Day 77: When is a Full Campground Not Full?

Land Between the Lakes is a popular regional destination, due to the many boating opportunities, the ORV park, the trails, the bison and elk herds, historic sites and so much more.  So it's no surprise that even in mid-October it is a very busy place, especially around the weekends.  Two nights in a row, when we pulled into the campground we were told that they were "full," though that only meant there were no more sites with sewer connections and very few that could accommodate a long RV.

The obligatory bison picture (a standard requirement for all tourists).

The remnants of a 19th Century iron smelting furnace.

So one of our favorite reasons why we love teardrop camping is that "full" rarely means too full to accommodate us.  Two nights in a row, without advance reservations, we've found sites in full campgrounds, and both times we've ended up with sites with great lakeside views.  Both sites had steep approaches that would cause most RVs to scrape their bumpers or under carriages (as evidenced by the deep, fresh scratches in the loop road's asphalt surface caused by some late arrivals last night), but they were no problem for us.

All we ever get are the leftovers!

Tonight we are at Piney Campground, TN ($22, power and showers), a USFS campground at the southern end of Land Between the Lakes on the shore of Kentucky Lake.  It has been one of our longer travel days in the past few weeks, though it was only 53 miles of mostly low to moderate rollers.  There were several campgrounds that we passed along our way here, but it is supposed to dip into the 30s tomorrow morning, so we came here to be certain that we could plug in our heated mattress pad and/or ceramic heater to stay warm while we wait for the sun to do its magic.  And we are also seeing more and more private campgrounds that have closed for the season, so we need to get farther south fairly soon, where the camping season is closer to year round.

Alea and Lana enjoy the local ambiance.