Stone Mountain Campground

Who would think that driving 65 miles would take.all.day.  Lessons learned: get ready to go first thing in the morning.  No, scratch that.  Correction: start getting ready the day(s) before.  Between storing items for safe travel, cleaning up (and down! Don’t get me started on the floors😳), and trying to savor the last bit of a great campsite, moving can take all day.  We took for granted that moving so close would take less time.  And by we, that really means me, as Chris was trying to hurry me along but I was insisting to finish cleaning before we left.)

We finally started driving at around 1:15 and arrived at our site at 5:45.  We traveled straight there! Our short little trip included awesome points like Atlanta rush hour traffic, navigation drama (our current system includes two cell phones, turn-by-turn directions that are supposedly RV safe, and an Apple map app), dumping our tanks on an incline, leveling with blocks (common, but this was a new one for us), and our favorite part: pulling our toy hauler onto a mountain road with an incline we weren’t sure our RV would be safe on.  At least we know how better to handle that last one (get out and check, check, check, and go SLOWLY).

After all that fun stuff, as soon as we got settled, the kids found LOTS of other kids to play with at this campground, and we hardly saw them all weekend.  They spent hours riding bikes and scooters around our loop with other kids and also fished and swam in the lake.

The highlight for me of our weekend at Stone Mountain was the light show.  The music and tributes to so many periods of time and different groups of people was incredible.  There was a laser light show projected onto the side of the mountain.  Even though all three of our kids were asleep by the end (it begins at 9:30), it was well worth our time.

The big boys all hiked to the top of Stone Mountain.  Apparently, the view was amazing, and the challenge of the hike was also fun for them.  Biking to and from the base of the mountain from our campsite was an added bonus, which sent them straight to the pool afterward.  Chris loved it so much he hiked to the top a second time alone.

Lastly about the campground there, the roads on the loop that our site was on were really old and had lots of potholes and roots that had destroyed them.  They were narrow and in two spots also included a questionable incline.  We were so nervous for the drive out of the campground.  But we made it due to Chris’s quickly evolving 5th wheel driving skills.  Wide turns, driving slowly, me watching from behind the whole time, and the big kids playing by the dock during the whole ordeal worked well for us all.  I’m glad we went, but I don’t want to go back to that campground with our current rig again.

We are all growing a lot from our experiences so far.  Growth is sometimes (often) painful, as we all know.  Still, I’m glad we are doing this together.

More Bolding Mill, please

On Tuesday we moved to site 26, on the lake.  We had our own little private beach/water access, which resulted in even more kayaking, swimming, fishing and rock skipping.  

The rest of the week was as amazingly rejuvenating as the weekend was.  Sadly, there were no spots available here for Friday and Saturday nights.  So after searching the Internet for hours, we finally settled on Stone Mountain Campground, which was a mere 65 miles away.  Sounds simple, right?  🤣 

Bolding Mill COE, we drove right back

During our first stay (1-night) stay at Bolding Mill COE, we hardly brushed the surface of what this campground offers for our family.  We had to hitch up and head to an appointment for our RV, which needs some repairs, but after the appointment, we drove right back.

Our second night at his campground, we stayed at site 55 because that’s the only site that was available over the weekend.  We weren’t sure if we would stay beyond Tuesday, so we booked site 55 until Tuesday.  Site 55 had a LOT of sunlight, zero shade, zero privacy, and no water access.  We could see why it was available over the weekend.   But we still enjoyed beIng at this campground.

We discovered the “beach” at Bolding Mill, which had zero sand but plenty of water.  The big boys went swimming, but to us Floridians it was difficult to enjoy this concrete “beach” for long.

J and I got up early the next morning and went for a bike ride around the campground.  We saw a dock across the water and decided to go around the lake and find the dock.  We went back to BG and picked up two fishing rods, L, J a bag of rice cakes and a jar of sun butter.  We biked down a wooded trail that led to a fishing dock.  We spent the rest of the morning by the dock and all ate rice cakes for breakfast.

The next couple of days involved many hours at the dock, kayaking, swimming, rock skipping, and playing with clay.  It was a beautiful and relaxing weekend.

Bolding Mill COE Campground, Gainesville, GA

Within an hour of our arrival, 3/5 of us were swimming in our private lagoon,
part of Lake Sidney Lanier. We stayed in Site 23.

Easy to get to, easy to drive through to our site, and amazing views of the lake.  Here we had our first family lake swimming experience (3 of us anyway), someone had their first marshmallow ever, and nature surrounded us in this, what felt like our own private getaway.  This was the perfect place for us to land after descending that mountain.  We only booked one night, but we decided we had to return.

My morning view.  We only stayed one night. Our outdoor setup is a work in progress.
But this was the best morning view yet, despite the wet clothes and styrofoam cooler (which the boys found in the woods).

Amicalola Falls State Park

My morning view at Amicalola Falls State Park - 4 mornings

Although the road to this site was more rough than we had imagined, we spent 4 nights at this mountaintop getaway.  This 4-night stay involved hiking, biking, clay-making, firefly catching, waterfall viewing, and other details I’ll write about at a later time. Suffice it to say that we will not be climbing too many more mountain roads like this one with our BG.

On the road. A.H. Stephens Historic State Park

Our morning view at A.H. Stephens Historic State Park, in Crawfordville, GA

While we stayed only one night here, on our way to the north Georgia mountains, we would go back. It was easy to get to, and we had the perfect first night on the road at this beautiful, well-kept campground east of Atlanta. We stayed in site 8.

We had hot dogs and burgers from the grill, roasted marshmallows, and sat by the fire. We felt the excitement of our first night camping as a family...finally our hard work was starting to pay off.

On our way to the campground, we stopped at our first backwoods country grocery store. It was fully stocked with everything some people might want, but it was far from what we were used to in northern Virginia or Florida. The most memorable item we bought was frozen country peas. When we ate them days later, the boys all went back for seconds and third of beans.

We prepared for months, sorting, donating, selling and paring down our possessions. We still own way too much. I’m embarrassed to say we moved in a 25 foot truck and filled it. I dream of going back to our storage unit one day with new perspective and getting rid of half or more of everything. But we were rushed toward the end. Or we didn’t keep our priorities in order. Of life just kept happening and then moving day came and we packed up what was left and put it away for safe keeping.