked the Beaver Pond Nature Trail.  It’s a 1.3 mile trail that winds through a long needle pine forest.  It loops down to a beaver pond and then back the other direction to where the trail starts.  It was a very easy walk, however there were a couple of places where it was rather hard to find the trail.

It was a beautiful day for an enjoyable walk through the woods.

Our third visit was on  Sunday, 12/2.  We headed out on the lake for a nice paddle/float.  Once we got out into the middle of the lake, however, we weren’t sure how enjoyable this was going to be as we realized there were quite a few hazards lurking in the murky waters.

I decided we would head over toward the dam where the water might be a bit deeper and get away from all the sticks, limbs, trees, or whatever all that was above and below the surface.  It was much better over there, and we were also sheltered from the breeze a little more.  We just floated once we got over there except for an occasional paddle to move a different direction.

We enjoyed our time out on the water, but we probably won’t go back there because of all the hidden debris.

We made a couple of trips down to Florence, SC, to see a couple of movies.  We like to go in the afternoon and pay the more affordable afternoon matinee price.    Both times we stopped at Bojangles Chicken for lunch before the movie.  The first movie we saw was Flight starring Denzel Washington.  The crash scene was very intense!  I wasn’t sure if Terri was going to make it through that.

The second movie we saw was Lincoln directed by Steven Spielberg.  This was an excellent movie with an interesting twist at the end.

One day we did drive up to the  South of the Border “tourist attraction,” but we didn’t stop.  We drove by, and it just really didn’t pique our interest too much.  I didn’t even stop for a picture, but I did get this shot of one of their billboards just outside the campground here.

Neither of us were interested in fireworks, souvenir shirts, or the Christmas Shop.  Maybe we’ll stop some other time.   

We’ve been here at Bass Lake now for six weeks.  We’ve enjoyed our stay, but now it’s time to move on down the road!