Days 13 & 14: Elmwood Recreation Area, SC

There was no doubt that yesterday was supposed to be Alea's day to ride, as evidenced by this sign:

It seems Alea encounters nearly all of the closed bridges where we have traveled.  This one took us about 4 miles out of the way, though the worst part of that was that it added a couple extra miles to a particularly nasty stretch of highway with heavy truck traffic.

Coasting for a break on the way to Witherbee, SC.

We lucked out, finding a free campground in Francis Marion National Forest, so it wasn't necessary for us to do dispersed camping.  Which is just as well, as it is turkey hunting season right now, and we don't want to be anyone's accidental target.

Alea racked up a 60.5 mile solo ride (mostly with the help of a strong tail wind) from Givhans Ferry State Park to Jamestown, SC.  From there we drove out toward the coast to get to Elmwood Recreation Area (FREE, vault toilets and a water spigot [but water must be boiled]).  We opted to spend Friday and Saturday night here in order to avoid the weekend crowds at more popular destinations.

We've had a fairly nice campsite here.  It's far from any roads or railroads, and we haven't heard any hunters nearby.  There are a handful of neighbors, and everyone seems to want to keep to themselves.  Enough so that we can throw the ball for Lana several times throughout the day in the large meadow abutting our campsite.  To her, only a campground full of chipmunks could be better than this.

We are also allowed to gather wood here, which is great because it is cooling off.  The low tonight will be in the thirties and the highs the next couple of days will hover around 60 degrees.  So we are planning a large campfire to stay warm this evening, mostly using would left behind by earlier campers.

The view above our campsite.

We belatedly discovered that we could have found this campground at freecampsites.net, so we are thinking we'll check that site from time to time to see if we can find an occasional free campsite, especially over the next month or so while we are looking for ways to slow our pace.