camping | The Opinionated Woman's Musings

May 2015

May’s theme for the photo blogging challenge hosted by http://hoohaablog.com was Spring.

I did a lot in the month of May. So again, the hardest part about this was deciding which pictures to use. Enjoy! I welcome your comments 🙂

Photo #1
Every May, there is a golf tournament that is held in our community. It is part of the Symentra tour and the ladies participate to be able to get a card on the LPGA tour. I volunteer for help because it is a fun event. Plus, a portion of the proceeds go to local non-profits that promote women’s health issues. I worked at the scoring tent and was able to meet the golfers as they were finishing their round. Since they were finished for the day, they were more relaxed and talked more freely.

Photo #2
We went to Belize for a family reunion. My grandmother was born in Belize City and wanted us to get to know our extended family still living there. It was an awesome trip (future post about that). This is a view at the pool at our hotel Best Western Belize Biltmore Plaza. Great hotel! I enjoyed taking in some sun. When it got too hot, I would dip into the pool. 🙂

Photo #3
My aunt and I went to Caye Caulker to go to the beach. This is a picture of sand on one of the tables that was at a restaurant. The table was in the water with an umbrella. We had our drinks while enjoying being in the water at the same time. I really liked the color contrast of the sand and the table, so I took the picture.

Photo #4
On Memorial day weekend, the hubs and I went camping. This trip was planned since January so that we could get the spot we wanted at the campground. We went fishing. This is the first time for me in the last 20 years. I could this little bugger. He ate my worm but was too small to keep. We threw him back.

Photo #5
On the same camping trip, we went for a nature hike. This was one of the views we saw. The lake has only been in existence for about 40 years when the dam was built. The dead trees shown were there before the area was flooded and turned into a lake. I did not know that. Hubs explained the history. Random thought: I love the sky in this picture.

BONUS picture!!!
This is a picture of our glowing campfire coals. I am mesmerized by hot coals because you can see the heat emanating from them. Plus, I want to touch even though I know it would burn my skin off.

I had a fun month and cannot wait to see what June will bring 🙂

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KOA campgrounds – Anderson/Lake Hartwell

Through a series of unfortunate events and a frantic evening before Memorial day weekend where we had a fully packed car and were not sure if we would have a camping site, KOA came to our rescue. They were the only campground within a 3-hour radius with available camp sites. I have driven by the road that goes to KOA Anderson numerous times and did not know there was a campground there. It is about 5 minutes from Interstate 85, but we could not hear the road traffic. It is also about 5-10 minutes from grocery stores and Walmart. That was important when we needed to make a run to the store for additional supplies.

Before everything drastically changed, our plans included a lakefront lot, where we would to take the boat out on the lake sometime during our stay. We also planned to go fishing.

The KOA campground was close to the lake (driving distance not walking distance) but there were no lake front lots. Other than that, the KOA campground had everything we needed. They have sites for tents ranging from no electrical hook up to sites with electrical and water hook up. I am not in to the total rugged experience, so I need electricity and water.

Campsite Amenities included

Internet – the internet speed is not fast enough to do any major web surfing or movie streaming. I had not planned on using the internet anyway, so it was not an issue.

Indoor Showers and Bathrooms – very clean. I still wore my sandals in the shower because that is what you do in a campground bathroom. The bathrooms were centrally located so it was not a far walk from anywhere in the campground.

Pool – looked nice but there were a lot of kids playing in the pool. Opted to relax by the campfire at our lot and read instead.

Game room – again I did not use because of all the kids.

Basketball – again I did not use because of all the kids.

Playground – again I did not use because of all the kids.

Miniature golf – again I did not use because of all the kids.

It is not that I am against kids, but my idea of relaxing does not include being around them. Thankfully, since there were so many kid-friendly activities, they did not terrorize our campsite.

One little boy did approach me and ask me to be his girlfriend. So brazen! To which I replied, “No for 2 reasons. 1- I’m three times your age and 2- I’m married.” He shrugged his shoulders, laughed, and scampered off. I looked for his parents but did not see them. After that, I was determined to have no more interaction with kids during the weekend.

Overall, I had a fantastic time. We were there 3 days and I felt like that was not long enough. While I did read many books, I did not get to go to Lake Hartwell to put my kayak in the water or go fishing. Because of the reasons we had for choosing KOA, we are grateful that they had available sites. It saved our weekend. We will definitely stay at another KOA campground in the future.