Ready to head North to Aiken, SC

We are camped next to a few cardinal families. The female must not like competition from her reflection in our darkened windows and side view mirror. They visit us a few times a day and peck at their competition. Some of the campers put bags on their mirrors to stop the pecking.

Temperatures have been going down in the 30’s in the morning but warm up to near 70^oF in the afternoon. On Saturday we took another 12 mile bike ride over to Olustee Battlefield Historic Park and around the battlefield trail.

The weather this March has been much cooler than last year. We keep putting off when we plan to head North. Our plans now are to leave Ocean Pond on Tuesday morning.

We are about 1000 miles from home, so we plan to take 3 days,  driving about 6 hours/day. Last year we went North on US-301 and found that it was shorter and just as fast as I-10, I-95 and I-26 to get to where I-77 starts in Columbia, SC, but it was much more scenic and less stressful than dealing with all the speeding trucks on the interstate highways.

This year I was looking for a park where we could stop at rather than a Walmart and then stay for a few more days, while I checked what the weather in Cleveland was doing. Looking at my maps I discovered Aiken State Park. on the Edisto River in SC,  which has both canoeing and biking possibilities.It has power and water hookups and is open off-season, and since it will be mid-week it shouldn’t be a problem getting a nice campsite. It’s just south of Columbia, SC.

The map on the left shows my proposed route from Ocean Pond to Aiken State Park.

From Aiken State Park we plan to do a 6 hour drive to Beckley, WV on Friday 3/16 and then on Saturday another 6 hour drive to our home. The forecast shows that we should have a few days of dry sunny weather and the temperature is warming up a little back home.

A change in the forecast could change these plans but our long trip is nearing completion.