The mild weather of Spring and a clear weekend (for weather and schedules) lined up perfectly for us to take another trip out in the motorhome, this time to Petersburg COE campground (GA) on Clarks Hill Lake.

This time we had the opportunity to fully test out our tow car setup – a few weekends earlier we spent a Saturday driving around an empty parking lot to work out all the kinks of the tow bar and braking setup, and now it was time to pull for distance.

We also brought the cats along again to see how they would do for a longer drive.

Which would work out?  One did, one didn’t.  Read on…

I should not have been surprised when many of our typical “local” spots were full for our weekend in mind.  Only looking a few days beforehand, I realized this was going to be a busy year for travel.  Low gas prices and many places already reserved – this was going to be interesting.

Thankfully, we landed on a site in a COE campground only 2 hours away from home, a place which I had always wanted to try but hadn’t had the opportunity.  Petersburg COE campground, north of Augusta, GA turned out to be a great place to camp.  Large sites, no problem getting our motorhome backed in and setup, and an excellent mountain bike trail runs right next to the campground.  The Bartram trail is one of those gems that is fun for a wide variety of users.  Got kids?  Ride for a short distance either way, the terrain isn’t super technical or steep.  Want an epic mountain bike ride?  Connect west or east to other local trails with increasing difficulty and make a day out of it.

When we arrived at our site I couldn’t believe this was still available only a few days out.  In fact it was only one of two available for the whole weekend.  I could only figure that someone had made a cancellation.

Wide angle views of the lake and beach access next door made this a nice choice for both us and the kids.  Plenty of space at the site.

No problems towing the car for two hours.  We did get some rain on the way, and it showed.  Wow – I had no idea how much gunk the motorhome kicks up, and how many places it can get into on my car!

Saturday my wife and I traded trail and kids time.  We started at the trailhead at the park entrance (you can also jump on the trail directly from the campground if you don’t need to see the map).  Very nice facilities by SORBA.  Don’t forget to donate!

I rode 21 miles mostly on the section east of the Petersburg campground to the day use area next to the dam and back.  Then when I got back, my son and I got out for about a mile of trail riding together.  He’s getting the hang of it!

The weekend was otherwise very peaceful until I was awakened early Sunday morning by the sound of – our generator running.  What ?!?!  In my grogginess I thought that the power had gone out and our generator auto-started.  Except we don’t have an auto-start.  What was going on?  I stumbled to the front of the motorhome and saw the cats chasing each other around … must have been crazy hour at 3am.  One of the little boogers must have hit that gen start switch!  (We figured out later by watching their “travel patterns” inside that our larger cat stepped on the gen start switch while jumping down from the dash).  I shut things down, put a pillow on top of the dash and went to bed.

Ten minutes later I hear the horn honking.  Now one of the cats was on the pillow (which also covered the steering wheel) causing the noise!  More shoo-shoo away and moving pillows.  Back to bed.

I can only think what the neighbors thought!

The next morning we packed up and had a few laughs over the early morning wake up.  On the way home, we stopped at the Clarks Hill Lake Visitor Center to sight-see and learn some history about the area.

This was a good stopover place.  The parking lot is big enough to find a parking spot (and is a loop so you won’t get stuck with your toad having to back up).  The lake views are excellent, and the exhibits are worth a stop to learn about the need and history of the dam and the lake.

After a quick lunch we hit the road for home.  We learned a few things on this trip; that COE campgrounds are some of the best public campgrounds out there, definitely a step above SC state parks; and our tow car setup was working just fine.

Driving home there was quite the contest over the doggie window.  Our Boykin Spaniel (Rocket) was a gentle guy with all of the cat jostling for position.  In the end, our “little-est” cat won the spot.  She is the most nervous of the bunch, and I think it was best for her to be able to look out for the trip.

Next time, the cats stay home!