Blog #14

Greetings from Georgia Veterans State Park


The New Year came in with a BANG! here in Georgia as the Georgia Bulldogs were playing for the National College Football Championship.  The game didn't start here at ET till around 8:30pm, New Years Eve, my bedtime.  I watched the first quarter, then fell asleep.  
I had alarms set on my phone to wake up every 3 hours to let our 3 month old puppy out. At 11:55 pm I awoke and thought, I want to get Teddy out to potty before all the New Years eve fireworks go off, and he freaks out.  So out we went, came back in and turned the game on and watched the Georgia Bulldogs win the Championship at the stroke of midnight!   


 The campground and Lake Blackshear residents erupted in cheering and fireworks!!
 GO DAWGS!!!

                         


On January 12, we had quite a storm run thru our campground.  It did a lot of tornado damage in Alabama and Georgia.  We evacuated to the bath house with our new found friends Nick, Kendra, and Cannon.  Nicks, screened in, staked tent, called a Clam, was ripped right out of the ground and blown away.  Our Clam collapsed under the torrential rain.  


 Tornado evacuees in the bath house at night. (The Ladies Restroom)

Nick, Kendra and Cannon. 
These guys are awesome. Nick is retired from the Navy. They have 9 children between them. Kendra has home schooled most of them. She is not fun to play scrabble with! (she's way too smart). They are also full-time RV'er. Cannon is 4, almost 5. This little guy is awesome. He can drive a golf cart all by himself. Unfortunately, Kendra got sick while camping here. She was in the hospital for a week. Children were not allowed to be in the hospital. We were so lucky to watch Cannon so Nick could spend time with his bride at the hospital.  Its fun to see the world thru a child's eyes. 
They told us Cannon is 4 but we think he is 9. He is so smart. I think his real skill is cooking.  He and Ruth made Chocolate Chip Cookies and Pigs in a blanket for supper.  Cannon can measure the ingredients and crack eggs without getting shells into the recipe!
Kendra is back home in  their RV and getting better every day. 







Thank you Nick and Kendra for sharing Cannon with us.


 

The day after the storm


The next day when we woke up, across the way, in site #87 lay a pine tree trunk that had been snapped in half  this tree was at least 115 ft.  tall. 
We were scheduled to move there that day. (Luckily we hadn't moved)!  Were pretty sure that would have been the end of our trailer.  

Bobby (The Maintenance Boss) asked if Brian and Nick could get this cleaned up. There were trees down all over the park so the full time guys were busy.

With the help of the other maintenance hosts (Carol and Carlena) We all got the site cleaned up. Bobby asked if we could drop the remainder of this big tree. So Brian and Nick played lumberjack.  


                                   

Snapped off tree




Where our trailer would have been








Nick and Brian at work



Sawing away









Timber!


                                         

Nick is a retired Navy Senior Chief. He is Awesome! He has been working on nuclear submarines for 22 years.  This is the first time he has ever dropped a tree. Nice job Nick.



                                                                Lumberjacks


Our setup now in site #87



So now Brian is now a Maintenance Host.  I, Ruth, am unemployed.  Thats why I thought it would be a good time to get and train a puppy.  He keeps me busy, he's like a toddler. 




 
Our fluffy little 5 lb. Shipoo Teddy, got his first haircut.  We think he looks very handsome.


                                                   Before                                                      
 
 
 
 
 
                               After
     


             Sweet Teddy (Brian calls him Teddy-Blair)



                      











Hanging out in our Clam



 Brian running the tractor, me out for a walk with Teddy.



On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Hot air balloons landing in our large air field in front of the War Memorial




 

Hotel Lawn






Lake Black Shear




 
 
The Clam

We have been talking about the clam. Here are some pictures of what that is.






This is a great product. It allows you to have a gathering place. This tent is 12.5 x 12.5. Its pretty tough. It takes 2 minutes to set up and 5 minutes to take down. With the exception of staking to down for wind control. All the panels roll up for cooling or you can use a propane fireplace if its cold outside. 


Camp hosting is so cool. You meet a lot of people from different parts of the world. You make new friends. The worst part of camp hosting is when the friends you meet move on. Blogging is a great way to keep in touch with all of your friends. So both Brian and I want our friends to know how much we love and miss all of you. Thank you for being part of our lives.

See you soon in Blog #15


Happy trails to you, till we meet again.

The Mackey's







Location: Georgia, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 # 23 Where did the summer go?  It was just here, then poof, it was gone.  We had a hot humid summer here on the Cape.  Lots of bugs too.  Mind you, not like Tennessee. We shared our late shift with Deb and Brian Castell who introduced us  to our Atlantic Oaks family of workers.  I don't know if I ever told you how we happened to find Atlanic Oaks Campground.  We met Brian and Deb on a Mediterranean cruise about 15 years ago, and I kept up with Deb over the years on Facebook.  They had worked at Atlantic Oaks during the summer occasionally, and two summers ago they wanted to tour Canada, so she asked us,  "Do You want to apply for a work camping job at Atlantic Oaks"?  And the rest is history. The summer season seemed to go smoother this year.  Less hectic.  Probably because we were more experianced and less stressed out about the learning curve of a new job. We found some new hikes, and explored some waterways with o...
Read more

Blog #22

Image
On the Road Again We survived our 1st year at Sun n Fun!  It was so much fun, that we are going back next year.   There were fun times, and not so much fun times.  We met mostly very nice welcoming seasoned volunteers.  And a few Jerks, just like in any large organization.   We did everything from, Brian; going up in a man lift and pruning Palm trees with a chainsaw (128 total )Wow! To building cell phone charging stations, picnic tables, benches, decks and rails, building repair, running a backhoe for the electricians to pull power from the airport transformer to four new transformers installed on the campground side.  Brian also worked in the machine shop and made parts, as well in the welding shop. (Enough about Brian) Ruth organized storage rooms, linen closets, worked in the volunteer lunch kitchen, and was an assistant to the Volunteer coordinator who managed the 2400 volunteers who show up to put on the 50th anniversary Air Show that is Sun n Fu...
Read more

Blog #24

Image
ROAD TRIP! 1600 Miles in 30 days                    We had a rough start heading down to Lakeland, Florida.  Between Brian's prostate issues, and Hurricane Milton, we had to be very flexible.  Plans were changed numerous times.  But we made it, stayed healthy and had a restful, fun time. Here's a photo travelog, of our journey south. First stop, boondocking at Mohegan Sun Casino  Next stop, Country Acres campground, Lancaster county, Amish country, which was lovely, charming and quaint. Getting around Fantastic, Bird in Hand Farmers market!  YUM! We met up with Sun n Fun friends, Barbara Ann, and Jeff, Emily, and Brian, for coffee in Intercourse, PA.  They all live close to where we were staying.  That weekend Emily and Brian McClure were having a Highland Games at their home and acreage and invited us to come stay with them and enjoy the fun and games. Lot's of men in Kilts doing macho things. ...
Read more