Cuthbert GA
We, Sandy, Sky and I, decided to go on a shortish trip to shake out the new Riverside Retro 190BH to make sure nothing fell of and everything they way it was intended.
Instead of barreling down the interstate I decided to cut through the middle of Georgia to the COE Campground at Fort Gaines to make the trip more interesting.
The GPS in the F150 only allows one waypoint so I put in Barnesville GA to get us going in the right direction. We made Barnesville OK, but from there I have no idea where we went. Small paved backroads through miles and miles of forestry land with no habitation in site.
13 miles from the campground we got lots and lots of Turn Lefts and Turn Rights from the GPS, but each time it was onto a single lane narrow, muddy dirt road. My experience with these is that they sometimes simply peter out or end up up in some ones back yard or even with a gate across them. So we continued as we knew the GPS would recalculate, which it did, continuing to try and get us to turn on to these single lane dirt county roads. Eventually the narrow paved road we were on turned to dirt. Fortunately there was a single dwelling about thirty yards behind us allowing us to back in and turn to go back.
We decided to go all they way back to a main road we had crossed and head directly to Fort Gaines and from there to the campground. We made the main road, a two lane, set the GPS for the fa stest route, which generally means paved, and set off for Fort Gaines.
10 minutes later a warning DING Ding sounded and looking at the instrumental panel showed the engine was over heating. We were on a hill crest, so I coasted down the hill to get off the crest and stopped by a driveway to house. The only one there.
I checked the radiator and it appeared empty. Fortunately I stopped right away and the engine was not hot. I grabbed a bucket and headed for the house. Two large Pit Bulls were in the backyard, but fortunately chained up. Lots of knocking on the door produced no results, but as there was a hose in the back yard, I filled the bucket and headed back for the truck.
The first bucket disappeared into the radiator, not a good sign, and half way through the second bucket it began to just run straight through onto the road.
It was getting dark quite quickly and the should was very narrow and fell off into a huge ditch. The camper was mostly in the road and with several 18 wheelers have already come past us at speed, this was going to become a dangerous situation as it got dark.
We decided to pull into the houses yard and boondock for the night. It was cold, but we had heat and food in the camper and there was water at the hose.
Pulling into the yard drew a reaction from the house and a little old lady knocked on the window to get my attention. I explained the situation and she said there was a campground about six miles further on. I explained that with no water in the engine I could not make it that far. After some murmuring behid the window blinds the blinds parted a little, the window was cracked open and a cell phone was thrust against the gauze with instructions to speak to Eric, the campground owner. I did and explained the situation. He said no problem, he would come with his truck and tow us to the campground and have one of his buddies with a wrecker tow the truck to a garage.
Eric arrived and suggested before he hook up he take a quick look at the truck. By the light of his phone he discovered a faultily installed hose clamp by Ford had allowed a small water pump bypass hose to fall off.
He got a pair of pliers and after a bit had the hose back on and the clamp in place. We soon had the radiator filled with no leaks this time.
I hooked the camper back up, and with instructions to follow him, we did. He led us back to his campground with a pull through site with a full hookup including sewer. Could not beat that.
We decided, under the circumstances, to stay the weekend at his campground; The City Limits.
After his help, how could we not?
Providence Canyon
We spent the day at Providence Canyon. Apparently this started as a drip from the roof of an old farmhouse 100 years ago. It’s now 40 miles long.
Cuthbert looks like it may have been an old cotton town. The whole town is dying. There is a Piggly Wiggly and a small CVS, but most everything else is typical of a dying town. Antique shops and a hamburger joint.
Huddle House closes at 7:00 P.M. on a Sunday. As there is nowhere else to eat we went to Eufaula in Alabama to find a Waffle House as everyone wanted Waffles and Bacon.
Facilities
There isn’t an ablution block. No Showers or Toilets. You have to be fully contained as far as that goes.
There is a laundry room with washers and dryers and a dumpster to dump trash.
Sites are level and most have a concrete pad for your picnic tables, although our site had no picnic table.
Level gravel sites with a full hookup including sewer.
The weather held for Saturday. Sunday was drizzling rain. I did not have any rain gear so got wet packing up. Added that to my list of things to get.
Camper was great. No issues. Used the outside grill to make hamburgers and that worked well. Everything else was perfect so the shakeout went well.