R. Shaefer Heard COE Campground

Aliner high on a steep bluff

Aliner high on a steep bank

It is 99 degrees at 5:50 p.m. in town.  I think it must be cooler where we are.  We are in the shade and there is a nice breeze off the lake.

It is scary backing just the truck down the steep driveway to our site.  It was hair-raising backing the Aliner in.  But I got it done, even managing to miss the tree at edge of the drive after several — no, make that MANY– tries!

Aliner at R. Shaefer Heard Army Corps of Engineers campground

Our site

The campground is gorgeous.  There are all kinds of sites.  There are some that have smooth, grassy lawns gently sloping right down to the lake.  We drove by that section earlier and there were kids splashing in the water.

My only complaint about the campground is that something died in the nearby woods, and we get a whiff of it now and then.

We haven’t done any hiking since we got here.  When we are active, the heat really gets to us.  If we take it easy, it’s not bad.  It helps being a Florida native and adapted to hot weather.  But we do take a nice air conditioned siesta in the afternoons.

Sunset over West Point Lake

Sunset over West Point Lake

Last night’s sunset over the lake was gorgeous.  A breathtaking palette of mauves and oranges.

I brought my new mushroom book by Michael Kuo and have been studying it.   It is an excellent guide — a great addition to my library.  I am praying for rain so that mushrooms will sprout up while we are here.  It’s never too hot for me to hunt them!

We may get thunderstorms tomorrow.  In fact, it sprinkled lightly

Another sunset shot

Another shot of that gorgeous sunset!

earlier, and we are getting occasional flashes of lightning and distant thunder now.

It’s a pretty steep path to get from our site down to the water.  But there are trees to hold onto.  It has been too hot for us to want to fish, then deal with cleaning them, but we will probably do that before we leave — especially if it cools down a bit.

We are loving being here.  It is so peaceful, so beautiful, and it feels so safe.  We normally don’t like to return to the same campground as there are so many others to explore.  But this one is special to us.

Rocks at the edge of West Point Lake

Rocks at the edge of the lake in front of our site

And the fact that Ron’s senior pass makes the sites 50% off makes it irresistible!

The Aliner at sunset

Ron relaxing by the Aliner at sunset

Camping Next Week!

I just made our reservations for the R. Shaefer Heard COE campground at West Point Lake. It looks like our site will have a panoramic view of the huge lake. We will be leaving July 7 for 8 days.

I can’t wait!

We got new all terrain tires on the truck today.  Lack of traction had been a real problem at some of the places we have taken the camper.  So these should have plenty of grip without being too bumpy or noisy on the road.

soot on the inside of our screen room

The result of using a citronella torch inside the screen room

We do have to clean our screen room.  We used a citronella torch inside to help discourage bugs on our last few camping trips.  It worked, but now we have a cleaning job to do.  I plan to spray it with Greased Lightning and hose it down, and hope it takes the worst of the soot off.

I unsuccessfully looked for mushrooms again today.  The rain we got was apparently not sufficient to make them pop up.

Maybe we will hit another mushroom bonanza on our camping trip like we did on the last one.

I’ll close with pictures of flowers I took in the yard today.

peach colored gladiola

Gorgeous colors!

pink gladiola

These gladiolas are volunteers from last years bulbs that were not lifted over the winter.

unsprayed roses

These roses have never been sprayed, yet are almost bug free. Amazingly, the Japanese beetles have found the blackberries, but haven't touched the roses.

The West Point Lake Area

Ron checks out West Point Lake

Ron checks out West Point Lake

We picked the wrong campground!  I had originally planned to book a site at R. Schaefer Heard campground, but a friend of Ron’s had highly recommended Whitetail Ridge.

I can’t imagine why!  There is a reason R. Schaefer Heard is so popular.  It has some gorgeous water vistas… and the water is clean!

Roadside fishing area

Roadside area set aside for fishing

Maybe we can switch campgrounds after the weekend campers leave.

We drove across the dam today and discovered some beautiful recreation sites.   One is simply a place to park and fish.  Another is the trailhead area.  And we didn’t even make it to the large day use area.  We’ll check it out tomorrow.

Another view of the roadside fishing area

Another view of the roadside fishing area

We watched several people fishing from the bank.  No one appeared to be catching anything.  Maybe it is because the wind was brisk and the water was choppy again today?  Wish I knew more about those things!  Surely fish have to eat on windy days!  This area has a reputation for excellent bass fishing.

We took a short walk down the Lakeside Trail, but my energy isn’t back to normal yet, so we didn’t go far.  Maybe we can tackle it again in a couple of days.

Lakeside Trail

Lakeside Trail

We were pretty tired when we got back to our campsite.  But my immediate impression when I saw the little Aliner was, “That is the cutest little camper in the world!”  Glad I still feel that way about it.

 

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