Winter Trip

Plato in his "penthouse" above the bed

We haven’t used the trailer in over a year so it was high time we got the wheels moving again. We decided to tack on some vacation days to Christmas vacation and take a two week trip to Florida. Getting ready for a 2-week trip is almost as much work as for a 2-month trip, but ready or not, we were leaving Christmas day.

I planned the trip. David checked the tires and all the systems on the trailer, and we packed everything we needed, including enough food for two weeks. Christmas day turned out to be warm and sunny, and because the trailer was lighter than when we had gone on our longer trips, we had no trouble getting out of our steep driveway. 

By 12:00 we were on our way. By 4:00 we arrived at our campsite in Sesquicentennial State Park in Columbia, SC. 

The lake's in the far background

We walked over to the lake. A little terrier dog was running around, dragging his leash behind him. Since pets aren’t allowed off a leash, technically he was following the rules. We started walking around the lake. Since it was after 4:30, we were concerned it would get dark on us, so we partly jogged and mostly walked fast along the 1.9 mile trail and made it back to the trailer before dark.

That night it poured rain. It was still raining in the morning, and we talked about possibly skipping Augusta, our next stop, to see if we could get away from the rain. We decided to stick with the plan, and, if it was raining in Augusta, we would find something to do indoors. 

The Augusta campground was only an hour and a half away. By the time we got there, the rain had stopped. When we had almost reached the campground, someone started honking at us. David said there must be a problem. We pulled into the almost-deserted campground and found that one of the tires was smoking and the hub was too hot to touch. Once we got into our campsite, and David had a chance to study the problem, he determined that the bearings in one of the trailer tire hubs had disintegrated, and the hub had started to melt. 

So, for the rest of that day and most of the next day, David worked on fixing the hub. He was light on tools on this trip because he hadn’t anticipated any major problems. He went to several auto parts stores, a bearings and drive store, Lowes and an auto mechanic who put on a new race. It was bitter cold but didn’t rain. We were lucky to have reached the campground in time, although being stuck in this particular campground, which was just a big, brown lawn beside a busy highway and didn’t have wifi, was no picnic. 

By 4:00 the second day, the tire was fixed, and we went downtown to walk up and down the landscaped Riverwalk along the Savannah river 










and to look at some of the monuments scattered around town.

The following day we skipped our stop in Macon and drove 4 hours straight to Americus, Georgia. After setting up camp and having lunch, we had enough time to see nearby Andersonville where Union soldiers were imprisoned during the Civil war. 

The museum and site are dedicated to all prisoners of war. It was very interesting and depressing. Up to 45,000 men (and a few women) were imprisoned at Andersonville over a period of 14 months. 13,000 died. 











They are buried in the cemetery, along with other war veterans.