Monday, July 25, 2011

Alone at last

P4034502

We are at Lee State Park (or State Natural Area, depending upon which map you consult) near Bishopville, South Carolina (map), about a half hour west of Florence. While each site has a spigot and a 30-amp pedestal, the campground is otherwise rather rustic, in a stand of tall conifers with dirt roads and dirt parking pads. We are the only ones here.

There is one other rig a half dozen sites down, but no one is in it and it has been vacant since we arrived yesterday afternoon. There was also a large fiver here when we arrived, but they must have pulled out early this morning. A number of reservation tags on the posts suggest a few sites were occupied over the weekend. I suspect this park rarely fills up.

The park is listed as suitable for rigs up to 36', but Odyssey had no trouble making it around the loop (twice) and would fit in almost any site. Our biggest challenge was finding a site with a tiny gap through the trees in the right direction to get the satellite on line; we're far enough from anything here that our cell phones have no data access, and even voice coverage is spotty. We had no shot from the first site we tried, necessitating the second trip around the loop. Here in Site 13 we have probably the only shot there is to our bird, at 83W.

The campground has a whole separate loop for equestrian use, but signs at the park say it is closed due to an unsafe electrical issue. The barricades look permanent and old; we'd guess the loop has been closed for years. They moved some horse corrals close to this end of the main loop for equestrian use.

It's lovely here, if a bit hot, and a few bucks cheaper than some of the other parks in the system (and certainly the ones on the coast). I was thinking of staying another night if the batteries are not going to be ready, but we were just notified that our mail has arrived in Murrell's Inlet, so we will likely move along to the coast today so we can catch up with it. I have an email in to the battery distributor to see if we can nail down the delivery date.

Photo of a yellow rat snake in the Congaree Creek Heritage Preserve by Hunter-Desportes, used under a Creative Commons license.

3 comments:

  1. I am certain that customers requiring 8 500 amp hour AGM batteries don't come along very often for battery vendors. Since the price of this seems to be at least a dollar an amphour, I am curious as to the number of cycles that can be expected with your bank. I read that discharged 80 percent, one could only expect 400 cycles. That would be $10 a cycle which seems quite high. Perhaps the trick is to never discharge below 50%. Just curious.....Rod

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  2. Bishopville SC! Home of the Lizardman, the scaly creature from the Black Lagoon...Make sure you keep the doors locked tonight! Jamie

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  3. The horse campground has been temporarily closed since Jan 2011 and is about to open back up with 50AMP service.

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