Fun with Kiddos & Alligator Lake

So as I have mentioned before - I'm a wanderer. 

But today, the adventure was a little more exciting. 

A few weeks ago I was riding my bike alongside the road, and I noticed a big path going into the woods. This is about a mile away from our house, and I thought 

"Hmm, I wonder what's back there."

Here it is, weeks later, and I decided it was time to take a little stroll over there. I parked my bike in the weeds and I began walking. The first thing I noticed was the I-Kid-You-Not gazillion mushrooms.

But then I noticed it - 

the lake

Yes, I found a hidden lake. And I cannot even begin to explain to you the rate my heart was rabidly beating. With every step, I was worried,

"what if I get caught?"

"am I trespassing?"

But, I went for it, and I kept walking. 

It's funny, you know, because in that moment I was just thinking to myself, "ahaha, it'd be really funny if I saw an alligator" AND I KID YOU NOT

I LOOK UP AND OH

HEY LOOK

IT'S A FREAKING ALLIGATOR

This is me in this moment:

NO, NO, BAD BAD ABORT ABORT ABORT

and I was literally shaking soooo bad, I couldn't even keep the camera steady. This was amazing, it was exhilarating. And I was worried I'd die. But I kept on moving.

Oh, big mistake, I was several feet away from three smaller gators, and in the distance I could see another. I was done... it was time to go home, and I was glad I got home, because Joshua & I played with our friends, Savannah and Cameron. 

We had a fun time, and afterwards, it was the potluck!

around' the campground

I decided to take some pictures around the campground :)









For about the past week or so we've stayed home, in the camper. We're trying to save money, considering we spent a lot of what we had saved on our trip down here.

chicken coop and duck

Upon moving here I was pretty stocked that they had a playground. Granted I'm a little too big for it...

karaoke at the clubhouse

small pond across the strees

basketball!

Weekly Campground Potluck

At the Walk A' Bout campground, they have a Sunday Potluck every week. Everyone brings food, a dish or some kind of dessert. (we usually bring one of each!) I think it's a great way to meet everyone here, especially because this campground in particular doesn't have a lot of permanent residents.

what is left of the food,
most of it is already gone!

There is about seven of us in the campground who will be living here, but the rest of the campground spots are for people that just come and go. Most of who you meet, you never do see again.













The owners of the campground, Suze and Troy, have four kids around Joshua & my age, also this weekend a few other kids were camping here with their grandparents. So after eating some dinner, we all went outside a played tag in the dark! It was a lot of fun :)








I thought this was pretty awesome, because I've never been to a campground before that does weekly potlucks such as this!

I wonder if other places do the same....

Walk A' Bout Campground, Woodbine GA

Finally, we've settled into Woodbine, Georgia. Not too far from the Florida line, we're staying in a really nice family-friendly campground for the time being. I have no idea how long we'll be staying here, but at least it got us further south. Because the camper has so many issues, it tends to overheat really bad after going to many miles, and plus dad is worried about it breaking down (again) we tried our best not to over-work the camper.

playground & basketball court,
right across from our camper!

I'm not sure if I like it here in Georgia or not... it's definitely different... but maybe it's a good kind of different. The people here are pretty awesome! The owners of the campground are actually from Australia! :)

Also, I'm pretty excited because we are RIGHT next to the crooked river (that is actually ocean fed water!) the campground has access right to the river, with a board walk and everything. Pretty cool, right?









I'll post more about the campground later, I'm off to explore the area!
Happy Travels to my fellow camping friends.

Camping in SC

Yes, another day of traveling, but luckily the hours were short and we didn't have long to go. We ended up in Yemasesse, South Carolina.

I have to say, out of all the campgrounds I've stayed in, I love this one! All of the campers and campsites are hidden within a fast forest of trees. It was too cold to go swimming in the pool, but it was still decently warm outside.


























For dinner we ordered Pizza from the KOA's pizzaria, and afterwards we all went for a walk around the lake that is here in the campground. It's off wayyy far in the woods, but the hike was very nice and I really enjoy all of the walking trails :) It's nice to get active after sitting for so long.

KOA Campground

You have no idea how glad I was to finally make it to the campground in SC, I was so tired!! But that didn't stop Joshua & I from running around outside, I love exploring new places and it was great to get out and ride my bike around.

This campground even had a game room - sweet! The boy and I played a few rounds of air hockey before we headed over to the playground, where they had some sort of bouncy thing... I don't even know what you'd call it, but it was pretty awesome!

Berry picking

Not only does the campground we're staying at for the summer have two apple trees, a plum tree, AND a peach tree, this area is surrounded by black berry bushes! I walked down the road a bit, and there is almost even hundreds of black berry bushes. I spent almost all morning out there, I don't think there is any black berries left because I done picked so many! We decided to put the many bags of berries I picked in the freeze, a camper doesn't have much room I thought it would be best to freeze them all, so in the next coming months I can eat them in smoothies, salads, or even make some jam! My mouth waters just thinking about it...

Storms and power outage

Heatwave, humidity, storms, lightning, thunder, rain, winds, destruction... what a way to start the summer!

It all started on June twenty ninth- Mom and I had just gotten home from attending an event at the state park, when dad announces that "Bad storms are coming" I knew it was going to rain that night, but I didn't realize how bad it would then become. Everyone in the campground started to put their awnings up, I was standing outside when the clouds became black as night, and then the wind started. A wind that was said to be 60-80mph, and I defiantly believe it. The cool breeze was refreshing from the days humidity, but it was so strong I felt as if I'd be lifted off the ground. The trees started dancing in the wind, you could feel the camper shaking and rocking back and forth. I honestly have never seen a wind like this in my life! Tornadoes of dust swirled around in the air, taking rocks and other objects around and around with the dust. My aunt said that her neighbor "had just gotten home when the storm hit" getting out of their vehicle and putting her little three year old daughter on the ground "when the wind literally picked her up, she started flying away!" she had to grab her by the arms, luckily the girl is OK. I could never imagine being picked up by the wind like that.

A tree limb fell right on top of a camper, destroying their awning and creating a large hole in the roof of their camper. Dad went out there with a flashlight, despite the strong winds, many other people went out to join him. After the wind had died down a bit, you could see many flashlights shining in the dark, going all which ways checking out the damage in the campground. By morning many of the people had left and gone home, except for us few that live here. There was four-five generators all running at once, it was so very noisy outside, plus the the fact the temperature was a hundred and ten degrees outside and one hundred percent humidity, it felt miserable. Along the road many huge trees were knocked down in the storm, for almost four days we had no electricity or power. Luckily our motor home as a battery, and we also have a built in generator. Though it still meant no showers or water for awhile!

 

The next day we all pitched in to started cleaning up parts of all fallen trees and branches, no one was hurt here though four campers had branches/trees come down on them. In the area, it was estimated an entire two million people without power, they were opening cooling shelters for people in need. Luckily we've had our power back on for a few days now, though the heat is still tremendously hot, and many people are still without power. People in the stores were fighting over lanterns, bottled water, and water jugs, you could tell they were getting desperate! I am thankful that we are blessed to have cool air conditioning and water.